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> and every dollar worth of residential housing is a money pit. This can't possibly be true in any of the municipalities I've ever lived in. Property taxes are

> and every dollar worth of residential housing is a money pit. This can't possibly be true in any of the municipalities I've ever lived in. Property taxes are insane, like fancy private school tuition insane and it's definitely not going into the roads. Actually lets break it down: Power, water, and sewer are paid for by their consumption. My local utilities actually have the problem that they _make_ too much money. Roads are paid for by fuel/registration taxes/insane vehicle sales tax. Schools are paid by property tax, but every public school in every jurisdiction I've ever lived in has been inferior to private while costing me almost as much via property tax. Then there's Fire and Police, but those costs should be minimal and distributed over the huge number of residents. Then there's the mail, oh wait that's again funded by usage. Zoning and code compliance? Again, absolutely minimal costs there. Permits cost $... so again funded by usage! Central planning for development? _What_ planning? lol. I know where this is coming from, poorly researched and often-dishonest narrative from "not just bikes" and their ilk. In reality residential communities are huge tax farms. Every watt of power, gallon of water, etc is *paid for* (including a healthy markup). The damn roads don't cost $15k/year.

loganmhb 4y ago
The roads might actually cost more than that: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/4/30/my-city-has-massive-infrastructure-liabilities-so-do-99-of-the-cities-in-america https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/4/30/my-city-has-ma...
btilly 4y ago
I have no idea whether it is true where you are, but it certainly IS true where I am. First, commercial property taxes in California are generally higher than residential. Which is an incentive to attract business, not residents. https://www.hechtgroup.com/the-different-taxes-imposed-on-commercial-and-residential-property-in-california/ https://www.hechtgroup.com/the-different-taxes-imposed-on-co... Second, you're seriously underestimating the cost of roads. As https://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193236496X https://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193... pointed out, the bit of road your car is parked on usually costs more than the car. Now walk around your neighborhood and look at how much road there is. ALL of it costs that much. Most of us don't think about it, but it has to be paid for somehow. And it really isn't cheap.
- RetpolineDrama 4y ago
  >First, commercial property taxes in California are generally higher than residential. Sure, but businesses making _more_ for an area doesn't mean residential areas aren't profitable. >the bit of road your car is parked on usually costs more than the car. Sensational nonsense. ~100sq ft of black tar asphalt, barring some kind of bananna republic corruption scheme, could never cost _more_ than an average automobile. Think about how absurd that statement is, and reevaluate why your internal filters allowed that statement through. >Now walk around your neighborhood and look at how much road there is. ALL of it costs that much. Most of us don't think about it, but it has to be paid for somehow. And it really isn't cheap. The premise is absurd, so the conclusion from it is invalid.
  - btilly 4y ago
    Yes, you get taxes from a residential area. But if you get MORE from a business area, guess which one cities are going to be incentivized to attract? About the road, a standard parking space is 180 square feet. At $100 per square foot for the land that's $18,000. Now compare to the car. Per https://hedgescompany.com/blog/2022/02/how-old-are-cars/ https://hedgescompany.com/blog/2022/02/how-old-are-cars/ the median car is about 12 years old. If you want to buy a 2011 car right now, https://www.truecar.com/used-cars-for-sale/listings/year-2011/ https://www.truecar.com/used-cars-for-sale/listings/year-201... shows you a whole lot of options. All are substantially less than that. The median car really does cost less than the space where it is parked. For more on this, see https://streetwidths.its.ucla.edu/ https://streetwidths.its.ucla.edu/
nsxwolf 4y ago
I live in a high property tax county in Illinois, and 70% of my taxes go to the schools. More than half of that 70% pays for teacher's pensions.
Hermitian909 4y ago
> Schools are paid by property tax, but every public school in every jurisdiction I've ever lived in has been inferior to private while costing me almost as much via property tax. Former educator: This mostly comes down to being able to select for students from house holds that have large disposable income and care enough about their child's education to send them to a private school. This usually gets you a lot of benefits: 1. Less disruptive kids (get too disruptive and they kick you out) 2. More engaged kids 3. Parents with leisure time to volunteer 4. Easier fundraising (private school in my area rakes in ~$1ml/yr in fundraising, vs $500k for the public school). I really want to re-iterate how powerful the effect of being able to kick people out of the school is. Like in most things 20% of the families generate 80% of disruptions in public schools and private schools basically get to elide that by not being a public service.
- notch898a 4y ago
  Seems like this could be improved by mandating no more than 2x disparity between spending on kids in the same grade level. Disruptors can be kicked into the gladiator camps or emancipated if they think they're so independent on what they can do.
  - Hermitian909 4y ago
    Actual measurement for most disruptions is really hard because it usually manifests in things like "Timmy was really distracting in class during the Math lesson". Quantifying that is difficult. Capping spending ratios would also be horrific for the US specifically because we implement many of our social welfare programs for kids through the schools: school lunches, speech therapy, etc. (incidentally, this overinflates our spending on students relative to peer nations). You'd be relegating poor kids to even worse outcomes than they already face which would have some seriously negative downstream effects once they become adults.
    - bell-cot 4y ago
      Last I heard, average American per-student public school spending was ~$10K per pupil per year. Do free school lunches and a few hours per week with a speech therapist (or whatever a kid needs) actually add $10K to the annual cost of a pupil? (And if "yes", could the problem mostly be fixed by (say) changing "2x" to "3x"?)

loganmhb 4y ago

The roads might actually cost more than that: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/4/30/my-city-has-massive-infrastructure-liabilities-so-do-99-of-the-cities-in-america https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/4/30/my-city-has-ma...

btilly 4y ago

I have no idea whether it is true where you are, but it certainly IS true where I am. First, commercial property taxes in California are generally higher than residential. Which is an incentive to attract business, not residents. https://www.hechtgroup.com/the-different-taxes-imposed-on-commercial-and-residential-property-in-california/ https://www.hechtgroup.com/the-different-taxes-imposed-on-co... Second, you're seriously underestimating the cost of roads. As https://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193236496X https://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193... pointed out, the bit of road your car is parked on usually costs more than the car. Now walk around your neighborhood and look at how much road there is. ALL of it costs that much. Most of us don't think about it, but it has to be paid for somehow. And it really isn't cheap.

RetpolineDrama 4y ago
>First, commercial property taxes in California are generally higher than residential. Sure, but businesses making _more_ for an area doesn't mean residential areas aren't profitable. >the bit of road your car is parked on usually costs more than the car. Sensational nonsense. ~100sq ft of black tar asphalt, barring some kind of bananna republic corruption scheme, could never cost _more_ than an average automobile. Think about how absurd that statement is, and reevaluate why your internal filters allowed that statement through. >Now walk around your neighborhood and look at how much road there is. ALL of it costs that much. Most of us don't think about it, but it has to be paid for somehow. And it really isn't cheap. The premise is absurd, so the conclusion from it is invalid.
- btilly 4y ago
  Yes, you get taxes from a residential area. But if you get MORE from a business area, guess which one cities are going to be incentivized to attract? About the road, a standard parking space is 180 square feet. At $100 per square foot for the land that's $18,000. Now compare to the car. Per https://hedgescompany.com/blog/2022/02/how-old-are-cars/ https://hedgescompany.com/blog/2022/02/how-old-are-cars/ the median car is about 12 years old. If you want to buy a 2011 car right now, https://www.truecar.com/used-cars-for-sale/listings/year-2011/ https://www.truecar.com/used-cars-for-sale/listings/year-201... shows you a whole lot of options. All are substantially less than that. The median car really does cost less than the space where it is parked. For more on this, see https://streetwidths.its.ucla.edu/ https://streetwidths.its.ucla.edu/

nsxwolf 4y ago

I live in a high property tax county in Illinois, and 70% of my taxes go to the schools. More than half of that 70% pays for teacher's pensions.

Hermitian909 4y ago

> Schools are paid by property tax, but every public school in every jurisdiction I've ever lived in has been inferior to private while costing me almost as much via property tax. Former educator: This mostly comes down to being able to select for students from house holds that have large disposable income and care enough about their child's education to send them to a private school. This usually gets you a lot of benefits: 1. Less disruptive kids (get too disruptive and they kick you out) 2. More engaged kids 3. Parents with leisure time to volunteer 4. Easier fundraising (private school in my area rakes in ~$1ml/yr in fundraising, vs $500k for the public school). I really want to re-iterate how powerful the effect of being able to kick people out of the school is. Like in most things 20% of the families generate 80% of disruptions in public schools and private schools basically get to elide that by not being a public service.

notch898a 4y ago
Seems like this could be improved by mandating no more than 2x disparity between spending on kids in the same grade level. Disruptors can be kicked into the gladiator camps or emancipated if they think they're so independent on what they can do.
- Hermitian909 4y ago
  Actual measurement for most disruptions is really hard because it usually manifests in things like "Timmy was really distracting in class during the Math lesson". Quantifying that is difficult. Capping spending ratios would also be horrific for the US specifically because we implement many of our social welfare programs for kids through the schools: school lunches, speech therapy, etc. (incidentally, this overinflates our spending on students relative to peer nations). You'd be relegating poor kids to even worse outcomes than they already face which would have some seriously negative downstream effects once they become adults.
  - bell-cot 4y ago
    Last I heard, average American per-student public school spending was ~$10K per pupil per year. Do free school lunches and a few hours per week with a speech therapist (or whatever a kid needs) actually add $10K to the annual cost of a pupil? (And if "yes", could the problem mostly be fixed by (say) changing "2x" to "3x"?)