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America can't afford to maintain cities and it can't afford to maintain the infrastructure required for suburbs. There is a serious breakdown in our ability to

America can't afford to maintain cities and it can't afford to maintain the infrastructure required for suburbs. There is a serious breakdown in our ability to simply exist as municipalities. It's a complex issue and many people are sure they know the solution, but the reality is that the only way we know how to govern ourselves anymore is scraping the bottom of the barrel with knee-jerk responses to acute events. Edit: I can tell by both responses that I wasn't clear enough in my main comment. Civically, America's representative governments have collectively established a policy of maintaining function just slightly above total catastrophe, while robbing taxpayers blind through nearly every single initiative they fund.

303uru 3y ago
>America can't afford to maintain cities and it can't afford to maintain the infrastructure required for suburbs. Big piece right there. If cities can finally stop subsidizing suburbs, they can probably shore themselves up just fine.
- rayiner 3y ago
  New Yorkers saving a few dollars in taxes instead of shipping them upstate won’t be enough to address the fact that it costs $3-5 billion to build a mile of subway in the city these days.
  - renewiltord 3y ago
    Something people have discovered is that if you offer to spend more on something, the guy who is selling it to you will gladly accept.
- skissane 3y ago
  Compared to many comparable countries, the US has such a huge number of local governments, with so many functions devolved to the local level. If state governments took over more of the functions of local governments, or if local governments were merged – such as a single local government for an entire metro area – that might solve many of these problems. When the state government takes over, the suburbs contribute to the state-wide tax base. Similarly, when the suburbs are merged into a single metro-wide local government, their local taxes now start contributing to services in other parts of the metro area which they commute to or rely on.
wang_li 3y ago
The solution is to limit the expense of non-contributing people in our cities. Fact of the matter is is that certain lifestyles require a certain amount of ability to produce value. No one gets upset when you say that a middle-class person can't buy a luxury automobile without greatly increasing the ability to earn, but the same principle applies to the basics as well. Seattle and King County were spending a cumulative $100,000/year per homeless person. That's higher than the per capita income of the county. No way to sustain that in the long term. If you aren't prepared to tell high-school dropouts, drug addicts, and the lazy, that they shouldn't aim for more than an ultra-high density apodment and generic brand everything and no kids, then you can't have a high standard of living city for anyone.
- scotty79 3y ago
  > per homeless person Oh, I thought that by non-contributing you meant tax dodging millionaires that incentivise vast array of useless luxury services and extract undue rent from the populace through their various schemes.
  - wang_li 3y ago
    Your average unemployed homeless person is dodging enormous amounts of taxes simply by not having an income. Do you also complain about them or is your bitterness simply a result of envy?
    - scotty79 3y ago
      You can't dodge something you don't owe. Homeless pay all taxes they owe. Mostly salea tax I imagine.
      - telotortium 3y ago
        And they get $100k/year of services. Their life is still not particularly good, but mismanagement can burn even the largest resource pile.
wing-_-nuts 3y ago
Everyone that wants to know more about this owes it to themselves to watch this strong towns video It's a grim situation that doesn't even require decline, just the end of growth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tI3kkk2JdoI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tI3kkk2JdoI

303uru 3y ago

>America can't afford to maintain cities and it can't afford to maintain the infrastructure required for suburbs. Big piece right there. If cities can finally stop subsidizing suburbs, they can probably shore themselves up just fine.

rayiner 3y ago
New Yorkers saving a few dollars in taxes instead of shipping them upstate won’t be enough to address the fact that it costs $3-5 billion to build a mile of subway in the city these days.
- renewiltord 3y ago
  Something people have discovered is that if you offer to spend more on something, the guy who is selling it to you will gladly accept.
skissane 3y ago
Compared to many comparable countries, the US has such a huge number of local governments, with so many functions devolved to the local level. If state governments took over more of the functions of local governments, or if local governments were merged – such as a single local government for an entire metro area – that might solve many of these problems. When the state government takes over, the suburbs contribute to the state-wide tax base. Similarly, when the suburbs are merged into a single metro-wide local government, their local taxes now start contributing to services in other parts of the metro area which they commute to or rely on.

wang_li 3y ago

The solution is to limit the expense of non-contributing people in our cities. Fact of the matter is is that certain lifestyles require a certain amount of ability to produce value. No one gets upset when you say that a middle-class person can't buy a luxury automobile without greatly increasing the ability to earn, but the same principle applies to the basics as well. Seattle and King County were spending a cumulative $100,000/year per homeless person. That's higher than the per capita income of the county. No way to sustain that in the long term. If you aren't prepared to tell high-school dropouts, drug addicts, and the lazy, that they shouldn't aim for more than an ultra-high density apodment and generic brand everything and no kids, then you can't have a high standard of living city for anyone.

scotty79 3y ago
> per homeless person Oh, I thought that by non-contributing you meant tax dodging millionaires that incentivise vast array of useless luxury services and extract undue rent from the populace through their various schemes.
- wang_li 3y ago
  Your average unemployed homeless person is dodging enormous amounts of taxes simply by not having an income. Do you also complain about them or is your bitterness simply a result of envy?
  - scotty79 3y ago
    You can't dodge something you don't owe. Homeless pay all taxes they owe. Mostly salea tax I imagine.
    - telotortium 3y ago
      And they get $100k/year of services. Their life is still not particularly good, but mismanagement can burn even the largest resource pile.

wing-_-nuts 3y ago

Everyone that wants to know more about this owes it to themselves to watch this strong towns video It's a grim situation that doesn't even require decline, just the end of growth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tI3kkk2JdoI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tI3kkk2JdoI