5 ms·
The source of the surburban wealth is the city. Proximity to the urban core is the resource used to acquire that money. Those people work high paid jobs or own
by giraffe_lady 4y ago
The source of the surburban wealth is the city. Proximity to the urban core is the resource used to acquire that money. Those people work high paid jobs or own businesses in the city, then pay their local taxes to the surburb where they live. So the surburbs have better schools etc because of money extracted from the city.
> many area businesses are located in those surrounding suburban counties, with only small offices in the city
I understand why you'd have this impression and in some very exceptional cases it can be true. But look at the gross product of the different counties in your area, not personal income. I doubt this assessment holds up.
- vaidhy 4y agoI have no idea why this is getting downvoted. Make a case, if you disagree.
- scarface74 4y agoAnd then the suburbs of the city decide to break off into a separate city and take income tax revenue with them
- oblio 4y agoIs that supposed to be... bad? I imagine most suburbanites NIMBY precisely against that, it probably won't happen.
- scarface74 4y agoSeeing that they benefit from the city it is. It wouldn’t be bad if the school system funding comes from property taxes.
- briHass 4y agoThe argument was about subsidies, which can be measured by looking at tax revenues and sources of funding. An esoteric argument about 'proximity to the city is the source of all wealth' isn't well-defined or falsifiable. One could make the argument that Philly's proximity to NYC is the resource it uses to extract money, since NYC is much larger, wealthier, and relatively close.
- giraffe_lady 4y agoRight, so what are the sources of funding of those suburban tax revenues? The core of the relationship will be there.
- robswc 4y agoSeems like a pretty straight forward solution would be for the city to tax the business the difference in this lost revenue, if they feel the relationship is unfair, no?
- giraffe_lady 4y agoAmerican political arrangement usually makes large cities economic and cultural outliers of the states where they reside. State governments of states containing a single large city like eg NY and IL usually prohibit exactly this, and most other sorts of rebalancing in favor of the city.