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The N&O has an interesting piece on its editorial page today, highlighting the high cost of living in Orange County, and Chapel Hill in particular. Among the facts it cites as contributing to this high COL:
Orange County has the second-highest property tax rate in the state.
The average Chapel Hill resident pays about 30 percent more in property taxes than anyone else in the state.
Orange County has the highest sales tax rate in North Carolina, yet has the lowest percentage of its budget derived from sales tax revenues.
OWASA has the highest water rates in the state for homeowners.
The county spends more on waste management per person than any other county, over twice the state average.
One net effect of this COL, argues the editorial, is a drop in the black population in Orange County, while the rest of the Triangle counties have seen significant increases:
Not to defend Orange County, but the black population growth statistics should not be viewed as a standalone metric. At a mininum, it should be compared to overall population growth within each county, because I'm pretty sure Orange County's overall population growth also pales in comparison to neighboring. Assuming that is in fact correct, we can conclude that higher taxes & COL impact population growth overall.
Further, can we PLEASE stop trying to bring race into everything. Race will never stop being an isse if the media and others keep trying to break everything down by race. More impactful would be to evaluate these data by socioeconomic group rather than skin color.
Not to defend Orange County, but the black population growth statistics should not be viewed as a standalone metric. At a mininum, it should be compared to overall population growth within each county, because I'm pretty sure Orange County's overall population growth also pales in comparison to neighboring. Assuming that is in fact correct, we can conclude that higher taxes & COL impact population growth overall.
Further, can we PLEASE stop trying to bring race into everything. Race will never stop being an isse if the media and others keep trying to break everything down by race. More impactful would be to evaluate these data by socioeconomic group rather than skin color.
I agree 100%. Absolutely poor journalism here. You can't glean anything from the numbers without also factoring the actual overall growth of the communities. Dumb angle to take anyway...but pretty typical of the N&O recently. All about selling papers.
Not to defend it, but it was a submitted opinion piece, not a journalistic article.
Thanks- I didn't initially catch that. Given the author I expect better:
" Michael Jacobs is a professor in the MBA program at UNC and a former U.S. Treasury official. He was recently appointed to the N.C. Financial Literacy Council"
First off, that newspaper article by N&O was racist in itself. Please note at the bottom of the page is the blurb that says: "Unfortunate policies lead county to a paler shade of Orange". Well the not so cute play on words such as paler shade is code word for white. Meaning the county is becoming "more white" Looking at the wording and set up of the page we can see that the unstated charge is that property taxes are used as a tool to keep blacks out of a certian area. Liberal journalistic garbage at it's best. New York Newsday on Long Island, NY is famous for the same stuff. Why race must be injected into everything is beyond me. If you can afford to live somewhere, you live there period. Who the hell cares what your skin color is. (I'm more concerned that I'm not living next to a liberal loon) Also notice the figures for white and black population in the counties is based on a false starting line in that the black population numbers for each county are based on 2010 figures while the white population numbers are based on 2000 figures ten years behind. (Like there was no growth in ten years,right) I guess the N&O didn't think that was important. Either that or they were writing the story for Liberals like themselves who can't read or understand rational thought. I hope you folks don't have too many of these fools walking and living amongest you. I and my wife are planing on moving to the triangle area within the next couple of years. We would hate to find out that these fools turned your beautiful state and towns into a liberal-socialist sewer like New York State.
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