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In order to accommodate low density suburbs municipal governments have to build quite a bit of infrastructure. Water lines, sewer lines, electric lines, roads, etc... all have to be stretched far away from the city center and connected to many spread out residences (not to mention the pollution and traffic congestion associated with longer commutes). And all of this infrastructure obviously needs to be maintained...
In contrast, if you have a higher density and more centrally located development there is less infrastructure that needs to be built, there are typically less buildings to hook up to, and the buildings are closer together (generally speaking). I'm no expert in this field but it seems fairly intuitive that low density suburban developments are significantly more expensive for a municipal government to support than higher density urban developments.
So here's the question: how is the tax burden associated with the costs of low density suburban developments distributed in a city? Do people typically pay the same rate regardless of what type of development they live in? Or are extra costs built into suburban property values, property taxes, or utility bills? Or is this just an issue that is handled differently place to place?
Well I kind of figured that but I was curious how different cities deal with this. This is a subject I really don't know very much about (as you can probably guess from my original post).
A lower density suburb will likely have higher taxes unless they have a large commercial or industrial tax base. Sometimes they'll use revenue from a private golf club. Some governments have a small city airport. Or they'll be pretty large having annexed a lot of land whether it be developed or not. At least from what I've noticed.
In order to accommodate low density suburbs municipal governments have to build quite a bit of infrastructure. Water lines, sewer lines, electric lines, roads, etc... all have to be stretched far away from the city center and connected to many spread out residences (not to mention the pollution and traffic congestion associated with longer commutes). And all of this infrastructure obviously needs to be maintained...
In contrast, if you have a higher density and more centrally located development there is less infrastructure that needs to be built, there are typically less buildings to hook up to, and the buildings are closer together (generally speaking). I'm no expert in this field but it seems fairly intuitive that low density suburban developments are significantly more expensive for a municipal government to support than higher density urban developments.
You might think so, but it isn't so. The infrastructure needed is more dependent on the number of people served than the area served. Furthermore, building and maintaining infrastructure in relatively non-built-up areas is a lot easier. And the physical infrastructure costs are not the main costs of municipal government anyway.
You might think so, but it isn't so. The infrastructure needed is more dependent on the number of people served than the area served. Furthermore, building and maintaining infrastructure in relatively non-built-up areas is a lot easier. And the physical infrastructure costs are not the main costs of municipal government anyway.
Correct^^^ Also in most new suburban developments, the developer pays for the infrastructure WITHIN the development and occasionlly pays to bring servies TO the new development.
So the cost of the construction of new infrastructure is covered in the building lot prices.
Newer infrastructure has lower maintenance costs than older urban infrastructure and as pointed out
is usually easier to build and maintain because of lower density.
You might think so, but it isn't so. The infrastructure needed is more dependent on the number of people served than the area served. Furthermore, building and maintaining infrastructure in relatively non-built-up areas is a lot easier. And the physical infrastructure costs are not the main costs of municipal government anyway.
If the density is really low, some services can be skipped. For example, cesspools instead of sewers. Or even when the density isn't all that low, for some parts of Long Island because government disinterest or incompetence.
Robert Burchell published a number of papers based primarily on his analysis of alternative
statewide development patterns in New Jersey. According to Burchell (1998), the on-site and
off-site costs of infrastructure come to approximately $37,000 to $41,000 per housing unit (in
$1998), where infrastructure includes roads, water, sewer, and schools. Further, Burchellargues, the costs of “compact” development as a percent of “sprawl” development is about
75% for roads, 80% for utilities, and 95% for schools. Burchell’s documentation is not
sufficiently detailed, however, to determine the source of these cost savings.
Of course, to realize how relevant saving 25% on roads is, you have to realize how much is spent on roads, which is not very much. Cities publish budgets. You can look that up for your city. Any savings in roads is easily off-set by transit spending as you get too dense for the car alone to suffice. NYC spends ~17 as much on operating transit (current consumption) as it spends on roads (infrastructure). Here in California, a lot of new developments have Mello Roos, which is basically an additional property tax. Even in rabidly conservative places such as El Dorado Hills which is basically Tea Party land, people seem very happy to pay Mello Roos. Mello Roos means good roads, good schools, lots of parks and nature trails. It's NOT an insignificant amount and can run around $2000 for a pretty normal SFH per year.
My city spends $35 million on roads out of a budget of $520 million, just as a point of reference, and another $100 million for utilities. We're pretty sprawl-ey. The county-wide transit authority has an operating budget of $31 million and just got $19 million in capital improvement funds. About 40% of the county lives in the city and most of what transit is there is also in the primary city. Transit probably amounts for around 1% of trips countywide, maybe 2% here. And that's being pretty generous. It provides around 5 million trips a year in a county of 700,000. So it'd be 1% if everyone only took two trips a day, which is unlikely. It's pretty rare that I only leave the house once per day. Of course, that's further complicated because in California schools are not funded at the local level. The state takes those monies and doles them out directly to the school districts, so it's not part of the city budget.
The assumption is that suburbs rely on central city infrastructure, not likely in areas where the suburbs have been established several layers away. But for a new development in an established suburb there are numerous hookup and impact fees to developers outside the city. One also demanded a payment from each newly built home to pay for a train station. As far as electric and gas, utilities have their own fee schedules for hookups. The big expense is schools. The school district usually levies an impact fee to cover that. This is how it is done in Illinois.
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