6 ms·

It seems peculiar to me that there is no standard process for the winding down of city governance when population dwindles. It's probably just the human element

It seems peculiar to me that there is no standard process for the winding down of city governance when population dwindles. It's probably just the human element. I don't mean to be promoting some sort of libertarian "self-governance is great!" philosophy, just thinking out loud. Imagine a city building game where city expenses increase with each population milestone (due to new positions in local government, new departments, etc.). One would naturally expect that if the city population were to drop below a specific threshold, the appropriate departments would be wound down to curb expenditure. If there aren't enough people to economically support a parks department, then (sadly) let the parks go wild. Perhaps it's just hard to fire someone because an algorithm told you to do so. Real life is messy, after all.

mdasen 5y ago
You can wind down certain things, but at what point are you winding down stuff that's more on the necessity side of things? The US has a lot of crumbling infrastructure that needs repair and replacement and I don't think people want to be told "sorry, your house is only accessible by off-road vehicle now." We're spending over $20B to increase rural broadband because people in rural areas don't want to be told "sorry, the population has dropped below a certain threshold so we're winding down the internet in your area to curb expenditure." (And before someone talks about Starlink, SpaceX is looking to get a lot of that money). I think it's also not just about the emotions of firing someone. It's really hard to manage a downward trend - and not from a touchy-feely standpoint. If you're an uncaring machine and people leave, you fire a proportional number of government employees. But that doesn't solve the situation. Every business in the area now has fewer customers. At some point, those businesses close reducing tax revenue further and increasing unemployment more. It's not just the city that feels the pinch of a dwindling tax base - that dwindling tax base means there's also a dwindling consumer base. An important thing to remember is that cities/towns/counties often take out debt for spending that will pay off over time. For example, you want to build a school so you borrow $X and you'll pay it back over the next 30 years. You need to rebuild some roads so you borrow and pay it back over the next 30 years. However, if your population is dwindling, that can leave the town holding debt it can't really pay anymore. If you built a school for 1,000 students and then the population dwindles by 30% over the next 20 years, you're stuck paying for way more school than you need with fewer people paying for it. Ok, layoff some teachers - but you have to lay off more then 30% of the teachers because you're paying for 100% of the school debt and maintenance costs. So you fire 40-50% of the teachers, class sizes go up, the people with the best options (the most educated with the best job opportunities and most money) leave your town eroding the richest part of your tax base and leaving lower income people on the hook for that debt while they escape it...which causes you to fire more teachers which causes more people to leave... I think it's not just that there's a messy human side to it, but that it's hard to manage decline. Ok, you wind down a department. What about the building? Maybe you can sell it, but probably at a loss since you have a declining purchasing base. As you wind down a parks department or library, the richest people are likely to leave. Now your algorithm requires more cuts. And the sad state of it is that it's often not a parks department. It can be things like roads or safe drinking water. There is also a messy human side of it as well, for sure, but it's just hard to manage decline. I can totally see the game: you cut the parks department and the rich people complain, sell their house for 15% below previous market value and leave, and your tax base dwindles more. You cut after-school programs and more rich people complain about the town and schools and leave - and your tax base dwindles more. You try to attract new residents to YouVille and cartoon characters say, "I want a town that invests in its schools," and "everyone I know is talking about leaving YouVille."
- hunterb123 5y ago
  I just wanted to say your walls of text are very offensive, inaccurate, and read as someone who has never lived in a rural community.
  - wwweston 5y ago
    Can you spend some time pointing out a few of the specific inaccuracies from your perspective?
    - hunterb123 5y ago
      I will try to, but it's an overwhelming amount of generalizations, characterizations, and talking points. I mainly wanted to voice my disdain and alert others to take what he said with a grain of salt. For now, I would reference you to other comments that have disputed parts of what he said: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31129696 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31129696 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31129451 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31129451 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31129728 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31129728
      - TulliusCicero 5y ago
        > https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31129451 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31129451 This is your idea of a good comment? > Hi there. I guess you are having a day of bad luck or something, cause you managed to get me to reply to you. heh. > I'm basically the walking oxymoron of your example. I was raised rurally, and am more educated than many city slicks. I'm not religious, or poor. Not rich, but not destitute. And as far as my political leanings go, I figure I'm above all of you, because the center was killed by extremists, so there is nothing left but to act better than the rest of you. I feel like my eyeballs are already about to roll back out of my skull, and that's just the first two paragraphs!
    - leetcrew 5y ago
      I'm guessing the part about being unfriendly to non-white people is a big part of what's offensive. may or may not be true, but people tend to react poorly to sweeping negative judgments about the place where they live. on top of that, the analysis of how roads and water work is not quite right. the overall point about the tax base death spiral is true though. it's really hard to wind down infrastructure that's been built out to support a certain population size. this happens in cities too, it's a major issue in baltimore, for example.
selimthegrim 5y ago
There is but it is often followed more in the breach, see the case of Damascus, OR.
engineer_22 5y ago
Cities and villages can be dissolved by the same mechanisms by which they're incorporated. The process is peculiar to the state in which the corporation is held.
xyzzy21 5y ago
It was simply never anticipated so why would you have such a thing. Plus people do still live in the Rust Belt and rural areas around it so it's all "working just fine still". One thing that's interesting: around where I live, property lines are defined by stone walls and you see tons of rando stone walls in the middle of the forest. Then if you do some research you find that 100% of all the trees were clear-cut back in colonial times and all the trees you see today are under 100 years old (yet it's a verdant forest during the summer). There used to be a ton more people - easily 10x - but the existing political structures are the same and mostly still work well enough.
- ghostly_s 5y ago
  This is true of almost the entirety of the US.
1123581321 5y ago
There sort of is, in the form of merging governing bodies and/or consolidating public services. This lets one entity size them appropriately to the budget, in exchange for giving up the ability for smaller entities to more effectively concentrate services in one area of a county or township.
stevenicr 5y ago
I'd love more info about these kinds of things, I find it quite fascinating to read about places going through it and watching parts of town locally dealing with it. Also - pensions! I feel we need more education for citizens about how public pensions and other retirement benefits work - as they can be a huge drain when the money is good, even more of a piece of the pie when the money goes down.
- coryrc 5y ago
  Yup, I think government should be forbidden from making any contract where they owe money in the future for wages paid today. Today's taxpayer pays for services rendered thirty years ago and today; no wonder our services get worse every year. For example, Seattle had a mayor Ed Murray. His couple year tenure resulted in the state needing to pay $80k/year more until he dies, so probably $3 million. That should have come out of that year's budget. The city should not have been able to obligate others to pay that.
bombcar 5y ago
There’s no standard process because it’s a separate thing each time. But cities do die and usually bequeath everything to a nearby city or the county.

mdasen 5y ago

You can wind down certain things, but at what point are you winding down stuff that's more on the necessity side of things? The US has a lot of crumbling infrastructure that needs repair and replacement and I don't think people want to be told "sorry, your house is only accessible by off-road vehicle now." We're spending over $20B to increase rural broadband because people in rural areas don't want to be told "sorry, the population has dropped below a certain threshold so we're winding down the internet in your area to curb expenditure." (And before someone talks about Starlink, SpaceX is looking to get a lot of that money). I think it's also not just about the emotions of firing someone. It's really hard to manage a downward trend - and not from a touchy-feely standpoint. If you're an uncaring machine and people leave, you fire a proportional number of government employees. But that doesn't solve the situation. Every business in the area now has fewer customers. At some point, those businesses close reducing tax revenue further and increasing unemployment more. It's not just the city that feels the pinch of a dwindling tax base - that dwindling tax base means there's also a dwindling consumer base. An important thing to remember is that cities/towns/counties often take out debt for spending that will pay off over time. For example, you want to build a school so you borrow $X and you'll pay it back over the next 30 years. You need to rebuild some roads so you borrow and pay it back over the next 30 years. However, if your population is dwindling, that can leave the town holding debt it can't really pay anymore. If you built a school for 1,000 students and then the population dwindles by 30% over the next 20 years, you're stuck paying for way more school than you need with fewer people paying for it. Ok, layoff some teachers - but you have to lay off more then 30% of the teachers because you're paying for 100% of the school debt and maintenance costs. So you fire 40-50% of the teachers, class sizes go up, the people with the best options (the most educated with the best job opportunities and most money) leave your town eroding the richest part of your tax base and leaving lower income people on the hook for that debt while they escape it...which causes you to fire more teachers which causes more people to leave... I think it's not just that there's a messy human side to it, but that it's hard to manage decline. Ok, you wind down a department. What about the building? Maybe you can sell it, but probably at a loss since you have a declining purchasing base. As you wind down a parks department or library, the richest people are likely to leave. Now your algorithm requires more cuts. And the sad state of it is that it's often not a parks department. It can be things like roads or safe drinking water. There is also a messy human side of it as well, for sure, but it's just hard to manage decline. I can totally see the game: you cut the parks department and the rich people complain, sell their house for 15% below previous market value and leave, and your tax base dwindles more. You cut after-school programs and more rich people complain about the town and schools and leave - and your tax base dwindles more. You try to attract new residents to YouVille and cartoon characters say, "I want a town that invests in its schools," and "everyone I know is talking about leaving YouVille."

hunterb123 5y ago
I just wanted to say your walls of text are very offensive, inaccurate, and read as someone who has never lived in a rural community.
- wwweston 5y ago
  Can you spend some time pointing out a few of the specific inaccuracies from your perspective?
  - hunterb123 5y ago
    I will try to, but it's an overwhelming amount of generalizations, characterizations, and talking points. I mainly wanted to voice my disdain and alert others to take what he said with a grain of salt. For now, I would reference you to other comments that have disputed parts of what he said: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31129696 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31129696 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31129451 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31129451 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31129728 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31129728
    - TulliusCicero 5y ago
      > https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31129451 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31129451 This is your idea of a good comment? > Hi there. I guess you are having a day of bad luck or something, cause you managed to get me to reply to you. heh. > I'm basically the walking oxymoron of your example. I was raised rurally, and am more educated than many city slicks. I'm not religious, or poor. Not rich, but not destitute. And as far as my political leanings go, I figure I'm above all of you, because the center was killed by extremists, so there is nothing left but to act better than the rest of you. I feel like my eyeballs are already about to roll back out of my skull, and that's just the first two paragraphs!
  - leetcrew 5y ago
    I'm guessing the part about being unfriendly to non-white people is a big part of what's offensive. may or may not be true, but people tend to react poorly to sweeping negative judgments about the place where they live. on top of that, the analysis of how roads and water work is not quite right. the overall point about the tax base death spiral is true though. it's really hard to wind down infrastructure that's been built out to support a certain population size. this happens in cities too, it's a major issue in baltimore, for example.

selimthegrim 5y ago

There is but it is often followed more in the breach, see the case of Damascus, OR.

engineer_22 5y ago

Cities and villages can be dissolved by the same mechanisms by which they're incorporated. The process is peculiar to the state in which the corporation is held.

xyzzy21 5y ago

It was simply never anticipated so why would you have such a thing. Plus people do still live in the Rust Belt and rural areas around it so it's all "working just fine still". One thing that's interesting: around where I live, property lines are defined by stone walls and you see tons of rando stone walls in the middle of the forest. Then if you do some research you find that 100% of all the trees were clear-cut back in colonial times and all the trees you see today are under 100 years old (yet it's a verdant forest during the summer). There used to be a ton more people - easily 10x - but the existing political structures are the same and mostly still work well enough.

ghostly_s 5y ago
This is true of almost the entirety of the US.

1123581321 5y ago

There sort of is, in the form of merging governing bodies and/or consolidating public services. This lets one entity size them appropriately to the budget, in exchange for giving up the ability for smaller entities to more effectively concentrate services in one area of a county or township.

stevenicr 5y ago

I'd love more info about these kinds of things, I find it quite fascinating to read about places going through it and watching parts of town locally dealing with it. Also - pensions! I feel we need more education for citizens about how public pensions and other retirement benefits work - as they can be a huge drain when the money is good, even more of a piece of the pie when the money goes down.

coryrc 5y ago
Yup, I think government should be forbidden from making any contract where they owe money in the future for wages paid today. Today's taxpayer pays for services rendered thirty years ago and today; no wonder our services get worse every year. For example, Seattle had a mayor Ed Murray. His couple year tenure resulted in the state needing to pay $80k/year more until he dies, so probably $3 million. That should have come out of that year's budget. The city should not have been able to obligate others to pay that.

bombcar 5y ago

There’s no standard process because it’s a separate thing each time. But cities do die and usually bequeath everything to a nearby city or the county.