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First of all, give an example of suburanites "demanding" anything of 'the city'. Suburbanites who work in the city likely spend a fair amount of money in same, e.g. lunches, gas, other shopping. Many suburbanites don't work in the city. Some cities have regional taxes to provide some services to the entire metro area. I have found the suburban Denver counties to have sufficient planning departments.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ohiogirl81
Are you unaware of the caveats about generalizing and stereotyping that are common in this and other threads?
The only thing I "demand" of the city I work in are decent roads and emergency services, for which I pay through a 3.4 percent income tax, thankyouverymuch.
More generalizations and stereotypes. Unless you're being sarcastic, of course.
Not stereotypes whatsoever.
An example, you demand roads because you use them, you do not pay for the construction and maintence of said roads through income taxes. Therefore, with all due respect, you are a burden on the city in which you work. Lunch, gas (which most people get near home, in the 'burbs), and shopping doesn't account for the missing
property taxes you would be paying to the city. Not to mention the missing development and investment the city would get from a higher or denser population.
People who run away from the central city and still work there are one of the reasons the city is in the shape it's in. That's Baton Rouge and most cities in the US today.
Not stereotypes whatsoever.
An example, you demand roads because you use them, you do not pay for the construction and maintence of said roads through income taxes. Therefore, with all due respect, you are a burden on the city in which you work. Lunch, gas (which most people get near home, in the 'burbs), and shopping doesn't account for the missing
property taxes you would be paying to the city. Not to mention the missing development and investment the city would get from a higher or denser population.
People who run away from the central city and still work there are one of the reasons the city is in the shape it's in. That's Baton Rouge and most cities in the US today.
If you're going to accuse me, I'm taking off the gloves.
The H*** I demand roads because I use them. I neither live nor work in "the city" (everyone bow down at the mention of that term please). I sure as heck do pay for roads throughout the state and even federally through the gas taxes I pay, the state taxes I pay, the registration fee for my car and the sales tax I pay when I am in Denver. In Colorado, property taxes are used mostly to fund schools, and I have not availed myself of the Denver Public Schools to educate my children. I pay SCFD tax every time I buy something; ditto public transportation tax, and those inane taxes for Coors Field and Sports Authority stadium.
I can see there is no "due respect" intended with all these inflammatory phrases. I did not "run away" from "the city" and I am no burden on Denver. I do not owe the city of Denver my residency to increase its develolpment and investment.
Interesting answer. I'm glad it works for you. Do you utilize any of these services frequently, e.g. post office, county buildings, ball field, riverside park, theaters?
Hi Katiana--
The answer to that is both 'yes' and 'no.' Currently the answer is 'yes' because I am full time in grad school and currently unemployed. So I pay zero taxes while reaping the full benefits of living downtown. Even if I found a PT job interning somewhere, my share of taxes would still be relatively small, and outweighed by the benefits of being able to walk to the Chinese buffet two blocks away.
If on the other hand I land that killer job, that 2.5% income tax (in addition to Montgomery County's 7% sales tax when neighboring counties are 6%) will eat me up. I'd move in a heartbeat.
If you buy stuff, you're paying taxes--local sales taxes. You're paying your taxes whenever you visit the Chinese buffet, or buy Pepto-Bismol afterward at the drugstore. Don't discount sales taxes, cities certainly don't! Cities in California don't charge city income tax (so far as I know, at least) so local budgets are based on property taxes (which are locked at 1% statewide) and sales tax. There are local "council of government" bodies, but they are not real government bodies, they are more like planning agencies that provide recommendations, not bodies that actually make fiscal decisions or have transportation budgets to spend. One of the counties in our metro area flat-out refuses to participate in the local council of governments (that county government thinks transit-oriented development is a United Nations plot.)
Twitter taxcut. California law prohibits city income taxes, so they just make it a business payroll expense tax. There's always another way of skinning the cat. To my knowledge, San Francisco is the only city with a de facto city income tax, and technically speaking, it's not an income tax; it's a tax on the expense of paying income.
And, yeah, El Dorado is pretty much not interested in TOD as SACOG envisions it in its Blueprint. Considering the general theme of Blueprint is "We like government, and no growth shall be occurring outside of city limits," is that all that surprising? I mean, you are talking about a county that has more than doubled in the preceding four decades that has two cities in the entire county that account for about 15% of the population. So, yeah, I'm sure, it's really that they think it's a giant United Nations plot. Note that most of the cities in Sacramento County do not play well with transit or TOD plans either. Roseville? Elk Grove? Yolo County? They might participate in planning, but they aren't rushing into bed with anything either. All run their own transit, including commuter services, into Sacramento.
If you're going to accuse me, I'm taking off the gloves.
The H*** I demand roads because I use them. I neither live nor work in "the city" (everyone bow down at the mention of that term please). I sure as heck do pay for roads throughout the state and even federally through the gas taxes I pay, the state taxes I pay, the registration fee for my car and the sales tax I pay when I am in Denver. In Colorado, property taxes are used mostly to fund schools, and I have not availed myself of the Denver Public Schools to educate my children. I pay SCFD tax every time I buy something; ditto public transportation tax, and those inane taxes for Coors Field and Sports Authority stadium.
I can see there is no "due respect" intended with all these inflammatory phrases. I did not "run away" from "the city" and I am no burden on Denver. I do not owe the city of Denver my residency to increase its develolpment and investment.
You really thought I was accusing you and "inflammatory"? My tone was completely relaxed throughout the entire post. The last sentence was not directed to you, which is why it's a separate paragraph.
Put your gloves back on, it's not a fight.
And since you don't work in Denver, none of this applies to you in the first place.
The broader issue is that none of these schemes actually work. Take education: Here in California we already divert funding from rich districts to poor districts. In general, I support that... but in practice it's totally ineffective at homogenizing the population coming out of schools. Aside from a few exceptionally wealthy districts, all are between $6,000 and $9,000 per student. Funding isn't the issue. More funding certainly wouldn't hurt, but simply taking a bit more from the rich schools and giving it to the poor schools isn't going to make a difference. Not only that, the various schemes for school education have never worked. Seattle had some mixed success using racial discrimination, but since that is unconstitutional they're basically back to where they were. And it was very mixed success. The first year of integration, 28% of white students left Seattle's school districts. They either moved out to the suburbs or went to private schools. It's easy to cry racism, but would you want your kid spending two hours a day on a bus to go to an under-performing school? I went to middle and high school at under-performing schools. The peer mentality compared to whitey-white magnet schools is astoundingly different. No one hid their grades or intentionally did poorly in magnet schools, not so in middle and high school, and I never saw it occur in AP/Honors classes once those opened up starting in 10th grade either. But I came in on the very beginning of NCLB, which was just the latest in a ongoing philosophy of ignoring the majority, let alone the above-average, to cater to the lowest common denominator. Many of the AP/Honors classes are cut, others are now the dumping grounds for the teachers no one wants but have tenure. Since the average and above will be ignored unless there is an active PTA that demands otherwise, going to an over-performing school with an active PTA is more important than ever.
San Francisco has attempted various things. They did the racially based busing kids to schools on opposite side of San Francisco, now that they are no longer allowed to use racial discrimination they use socioeconomic factors. San Francisco schools are more segregated today than ever, both racially and socioeconomically. Parents with the means who lose in the school lottery either leave or go to private schooling. You have more minority-majority schools where a specific minority group makes up the majority at a particular school. You still have the good schools in the good neighborhoods and the bad schools in the bad neighborhoods. That's just the way things are. You can't provide for equality of outcome. The best you can do is provide for equality of opportunity for those who are willing to take advantage of it.
Or the city schools could not bother try to mix schools. The city could have locally zoned districts with no busing, like a suburb. Or it could have make students apply and compete to get to the high school of their choice, with a bias towards neighborhood residents. New York City did the first (locally zoned districts) until about a decade and then switched to applications. Segregates poorer, worse students, but then again if they weren't, they'd drag the quality of the educational system down for everyone else.
But the whites have left the public school system; only 14% of public school students are white non-hispanic now. But then again, the % of white children isn't that high. The magnet schools aren't mostly white, they're majority Asian now. Though before a decade or two, they were majority white Jewish, so it's somewhat similar. Though many of the normal public schools were majority Jewish in the early and mid 20th century (and a few suburb schools probably are).
I wonder what explains the funding discrepancy. The average spending per pupil is $18,000 (I saw $14,000 in another source, but it was a bit old) in New York City. Suburbs in Long Island are usually a bit higher, close $25,000.
You really thought I was accusing you and "inflammatory"? My tone was completely relaxed throughout the entire post. The last sentence was not directed to you, which is why it's a separate paragraph.
Put your gloves back on, it's not a fight.
And since you don't work in Denver, none of this applies to you in the first place.
That was what I said IN RESPONSE to your accusation that I was demanding roads and highways in "the city". The assumption that all suburbanites work in the city is about 60 years out of date.
Not stereotypes whatsoever.
An example, you demand roads because you use them, you do not pay for the construction and maintence of said roads through income taxes. Therefore, with all due respect, you are a burden on the city in which you work. Lunch, gas (which most people get near home, in the 'burbs), and shopping doesn't account for the missing
property taxes you would be paying to the city. Not to mention the missing development and investment the city would get from a higher or denser population.
People who run away from the central city and still work there are one of the reasons the city is in the shape it's in. That's Baton Rouge and most cities in the US today.
God damn those escaped tax chattels!
People who blame others for their own problems are the reason some cities are in the shape they are in. Not to worry, however. In many cities, businesses are increasingly deciding to follow their workforce out to the suburbs, so you may not have to worry about not having to pay to provide the municipal services the suburban "bedroom" communities provide for the laborers who generate the profits your city is happy to collect taxes on. That should make you feel better since your businesses have a tendency to need larger work forces, and you're so about paying for things your cities use.
People who blame others for their own problems are the reason some cities are in the shape they are in. Not to worry, however. In many cities, businesses are increasingly deciding to follow their workforce out to the suburbs, so you may not have to worry about not having to pay to provide the municipal services the suburban "bedroom" communities provide for the laborers who generate the profits your city is happy to collect taxes on. That should make you feel better since your businesses have a tendency to need larger work forces, and you're so about paying for things your cities use.
Yes and an indirect one as well that still costs money since it nets you a deficit.
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