The Real Reason Your City Has No Money
http://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/9/the-real-reason-your-city-has-no-money
The Real Reason Your City Has No Money
Jan-10-2017
Charles Marohn
Strong Towns
Poor Neighborhoods Make the Best Investments
http://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/10/poor-neighborhoods-make-the-best-investment
Jan-11-2017
Charles Marohn
Strong Towns
Marohn working with the city, examining the municipalities revenues vs. expenses by each parcel of land. It looks like the analysis was based off of tax revenue for each parcel, as well as the cost of repaving the adjacent road surface, plus providing other city services (the methodology in the article was a bit lacking).
The result was a three dimensional heat map of the city, red parcels costing the city in regards to services provided, versus green areas that paid in excess of taxes to services received by the city.
The inner core, mostly green in colour, produced a net gain in revenue for the city. The inner core can be characterized by a high population density, and smaller city blocks that are walk-able. The red parts of the map are predominately strip malls on the periphery of the city that have low density, as well as the suburban cul-de-sac streets.
The reason the urban core, though less affluent, is revenues positive for the city lays in density. Several small, less well to do businesses, on one city block, can generate more tax revenue than one affluent businesses taking a whole city block. Think 10 small establishments worth $50,000 each, versus one $250,000 establishment. This is the conclusion that Marohn comes to.
What fascinates me about Marohn's analysis is the fine level of granular data that Strong Towns is working with. Examining the city by almost 20ft chunks gives a startling picture about the economics of a mid-sized city.
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