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computer parts posted:There's a common theme on these forums that urban living is ideal and rural and suburban living is unnaturally subsidized by the state. Gentrification is basically white people saying "you're right, urban living is so much better, I want to live there [again]". It's the inverse to White Flight, where people decide that they'd rather not drive a car to work every day even if it means interacting with other people (even if it practice they don't really interact that much). Suburbs are very heavily subsidized, in the US, by states and the federal governments. FHA and VA loans, and the presence of the federal government in the mortgage market, drastically alter the cost of home ownership. I don't think it is unfair to argue that without the robust housing policy structures put into place by the New Deal we wouldn't have anything close to the suburban sprawl we currently have. The interstate highway system is another enormous subsidy for the burbs. Without the highways, suburban and exurban development would be checked much closer to the urban core. I've got a friend who commutes 90 minutes to work one-way. The only reason he can do this is the highway system, without which his commute would be impossible or be four times longer. Gas subsidies, in the form of tax write-offs, oil depreciation allowances, Department of Energy expenditures in oil exploration research and other technical assistance makes gas cheaper and makes living farther out in the suburbs more economical and travel costs are kept artificially low. The state and feds provide grants and tax incentives for new suburban developments, which have the effect of masking the real costs of development for decades. Eventually the roads built with grants require property taxes to pay for maintenance, the sewer lines break down, utlities need upgrades, etc. and the residents have to shoulder enormous tax bills. Another friend of mine just got slapped with a $6,000 bill in September for road upgrades in her suburban development. Sometmes what endsup happening is that the suburb borrows money and gets grant funding etc for a new development, and uses the increase in property tax revenues, surplus grant money, etc from that development to subsidize the maintenance of the older development. This scheme works until the 2nd development falls into disrepair like the 1st development, and now you're hosed (until you leverage up for a 3rd, natch).
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Feb 25, 2015 14:37
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computer parts posted:Cool? I'm not disagreeing with any of this unless you're taking offense to the "common theme" part. Ah, yes, I took "common theme" to mean that you were skeptical. At any rate, I think it is helpful to spell out some of these subsidies. One of the hidden subsidies has already been mentioned: suburban commuters consume city resources (i.e. sewer, road, fire, police, other utility) without paying property tax to cover their consumption. This is a direct transfer from city dwellers to suburban commuters. Cities like Minneapolis/St. Paul have a number of policy devices to reduce these transfers, like regional tax base sharing schemes, and local government aid weighted towards older communities and dense urban areas. The intended consequence of much of the Twin Cities' strategy towards the burbs has been to induce upper and middle-class families to move to the streetcar suburbs, and to induce recent graduates and other young professionals to live in the core or streetcar suburbs. This has naturally lead to lower income folks being pushed out of their neighborhoods and into the suburbs. The suburb where I grew up had 24% non-white first-year enrollment the year I started grade school, and this past school year it was up to 78%. poo poo, even in my lilly-white urban neighborhood, where 40% of households make north of $100k per year, there has been an influx of still-wealthier families moving in from the burbs, tearing down our stucco craftsmen, and throwing up octo-peaked McMansions. My property value has climbed 25% in two years because we're being gentrified by even richer people.
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Feb 25, 2015 16:07
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