Urban subsidizes suburban or vice versa (Austin, Spring: neighborhood, to buy, community college)

[pop251808]

Originally Posted by Aquitaine

It's religion because the facts aren't relevant to the 'solution' that you require of other people - you're demanding converts...you're following the bible...farcical notions we get from people whose personal sense of identity comes from righting perceived wrongs and arranging the world in a way that they think right...which, whatever you think of it, is collecting three times the dollars per square foot as even the desirable suburbs.

Whew! That's a lot of assumptions and accusations there; I'll let them go unanswered. However, I do think your last statement, referring to the density at the Mueller redevelopment and pointing out the increased tax dollars realized from it, is proof of what I've been trying to say.
Which is: aside from a clean sheet redevelopment like Mueller, the rest of the city, once a small city with almost nothing but SFH-single family houses, has a vested interest in staying that way. What makes costs creep up for everyone here and everyone moving here are the zoning and code requirements that insist the city and its outlying areas continue to develop in the old way. But if the COA were to allow denser development, allow smaller lots when an old house is sold and scraped away, etc; then cheaper houses and cheaper mutlfamily units could be built and more people, paying more taxes, could live in closer proximity to where they want to be.
What I was trying to say earlier was that we who benefit from the status quo should understand what is going on, admit we've got a good deal that can't always be had nowadays in a larger city, and at least try to recognize where we benefit and how we might accommodate change that is coming whether we like it or not. It wears me out to hear all the self-denial that comes from privileged Austinites. I'm pretty certain that most of my fellow citizens like money; witness the constant talk about real estate values. And I'm pretty certain that real estate values would go up with the removal of outdated SFH, one to a lot, requirements. And I think that once enough of that happens, we'd see housing prices stabilize if not actually fall. The only fall we'll ever see in our lifetime won't be gentle: it will be like the elevator dropping after the cable breaks if people give up on Austin; not the people who live here now, but all the hopeful newcomers who could make this the city it will become. The old Austin you remember isn't coming back, I'm afraid.

[Novacek]

Originally Posted by Aquitaine

but at least for the examples we've looked at so far, none of the evidence supports it here.

All the evidence supports it, I've disproved everything you've claimed.

Originally Posted by Aquitaine

Of course they do, though,

They don't. They may charge an initial hookup (that doesn't vary based on the distance) but then nothing covers increased ongoing maintenance.

Originally Posted by Aquitaine

just like we saw the initial assumption of 'well the city has to build all those roads' go by the wayside when it turned out that the city doesn't build any of them;

1. I never claimed the city built the roads in Circle C (though again, anything county built is still a subsidy)

2. The city has to maintain them.

AND

3. They have to build and maintain WAY MORE roads in the inner city to support the commuters.

Originally Posted by Aquitaine

or that cops are more efficient in the urban core until it turned out that they have 4-5 times as much work to do there.

Because of all the visitors and commuters. Again, you're proving my point.

Originally Posted by Aquitaine

But just like the one fire truck in all of Circle C somehow being more wasteful than nine of them in the same square mileage zone in town,

Again, visitors and commuters require huge amounts of increased coverage. It's not downtown condos catching on fire that requires all those firefighters. Look at the data. Structure fires aren't the primary emergency.

Originally Posted by Aquitaine

I'm an engineer; you want to convince me of something, show me some numbers and I'll come around.

I keep showing you the numbers, you keep ignoring them.

[Trainwreck20]

I keep showing you the numbers, you keep ignoring them.

No, he is interpreting them differently than you.

Anyway, based on your arguments, if the suburbs just 'disappeared', the CoA would be so much better off. All those commuters would stop using your resources and there would not be, ofc, a negative financial impact in excess of these fuzzy costs.

[Novacek]

Originally Posted by Trainwreck20

No, he is interpreting them differently than you.

Anyway, based on your arguments, if the suburbs just 'disappeared', the CoA would be so much better off. All those commuters would stop using your resources and there would not be, ofc, a negative financial impact in excess of these fuzzy costs.

You can't just disappear in a day what you've spent 60 years of distorting tax and regulatory policy encouraging.

But had that never occurred, yes Austin (and all inner cities) would be better off financially.

And Austin would be hurting less if those suburbs disappeared than vice versa, certainly.

[IC_deLight]

Originally Posted by Novacek

1. I never claimed the city built the roads in Circle C (though again, anything county built is still a subsidy)

Ignorance must be bliss. They weren't county built.

Originally Posted by Novacek

2. The city has to maintain them.

The city chose to make a land grab of thousands of homes. Those folks are all paying city taxes and have every reason to demand and expect the city annexing their property and to which they pay taxes to maintain the roads.

Originally Posted by Novacek

3. They have to build and maintain WAY MORE roads in the inner city to support the commuters.

Sounds like a reason to avoid all that you promote. Densification and centralization have economic and social disadvantages. Eliminating roads is not a solution.

[Novacek]

Originally Posted by IC_deLight

Ignorance must be bliss. They weren't county built.

I was responding to Aquitaine, who referred to county built roads.

Originally Posted by Aquitaine

The huge police burden of Circle C? The city's contribution to building roads? The developers or the state or the county build the roads down here, then the City walks in and takes over from the developer.

Originally Posted by IC_deLight

Those folks are all paying city taxes and have every reason to demand and expect the city annexing their property and to which they pay taxes to maintain the roads.

Of course they do. Now. The problem is that they fought annexation and wanted to stay out of the city, while simultaneously enjoying the advantage of the hundreds of millions of dollars the city spends to build and maintain the roads they use to commute _into_ the city.

[Trainwreck20]

And Austin would be hurting less if those suburbs disappeared than vice versa, certainly.

But the point is, it is one of the other (no vice versa proposed by me). The city and the surrounding areas are part of one big entity, even if the city limits don't define it. Neither survives w/o the other, at least not in any reasonable semblance of what it is now.

Now, suppose the CoA annexes all the surrounding land - low density (i.e. low tax base) with large additional amounts of roads that the city is now responsible for, and higher levels of service (police, fire, etc) expected. That fixes the cost issue? Yes, the CoA has an increased tax base, but an also increased cost basis.

[Novacek]

Originally Posted by Trainwreck20

Now, suppose the CoA annexes all the surrounding land - low density (i.e. low tax base) with large additional amounts of roads that the city is now responsible for, and higher levels of service (police, fire, etc) expected. That fixes the cost issue? Yes, the CoA has an increased tax base, but an also increased cost basis.

Again, that's been my whole point.

The city, when it decides about annexation, compares the (non-zero) costs of pre-annexation to the costs post-annexation.

And sometimes it doesn't make sense for the city to take non that additional cost. Which means it has to grit it's teeth and eat the pre-annexation costs. And continue to subsidize that area.

[IC_deLight]

Originally Posted by Novacek

Of course they do. Now. The problem is that they fought annexation and wanted to stay out of the city, while simultaneously enjoying the advantage of the hundreds of millions of dollars the city spends to build and maintain the roads they use to commute _into_ the city.

The roads aren't limited in use to those who "commute into the city".

You are mismatching time and event. The annexation occurred years ago (1997) so your complaint has no merit. The property owners you have such disdain for pay plenty of taxes to the city and contribute more than hundreds of millions to city businesses - and even enable many of those businesses to form and stay in business.

[Aquitaine]

, I've disproved everything you've claimed.

I appreciate that this discussion started out as a sincere attempt to find out some facts about costs vs. revenue in suburban vs. urban, but it has turned into the same thing that your prop 1 thread turned into - you saying 'The Highland mall is (description)' while I was standing in the Highland Mall, telling you that it wasn't like that, and you still didn't believe me.

This isn't about facts or discussion anymore. I learned a lot here - mostly from CaptRn who is always an excellent source of facts - but for me to drink the kool-aid that you like, I'd have to accept that cops cost less in areas with five times as much crime because they can bicycle the diameter of that area more quickly than they can in the burbs.

It's one thing to have an argument that is less convincing than you might like, but yours aren't even credible.