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Curious how this scales; I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't. People want quality public infra, but don't want to pay taxes. Sounds like a losing battle to m
by arberx 4y ago
Curious how this scales; I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't.
People want quality public infra, but don't want to pay taxes. Sounds like a losing battle to me.
What usually happens is taxes are shoved into other areas of your life (property, sales).
- ch4s3 4y agoFlorida does indeed lean on property and sales taxes. You can even build good infrastructure that way.
- cool_dude85 4y ago>You can even build good infrastructure that way. Yeah, but Florida doesn't, really.
- ch4s3 4y agoI don't live there, and don't really have a particular ax to grind here but it looks like Miami is building a lot of flood control infrastructure pretty quickly.
- kelnos 4y agoI wouldn't be surprised if they're leveraging federal funds for that, or at least for a big part of it.
- ch4s3 4y agoIt looks like a lot of those projects are split in funding between the state and federal government for initial build and the counties are issuing bonds to fund maintenance.
- yardie 4y agoI live here. Miami is not building a lot of flood control infrastructure. Just a few diesel water pumps in tonier parts of town to keep the king tides at bay. The lifted truck/SUV is almost a requirement in the long term. After watching a row of cards flood out on our main street, Biscayne, you want something that drives high and dry.
- ch4s3 4y agoIt seems like there's a bunch of coastline restoration and mangrove planting happening as well. Has that not started in earnest?
- yardie 4y agoMiami Beach is making a valiant attempt. That city has been working on massive climate change projects for some time. We’ll see if it pays off. Miami is a basket case. The city commission held a vote to remove mangroves from the park because they were blocking the view. LOL. Just massive political incompetence.
- ch4s3 4y agoA rising tide drowns all cooks
- cool_dude85 4y agoThe flood control infrastructure in Miami Beach is to keep the plates spinning a little while longer. Long term, it's underwater.
- ch4s3 4y agoI don't see why it couldn't be protected like Amsterdam which is ~6.5' below sea level. Miami for trade and finance purposes is the Amsterdam of the Caribbean and northern chunk of South America and Central America.
- cool_dude85 4y agoAmsterdam has the famous dykes, but Miami is built on limestone so sea walls do not work.
- ch4s3 4y agoYeah I didn't mean using the exact same approach. They'll probably have to do things like building artificial reefs, planting mangroves, raising buildings/roads, and maybe something like Tokyo's giant cisterns. In the end it may not work but it seems like it's worth trying for a few decades.
- mensetmanusman 4y agoRoads are nice in my experience
- goostavos 4y agoThe roads in Florida are freaking fantastic and pristine almost everywhere. I moved to Seattle ~5 years ago and I still can't get over the fact that the roads are pot holed pieces of crap in a constant state of disrepair. We can't even get white divider lines painted reliably in the downtown core. I don't know where all the tax money goes. However, the downside of those glorious Florida roads is that, well, you need them at all. Everything is sooooooo spread out and flat. I forget until I go back and visit just how far away everything is from everything else. Going to something "just up the road" is a 15-20 minute drive.
- jrs235 4y agoThe roads in Florida are nice because they don't go through the freeze thaw cycle in winter.
- pandaman 4y agoWhy they are not nice in California then?
- ch4s3 4y agoOne imagines there are differences in the abilities of various governments to deliver projects. I’ve read that most of California’s projects go to a handful of contractors with poor records.
- pandaman 4y agoSo could it be the reason roads are nice in Florida is not the lack of winter freeze but the ability of its government to govern?
- fennecfoxen 4y agoYou know what Florida has besides taxes? User fees. You can take a brand-new highway here and it'll be a toll road, which means you're the one paying for it, not unrelated taxpayers around the state. You can even finance the construction with private-public partnerships tied to the specific project's success. And because people pay for this infrastructure, it discourages frivolous uses, like the induced demand of overbuilding in the exurbs.
- cortesoft 4y agoIt also means poor people can’t use the infrastructure
- mandmandam 4y agoThat was likely used as a selling point :/
- kelnos 4y agoThat's just a regressive tax that disproportionately hurts lower-income folks the most. I'm so tired of this "I got mine, so fuck you" attitude many people have. If you're wealthy, you probably got there via inheritance, luck, or on the backs and shoulders of the hard work of others. And yet "I won't do my part to pay for basic infrastructure where I live" is the attitude.
- fennecfoxen 4y agoIf that’s a regressive tax on the poor, then so are “groceries” and “housing”.
- imustbeevil 4y agoYes, increasing costs of necessities is regressive. Charging everyone the same fee costs poor people a larger percentage of their income. > A regressive tax is a tax applied uniformly, taking a larger percentage of income from low-income earners than from high-income earners.
- _skel 4y ago> People want quality public infra, but don't want to pay taxes. Sounds like a losing battle to me. A lot of people don't really want quality public infra. If they can pay for their own needs themselves, in their gated communities etc., they would rather do that than pay taxes. The people described in this article are wealthy. They want quality private infra.
- systemvoltage 4y ago> If they can pay for their own needs themselves, in their gated communities etc. That kind of sounds like California. Crime is so rampant that when I was searching for apartments, these large complexes resemble castles. Heavily fortified and there is a courtyard inside where children can play and families can hang out.
- kelnos 4y agoNot sure where in CA you were looking, but I very rarely see anything like that in SF or the bay area (outside of weird enclaves like Atherton, but I wouldn't go there if you paid me). Courtyards, sure, but I think you're imagining a weird, nefarious spin to them when there isn't any.
- systemvoltage 4y agoIn SF Bay Area. East bay (Oakland), South bay (Fremont, SJC) and San Mateo Area. When I was searching for a place, basically every single apartment complex felt like a castle. Not being nefarious, have no interest in it. You’re more than welcome to check for yourself.
- _skel 4y agoThose courtyard-style apartments don't exist because of crime. They exist because it's nice to have a courtyard. Most apartments in the Bay Area have no outdoor space other than a balcony or a small piece of land on the ground floor about the size of the balconies above. Many don't even have that.
- __derek__ 4y agoIt could be interesting to look at tax burden including HOA fees. With enough HNW residents, gated communities can support good private infrastructure.
- al_mandi 4y agoIt's not mutually exclusive. Tax money is being wasted left and right, people don't want to pay even more taxes to account for the incompetence that's happening.
- trothamel 4y agoThe American Society of Civil Engineers rates Florida's infrastructure as a C. Compare that to California at a C-, New York at C, and America as a whole at C-. https://infrastructurereportcard.org/state-by-state-infrastructure/ https://infrastructurereportcard.org/state-by-state-infrastr... They seem to be a lobby group for more infrastructure investment, but they don't see Florida as worse than other states.
- arberx 4y agoHow useful of a metric is this if, literally, a majority of states have a C grade?