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Old 04-04-2012, 10:13 AM
 
Location: Boston
1,082 posts, read 2,879,488 times
Reputation: 920

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Johnhw2 View Post
City dwellers idolize Paris, NYC, or London and hope their city grows into something that makes residents of those cities find their own city appealing. They assume all others want dense residential development, architectural wonders skylines, mass transit, large in city parks, restaurants on every corner and they fail to realize some really dont like this stuff.
I'm sure there are a few people who fit your description, but I for one have no desire to force my lifestyle on you or anybody else. But at the same time, you need to recognize that the choice somebody makes to live as a country bumpkin costs money beyond what he and the other bumpkins generate in taxes. See the post about Pennsylvania for more on this concept.
Quote:

Rural residents feed the city dwellers, see their roads neglicted while double decker freeways are built for city folks. Rural dwellers see their taxes fund mass transit that isnt self sustaining, mortgage fixes for the city slickers and feel they are getting a raw deal.
We pay well for the food and other natural resources produced by rural areas, and in return develop ever cheaper products that enhance the ability for somebody to live away from other people. Subsidies apply not just to mass transit, but also all other forms of transit (especially rural roads). Again, see the Pennsylvania comment. As for the mortgage crisis? That tended to hit much more in the areas of sprawl that have a mismatch between cost of infrastructure and number of users.
Quote:

If this wasnt enough, the city slickers chose to look down on rural dwellers assuming they are under educated, bible thumping science deniers and generally less important than city slickers. Rural dwellers really dont care what the city slicker thinks. But when the real estate bubble and financial disaster hit them using tax dollars to bail out banks and city slickers who bought more home than they could afford. This on top of a tax check that funds more things for city slickers than themselves, they feel none too found of city slickers.
An ignorant post speaks for itself.
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Old 04-04-2012, 11:36 AM
 
Location: Pennsylvania
1,386 posts, read 1,549,475 times
Reputation: 946
Quote:
Originally Posted by HenryAlan View Post
Subsidies apply not just to mass transit, but also all other forms of transit (especially rural roads). Again, see the Pennsylvania comment.
I'm from Pennsylvania and that other user was way off on his remarks about US 15. That user doesn't understand how high commercial truck traffic is in Pennsylvania compared to other states in the union due to Pennsylvania's geographic location. Or the fact that interstates like I-80, I-78, I-81, I-83, I-90, etc don't go through Philadelphia and Pittsburgh yet are vital to transportation both private and commercial through Pennsylvania.
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Old 04-04-2012, 11:51 AM
 
Location: Boston
1,082 posts, read 2,879,488 times
Reputation: 920
Quote:
Originally Posted by cwa1984 View Post
I'm from Pennsylvania and that other user was way off on his remarks about US 15. That user doesn't understand how high commercial truck traffic is in Pennsylvania compared to other states in the union due to Pennsylvania's geographic location. Or the fact that interstates like I-80, I-78, I-81, I-83, I-90, etc don't go through Philadelphia and Pittsburgh yet are vital to transportation both private and commercial through Pennsylvania.
I should have been more precise. As you point out, more than one statement was made about Pennsylvania road spending. This is the one to which I refer:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gnutella View Post
Barry Schoch, Pennsylvania's Transportation Secretary, just put the smack down on all the rural Pennsylvanians who complain about the money that PennDOT "wastes" on mass transit in urban areas, especially Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. He pointed out that the state spends more money subsidizing rural roads than mass transit. In Pennsylvania, if it's paved and it handles fewer than 10,000 vehicles per day, then it's being subsidized. An awful lot of the road network in the rural areas that fits those criteria. If anything, it's the taxpayers in the urban areas, especially Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, who are being shafted here.
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Old 04-04-2012, 12:06 PM
 
Location: Pennsylvania
1,386 posts, read 1,549,475 times
Reputation: 946
Quote:
Originally Posted by HenryAlan View Post
I should have been more precise. As you point out, more than one statement was made about Pennsylvania road spending. This is the one to which I refer:
But the post there with the comment by Barry Schoch, Pennsylvania's Transportation Secretary doesn't cover the whole story on this matter. I already explained the US 15 situation and the interstate situation. One thing that is not explained however is that Pennsylvania tries to kick the funding of rural roads to local governments which due to the way tax collection is set up not just in Pennsylvania but all the states for that matter local governments in rural areas lack the tax base to pay for them. Not only that but the state of Pennsylvania tries to kick funding of the interstates to local governments which again have no way of funding them. I'm sure this might sound like a good thing to people in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh but if something like I-81 becomes inoperable due to local governments not being able to afford it will **** off congress in a heart beat.
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Old 04-04-2012, 12:54 PM
 
Location: Boston
1,082 posts, read 2,879,488 times
Reputation: 920
I'm not against funding rural roads. That's not my argument at all. We should fund and maintain them, even if it means that city residents are paying for roads they don't use. That's not the issue to me. What I don't like is that we subsidize rural roads but take flack for wanting urban transit subsidies. We need to subsidize both, so that people can efficiently travel in the most suitable mode regardless of location.
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Old 04-04-2012, 01:05 PM
 
Location: Old Town Alexandria
14,496 posts, read 26,515,547 times
Reputation: 8966
Without getting politics involved, in general some people think their "state" is the best...I actually never saw this mentality until this forum.

Most people live in a regional area, a neighborhood. I grew up in a suburb of NY and never took problems/cristiciams in NYC personally, or Upstate, or Rochester. (who cares?) everyone is different.

I honestly don't get it at all. In S. Florida you live in a community, you dont freak out if someone critiques Lake City or Tampa, each area is so very different. It is like comparing apples to oranges and no one wins . Its sort of like people who root for a certain football team and cannot stand the other team. Kind of 7th grade mentality imo.
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Old 04-04-2012, 01:51 PM
 
Location: Tippecanoe County, Indiana
26,375 posts, read 46,238,636 times
Reputation: 19455
It's about boundaries and not respecting them. City people move into rural areas and buy up property and proceed to post land as no hunting when the local tradition was that private landowners did not post land at all. Rural lands are generally open access to hunting, fishing, hiking, etc as long as everyone respects the landowner. When land is further restricted and subdivided in rural areas it reduces the freedoms enjoyed by the majority of people who have lived there for generations. NH is a leader in land conservation and management and that leads to a great symbiotic relationship between landowners and those from the city who want to enjoy a well managed conserved and managed forest with cut trails.
Other issues come up when city people come in and start demanding far more services and amenities than what exists in the local area. This, in turn, drives local taxes higher by increasing spending for new roads, town buildings, more schools, water lines, sewer lines, etc. All of these costs get tacked onto the property tax bill because the state does not have an income or sales tax. Each individual town has some control over how much is spent and on what services the dollars get allocated to be spent. If the city dwellers want more services and amenities they should move to the higher tax towns and leave those people alone who want fewer services and lower taxes. If the people in the more remote towns want those services and amenities they will often move to a larger town or city and then retire to the more remote town.
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Old 04-04-2012, 02:06 PM
 
Location: The canyon (with my pistols and knife)
14,169 posts, read 22,592,446 times
Reputation: 17328
Quote:
Originally Posted by cwa1984 View Post
But the post there with the comment by Barry Schoch, Pennsylvania's Transportation Secretary doesn't cover the whole story on this matter. I already explained the US 15 situation and the interstate situation. One thing that is not explained however is that Pennsylvania tries to kick the funding of rural roads to local governments which due to the way tax collection is set up not just in Pennsylvania but all the states for that matter local governments in rural areas lack the tax base to pay for them. Not only that but the state of Pennsylvania tries to kick funding of the interstates to local governments which again have no way of funding them. I'm sure this might sound like a good thing to people in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh but if something like I-81 becomes inoperable due to local governments not being able to afford it will **** off congress in a heart beat.
I-376 in Pittsburgh handles orders of magnitude more traffic than U.S. 15 does, yet it remains a pair of cattle chutes between Pittsburgh International Airport and Monroeville. Widening U.S. 15 was not an immediate need the way modernizing I-376 still is.
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Old 04-04-2012, 02:36 PM
 
Location: Youngstown, Oh.
5,496 posts, read 9,437,339 times
Reputation: 5604
Quote:
Originally Posted by GraniteStater View Post
It's about boundaries and not respecting them. City people move into rural areas and buy up property and proceed to post land as no hunting when the local tradition was that private landowners did not post land at all. Rural lands are generally open access to hunting, fishing, hiking, etc as long as everyone respects the landowner. When land is further restricted and subdivided in rural areas it reduces the freedoms enjoyed by the majority of people who have lived there for generations. NH is a leader in land conservation and management and that leads to a great symbiotic relationship between landowners and those from the city who want to enjoy a well managed conserved and managed forest with cut trails.
Other issues come up when city people come in and start demanding far more services and amenities than what exists in the local area. This, in turn, drives local taxes higher by increasing spending for new roads, town buildings, more schools, water lines, sewer lines, etc. All of these costs get tacked onto the property tax bill because the state does not have an income or sales tax. Each individual town has some control over how much is spent and on what services the dollars get allocated to be spent. If the city dwellers want more services and amenities they should move to the higher tax towns and leave those people alone who want fewer services and lower taxes. If the people in the more remote towns want those services and amenities they will often move to a larger town or city and then retire to the more remote town.
IMO, those aren't "city people" but suburbanites creating more sprawl. Suburbanites are a drain on cities, too. In places where population doens't grow fast enough to replace them, (like rust belt cities) suburbanites' demands for new/bigger schools, libraries, municipal buildings, etc. in their new home, usually also leads to the closure of existing schools, libraries, municipal buildings, etc. in the city.
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Old 04-04-2012, 02:50 PM
 
Location: Tippecanoe County, Indiana
26,375 posts, read 46,238,636 times
Reputation: 19455
Quote:
Originally Posted by JR_C View Post
IMO, those aren't "city people" but suburbanites creating more sprawl. Suburbanites are a drain on cities, too. In places where population doens't grow fast enough to replace them, (like rust belt cities) suburbanites' demands for new/bigger schools, libraries, municipal buildings, etc. in their new home, usually also leads to the closure of existing schools, libraries, municipal buildings, etc. in the city.
Yes, deferred maintenance or the crumbling of existing infrastructure in any city or town is a huge negative for any place that tries to retain and grow businesses and employment. The inherent costs to maintain the infrastructure get more difficult when the taxbase of the city flees to outlying areas and then demands new infrastructure. Taxes increase most of the time as a result of this nonsensical pattern of development.
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