A couple of fallacies here. Major environmental clean-up costs are rarely borne by municipalities ...
OK - I'll agree, that that all of these issues are more complicated than they might appear on the surface, but all of them are legitimate factors in some way or another.
In terms of environmental costs. Whether or not the city is responsible for the costs of clean-up, it is a cost factor for businesses deciding to locate in a city. While the city may not normally pay for environmental clean-ups, there is often no money available from the state or feds and a business needs to look at doing it themselves. A city subsidy might make that a more attractive proposition.
I think its pretty clear that there is land in St. Paul that remains underdeveloped because the costs of cleaning up the property are too high to make it economical. Especially, when there is untouched land in the suburbs available at cheaper prices. But, expansion into suburbs isn't really a sustainable practice, is it, at some point - cheap land will dry up. I know of one redevelopment project in the Midway that failed because no one was willing to pay the costs of cleaning up the site of auto garage (mechanic) - I'm sure there are many more.
Social services - Much of our St. Paul property taxes come from the county. Much of the suburban growth comes outside of either Hennipin or Ramsey county, so this NEW development does evade the costs of those social services. In addition, St. Paul schools have far larger percentages of free lunch students, handicapped students, and immigrants. This results in many costs that are not matched in suburban school districts. Yes, there is also some extra state or federal money to meet these needs, but I think its very unlikely that these funds match the need.
In addition, the proliferation of social service agencies in the city - does create cost burdens on the city, even if the city itself does not fund the agencies. Law enforcement, property taken off the tax rolls, other infrastructure....
In terms of housing. The availability of affordable housing does often correlate to age of condition of the housing stock. Cities by definition have very old housing stock, outer ring suburbs by definition have brand new housing stock. This is not an issue of poor planning as much as a historical reality which in some ways works to the disadvantage of cities. Blaming cities for fact that they can't build 90% brand new houses on new lots, doesn't make sense. In 75 years, outer ring suburbs will be facing many of the same problems and costs that St. Paul faces today. This ignores the fact, that housing costs are also tied to the TYPE of housing. Some suburban communities limit housing to TYPES of housing, lots size and size of house, that virtually eliminates any chance of providing housing to lower income families.
Anyway - there are other sides to this argument. Its not simply, but its also not pure fallacy. Suggesting that higher taxes in cities as opposed to outer ring suburbs is a matter of bad administration of cities, is a fallacy or at least an oversimplification. In fact, its much more complicated and we need to make sure we know what we are comparing.
Just my humble opinion,
Best wishes,
Tim Erickson Hamline Midway [EMAIL PROTECTED]
most such costs are paid through a combination of state and federal funds.
And social service costs are typically county burdens, not municipal expenses.
Finally, availability of lower cost housing seems most closely correlated with the age (and condition) of the housing stock.
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Tim Erickson http://www.politalk.com St. Paul, MN - USA 651-643-0722
[EMAIL PROTECTED] iChat/AIM: stpaultim
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