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I’m glad we’re talking about the finances of towns here. Almost every town in America is bankrupt. I disagree somewhat with the author here around the issues.

I’m glad we’re talking about the finances of towns here. Almost every town in America is bankrupt. I disagree somewhat with the author here around the issues. For instance, he uses the $20/ft/road and points out they need roughly double the tax base to support their current roads. Sure, that’s a way to look at it. Alternatively, they can cut back the roads, fill with gravel and honestly it might be cheaper to just build and maintain a concrete facility. If you can cut the price of laying concrete by 50% thatd also be a solution. Alternatively, pre-purchase X tons per year and reduce costs that way letting the concrete makers in the area expand and reduce overhead. Regarding city planning, yes totally agree. I’d argue the major issue is that we lost manufacturing here in the United States. Factories paid relatively well, and were running at 20% fewer people per capita in the workforce than in the 60s. This means less wealth generated across the board, less wealth in these towns, etc. Finally, IMO as a town the best investments are those that attract more jobs and wealth. So make fresh paint available for free to any businesses. Hire better police. Cut back on road quality. Cut back on taxes for businesses that bring net jobs. Invest in community activities, particularly for kids. Advertise. It’s a difficult spot to be in, the reality is that smalls towns across the country were decimated between the 1990s - 2020s. Most of it was policies sending stuff over seas and reducing wealth creation in rural towns (where factories used to run). To fix that will require some national solutions and scaling back the towns which haven’t seen growth (and many declined) in 30 years

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acdha 5y ago
> It’s a difficult spot to be in, the reality is that smalls towns across the country were decimated between the 1990s - 2020s. Most of it was policies sending stuff over seas and reducing wealth creation in rural towns (where factories used to run). I’d put this further back. Manufacturing is part of it but not everyone worked in factories before and the post-WWII white flight was part of the setup. There are two related parts to that: On the city side, that took on a lot of unfavorable trade offs – reducing tax revenues, converting neighborhoods into unproductive freeways and parking, greater expense and demand for roads, etc. On the personal side, cars lock in a lot of personal expense both up front and ongoing (how many people are one expensive repair away from potentially losing their job?), and force other choices like needing to live somewhere with storage space, deal with the health impacts, etc. I think that combination left things quite brittle and a lot of it is time-delayed by a decade or two, at which point it’s much harder to reverse. Losing a factory hurts but so did losing most of the workers a generation earlier, and the resulting economic climate from both makes finding replacements harder.
mitigating 5y ago
Imagine you are trying to get businesses to invest in your town, build a factory, whatever. Much of that is about image, right? If you only have gravel roads it gives off the impression that you are failing/backwards.
- lettergram 5y ago
  Businesses will often invest in their own roads. The issue is the town over expanded and then their base shrank. Unfortunately, you have to cut items — roads to dead businesses are the easiest way. If manufacturing comes back they will often invest in their own roads anyway. City can then cut a deal to rebuild and maintain roads with company splitting cost

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acdha 5y ago

> It’s a difficult spot to be in, the reality is that smalls towns across the country were decimated between the 1990s - 2020s. Most of it was policies sending stuff over seas and reducing wealth creation in rural towns (where factories used to run). I’d put this further back. Manufacturing is part of it but not everyone worked in factories before and the post-WWII white flight was part of the setup. There are two related parts to that: On the city side, that took on a lot of unfavorable trade offs – reducing tax revenues, converting neighborhoods into unproductive freeways and parking, greater expense and demand for roads, etc. On the personal side, cars lock in a lot of personal expense both up front and ongoing (how many people are one expensive repair away from potentially losing their job?), and force other choices like needing to live somewhere with storage space, deal with the health impacts, etc. I think that combination left things quite brittle and a lot of it is time-delayed by a decade or two, at which point it’s much harder to reverse. Losing a factory hurts but so did losing most of the workers a generation earlier, and the resulting economic climate from both makes finding replacements harder.

mitigating 5y ago

Imagine you are trying to get businesses to invest in your town, build a factory, whatever. Much of that is about image, right? If you only have gravel roads it gives off the impression that you are failing/backwards.

lettergram 5y ago
Businesses will often invest in their own roads. The issue is the town over expanded and then their base shrank. Unfortunately, you have to cut items — roads to dead businesses are the easiest way. If manufacturing comes back they will often invest in their own roads anyway. City can then cut a deal to rebuild and maintain roads with company splitting cost