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>Why should we sympathize with a minority of rent-seekers? I don't really think this is about sympathizing with rent-seekers. Cities invest in infrastructure
by ABCLAW 6y ago
>Why should we sympathize with a minority of rent-seekers?
I don't really think this is about sympathizing with rent-seekers.
Cities invest in infrastructure to cover anticipated service delivery well before it's due, and the financing for doing so is a multi-decade affair. Before you complain, this includes things like providing running water, roads that are paved, etc. Really core essential pieces of making a city work.
If your tax base moves to suburbs or just plain leaves the city, the city is still on the hook for those payments, so it results in dramatically cut services or increased taxes on residents.
The flight of some of the tax base incentivizes the flight of many, resulting in further cuts to maintenance contracts, preventative work, and the general crumbling of infrastructure. Sometimes this can be gracefully managed by planned downsizing and renegotiating deals with vendors and financiers. In other cases, this doesn't occur and the city simply... dies. While the US is very young and doesn't have many large examples of this, Flint and Detroit come to mind.
- CalRobert 6y ago"While the US is very young ".... What's that? By what measure? It's one of the oldest continuous governments out there.
- neckardt 6y agoThe government may be one of the older ones, but many cities are far, far older. Many cities in Europe have been around for thousands of years.
- pc86 6y agoWith the same tax structures they have now? Big shifts in governance tend to reset things like municipal bonds and the like.
- simonh 6y agoSure, but their current industrial era infrastructure isn’t thousand of years old. Most of it is no older than the infrastructure in the US. Compare the size of London now with 200 years ago.
- bluedino 6y ago>> While the US is very young and doesn't have many large examples of this, Flint and Detroit come to mind. You mean “most of the rust belt”
- ABCLAW 6y agoKinda. The decay of communities is one thing, but the death spiral associated with municipal infrastructure projects and tax bases is another. A small town might invest in a bioreactor to reclaim solids for resale from their wastewater service at a cost of 5 million dollars, but that'll pale in comparison with the construction of multiple new subway extensions at a price in the billions.
- bluedino 6y agoDon’t forget fat cat pensions for government employees
- melling 6y ago70,000 in a city of 8 million. It’s less than 1% of the population. The infrastructure needs don’t change much. How much of the tax burden did those people support?
- TuringNYC 6y ago>> It’s less than 1% of the population. >> How much of the tax burden did those people support? That is really the question. One Elon Musk or Larry Ellison can leave town and carry away tax income equivalent to hundreds of other people. Is there any breakdown of the class of people moving away? Specifically, i'd be curious if they are wage earners? passive income earners?