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In Minnesota when improvements or repairs like roadwork are done, directly effected property owners are billed above their normal property tax. This story expl

In Minnesota when improvements or repairs like roadwork are done, directly effected property owners are billed above their normal property tax. This story explains it better than I can: https://www.twincities.com/2020/02/25/15700-street-assessment-stillwater-to-explore-protections-for-low-income-residents-and-others/ https://www.twincities.com/2020/02/25/15700-street-assessmen... work on a street with only local traffic will have a higher percentage of the project cost paid by the property owners on that street.

adolph 5y ago
This seems like a way to make sure nice neighborhoods have the best maintained streets. Oddly regressive for Minnesota.
- jSully24 5y ago
  I had not thought about it from that perspective. That’s a great point. My thinking was that it puts real costs in front of people. You see more directly what that street to your house costs. I’ve always thought about advertising the cost of the section road you’re in costs to build, maintain, and push the snow off.
  - adolph 5y ago
    I'd agree that putting real costs in front of people is important because what people will pay for something is critical to understanding the relative value of that thing. People don't like toll roads but given there is no free lunch, the toll of other roads is just hidden. On the other hand, I once chatted with a person who performed a large wintertime bicycle give-away in low income neighborhoods. The operation was so large that they ordered bikes directly from factories. I asked something like "why don't you put your branding on the bikes then" or something like that. The person's reply was that they didn't want the bikes to be seen as the free ones--that the bikes could be ridden without the stigma of poverty. Maybe the roads, sidewalks, bikelanes and parks in any city are likewise and the cost of them should be abstracted somewhat from the adjacent properties so that any person biking along them feels a sense of belonging.

adolph 5y ago

This seems like a way to make sure nice neighborhoods have the best maintained streets. Oddly regressive for Minnesota.

jSully24 5y ago
I had not thought about it from that perspective. That’s a great point. My thinking was that it puts real costs in front of people. You see more directly what that street to your house costs. I’ve always thought about advertising the cost of the section road you’re in costs to build, maintain, and push the snow off.
- adolph 5y ago
  I'd agree that putting real costs in front of people is important because what people will pay for something is critical to understanding the relative value of that thing. People don't like toll roads but given there is no free lunch, the toll of other roads is just hidden. On the other hand, I once chatted with a person who performed a large wintertime bicycle give-away in low income neighborhoods. The operation was so large that they ordered bikes directly from factories. I asked something like "why don't you put your branding on the bikes then" or something like that. The person's reply was that they didn't want the bikes to be seen as the free ones--that the bikes could be ridden without the stigma of poverty. Maybe the roads, sidewalks, bikelanes and parks in any city are likewise and the cost of them should be abstracted somewhat from the adjacent properties so that any person biking along them feels a sense of belonging.