How Bankrupt American Cities Stay Alive - Debt [ST04]

In large parts of the United States it should affect single-family homes. A lot of cities constructed their suburbs with one-term fees and subsidies, but are charging extremely low taxes on the houses once constructed. In fact, the taxes are so low that they don't pay for the upkeep of the infrastructure required to service those houses. They are losing money on every house and are trying to make up for it in volume! The sole reason they have been able to continue is because the dense urban core is subsidizing the suburbs. But it'll inevitably end up with decrepit and neglected infrastructure, and cities going bankrupt. The only way to solve this is to increase the revenue per land area, which means a higher land tax, which in turn means a bigger tax increase per-person for single-family homes than for multi-family dwellings. If you want to know more, the following NotJustBikes videos are a good introduction of the subject: link ▶ this video

Child safety and cars sure is related - and history buffs will be glad to know the “kindermoord” of automobiles was what got the Netherlands to change from car-centric cities with many lanes wide traffic jams, to the best city infrastructure in the world link Cars produce crazy noise pollution, and car lifestyle requires massive subsidies such as street parking, and a huge share of city real estate being used for parking and roads. Lately, I’ve been inspired by this channel “Not just bikes” on the subject, and other HN readers may find it interesting as well ▶ this video

> […] why didnt the roads collapse into a state of disrepair which no one was willing to pay for? Suburbs are slowing falling into a state of disrepair, or at least more and more budget being taken away form other things: * link * link * ▶ this video

>It'd be economically viable if what I pay in local/state versus federal taxes were flipped. It really wouldn't. I don't think there is a mechanism for making the above infrastructure sustainable short of tearing it down. In some places, the debt payments exceed total annual incomes for residents. ▶ this video

That's sadly true. Not Just Bikes and their String Towns initiative is really eye-opening. A bit off-topic but I do wonder if covid and the current state of the economy will accelerate the debt crisis of small cities ( ▶ this video ) and force a downsizing to a more reasonable infrastructure.

Well, this is exactly the opposite to an urban environment - this is urban sprawl. Is it better to construct and maintain 75 miles of roads (and all the other infrastructure) for a couple of hundred folks? I highly recommend this video on the finances around urban sprawl and their long term consequences: ▶ this video

There's no "cannot", it's a conscious choice - if you have more space than necessary that absolutely does not require that you expand to fill all of it. And in particular this has caused issues because American cities tend towards sprawl, filling up area with low-density housing that requires significantly more infrastructure per capita, and implementing zoning laws to prevent higher-density development even as the population grows, resulting in housing shortages. Not Just Bikes has some excellent content about this, e.g.: ▶ this video

I disagree. A strong counterpoint is that rural and suburban infrastructure is impossible to financially support based on the limited tax base you get from them compared to dense neighborhoods. Much fewer people on the same amount of roads and sewer systems means spending way more per capita to maintain and build them. Way more than the tax base can provide, even. On top of that, neighborhoods that are spread out require more people to drive cars, which not only increases the maintenance burden, but also requires loads of parking lots at grocery stores. And none of that grocery store parking lot is going to generate the tax income required to pay for the infrastructure needed to travel there. Beyond that, rural and suburban services are very heavily subsidized by federal and state grants, most of which comes from urban areas. I would say that urban living in North America has two fatal flaws: 1. Housing prices (and other cost of living) 2. Incorrect city design based on cars. High prices, especially for housing, increase the number of homeless and desperate people. This increases crime by a lot. Car-centric design makes moving about a dense area very tedious for everyone, including car drivers. Urban design ought to be more centered on people throughout, which means pedestrians, bicyclists, and public transit are treated with more priority than cars. Every city in North America is designed the complete opposite. Not only that, but cars are very noisy and dirty compared to oth

The Not Just Bikes [1,2,3] YouTube channel also has an excellent series of videos based on work from Strong Towns. I link to these videos whenever a friend asks why I chose to leave the United States. :) [1] ▶ this video [2] link [3] link

NotJustBikes did a video collaboration with Strong Towns and discussed this: ▶ this video Great channel for those interested in urbanism.