Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Maybe an interesting half-measure, if NYC were more decentralized, but not eliminated, would be to have property-tax from commercial properties distributed among all five, but residential property tax staying in each city-county?
Norman Mailer ran for mayor NYC in the 60s on a similar platform:
Giving authority to local residents banded together by history, interests, or ethnicity, would create "some real power to the neighborhoods... such as power with their local boards of education, power to decide about the style and quality and number of the police force they want and are willing to pay for, power over the Department of Sanitation, power over their parks."
Also wanted to ban car traffic in Manhattan and have New York City become its own state.
This isn't too surprising. Plenty of places are like this in the country. But you'd assume that once gentrification gets in high enough gear, someone would say "wait a second, these schools are ours" and there would be a pretty rapid flip from low-income and low enrollment to middle-income and high enrollment. Maybe we'll actually see places like Hoboken have essentially no school district in 10-20 years though.
Why? They're in upstate NY. There's not a whole lot of growth there. They're not in horrible shape and there are some jobs, but there's not much there to encourage newcomers. As for gentrifiers, those types often don't want the best of both worlds, they want something with more of a "big city" feel or just "hip". But for whatever reason, some of the towns in New England have attracted some type of gentrification (Northampton, Easthampton, Greenfield, Brattleboro). Area feels economically healthier than upstate NY. So, dunno the reason.
My mom's cousin lived in a rural area outside of Binghamton and worked in Binghamton (or nearby city?). After their kids left, they sold their place and moved to a condo in downtown Binghamton. Why move to Johnson City or Endicott?
I'm thinking about Johnson City or Endicott because of schools. While Binghamton City Schools aren't terrible(a grad rate in the low 70's, BHS has an IB program and the schools are diverse), those 2 other districts have better academic scores and have a good amount of diversity. So, for some families, those 2 may be attractive. Both have an ethnic character as well(Endicott has a Little Italy and JC has a strong Slavic population). What may hurt Endicott is an small section called the Plume related to IBM.
With that said, I think you are right about the perception of Upstate NY and a lack of exposure of such places. Cohoes has seen some gentrification with the reopening of its Music Hall. On the flip side, Auburn is an Upstate NY city seeing lofts in its very walkable Downtown. So, it does vary.
I also think the college presence in those New England towns helped to attract folks.
Depends greatly on the metro, and individual village/city. They may not be as walkable as a center city neighborhood and just feel different in character. Best of both worlds is subjective. Built similar to a denser, walkable city neighborhood but outside the city limits might be the best of both world for those who are looking for "urban" but are looking at schools. These are often expensive
For Boston, Brookline is the classic example. Great schools, very safe, much of it pedestrian oriented similar in form to Boston proper. For New York City, Hoboken is similar in style to Brownstone Brooklyn but its schools are if anything worse. You'd have to look at each place individually.
Yeah Brookline is pretty great. Many of my friends lived in Brookline (many still do) while I was out there. What is nice is that it has more than one nice walkable "main street" type area, and Coolidge Corner feels like a mini-urban center. Doesn't hurt to be surrounded by the city of Boston too, makes getting into Central Boston very quick and easy.
If it wasn't for the terrible attitude of the residents, Beverly Hills would be this way too. Good schools, walkable, job center, some parks, much better infrastructure compared to the city of LA. Of course, Brookline sort of suffers from snooty residents as well, Conan O'Brien called it the stroller capital of the world. Working in the service industry in that neighborhood was a nightmare (only surpassed by the mind-blowing snobbiness of Newton).
Norman Mailer ran for mayor NYC in the 60s on a similar platform:
Giving authority to local residents banded together by history, interests, or ethnicity, would create "some real power to the neighborhoods... such as power with their local boards of education, power to decide about the style and quality and number of the police force they want and are willing to pay for, power over the Department of Sanitation, power over their parks."
Also wanted to ban car traffic in Manhattan and have New York City become its own state.
They can be due to couple variables not just walkability.
Politically, you will likely get a more responsive government from say, an inner ring suburb / small village (since encompassed by a growing urban metro area) than the large mostly dysfunctional crony laden political systems that exist in the big city metro. Good luck getting service issues addressed in big cities with 'limited resources'.
Economically, if the small village / inner ring suburb has a proposed development the developer has more chance to move quickly to meet market demands for whatever they propose to develop, rather than manage the labyrinthine halls of a big city where every department / division has to approve something, or someone along the process wants a 'bribe'/ kickback to make things move.
Transportation options for mobility in absence of auto. This will vary but can be a big benefit if the suburb / village is on a main arterial connecting the metro center to the area. Or just good transportation to major activity (community centers/ institutions) and commercial centers.
Walkability and pedestrian friendliness could be a mixed bag. Using your characterization it likely will be better in the 'village' however, there is no universal guarantee this is so. You may have urban neighborhoods and CBD's that are very walkable and pedestrian friendly with a whole different social / demographic vibe that you find desirable - or not (criminal element / differing cultural values etc...).
In general I'd agree with your statement but it will vary on each individual's priorities in residence, neighborhood and desired demographic / cultural values.
Agree for the most part, especially with the first three paragraphs. I think the Tea Party and RW Republicans are saying the right thing for the wrong reason: small government is better. I don't think it matters so much what tax rates are, but smaller govts can move things through faster. Speaking from experience, it's really nice to know your mayor, councilpeople, etc by name. My kids have played with the mayor/councilpeople's kids; were on the gymnastics team with one councilwoman's kid. A former member of the planning commission goes to my church. It's more up close and personal. Of course, that has its down side as well. But I like it.
Walkability/bikability tends to be easier in a smaller community. Of course, the kicker is there has to be something to walk/bike to. Most communities have grocery stores, schools, parks and the like, but few have much decent retail, even a Kohl's or Target, in their downtown area.
This isn't too surprising. Plenty of places are like this in the country. But you'd assume that once gentrification gets in high enough gear, someone would say "wait a second, these schools are ours" and there would be a pretty rapid flip from low-income and low enrollment to middle-income and high enrollment. Maybe we'll actually see places like Hoboken have essentially no school district in 10-20 years though.
Interesting possibility. I think it's unlikely, though. For one reason, somebody else will step in. For example, when Oakland proved incompetent to run a school district, it was taken away from them. The State of California ran Oakland Unified for a number of years and that'd probably happen again. I mean, nobody expects much from Oakland's schools, but if they come too far off of meeting the low expectations and become so insolvent no one will lend the money again, the State would take them over again. Oakland also can't provide adequate police service so it contracts with CHP/sheriffs to do that, much like many small cities do that aren't big enough to have a police force.
Oakland lacks much in the way of corporate tax base, but it has a lot of very wealthy citizens so the tax base is pretty solid. Where I live we do a similar thing for the same reason as Oakland does. Not sure about Oakland, but the CHP/Sheriffs here patrol "the good side." I rarely saw city PD for awhile where I live, 80/90% of the time it was CHP/sheriff. That's phasing down now as we kicked the old mayor and city manager out and have increased the police force quite a bit recently. A couple of neighborhood HOAs and one commercial district actually contracts with city PD to provide semi-private security patrols here as well. Kind of interesting. Basically, where there's money you can always buy services even when the city government is pretty much completely broken. So you get a combination of working within and from without to get things done, depending how entrenched the powers that be are.
Agree for the most part, especially with the first three paragraphs. I think the Tea Party and RW Republicans are saying the right thing for the wrong reason: small government is better. I don't think it matters so much what tax rates are, but smaller govts can move things through faster. Speaking from experience, it's really nice to know your mayor, councilpeople, etc by name. My kids have played with the mayor/councilpeople's kids; were on the gymnastics team with one councilwoman's kid. A former member of the planning commission goes to my church. It's more up close and personal. Of course, that has its down side as well. But I like it.
Walkability/bikability tends to be easier in a smaller community. Of course, the kicker is there has to be something to walk/bike to. Most communities have grocery stores, schools, parks and the like, but few have much decent retail, even a Kohl's or Target, in their downtown area.
Sometimes I wonder if they are getting small government and less government confused, as there is a difference.
Also, a small community doesn't necessarily need a Big Box store in its Downtown. For instance, here is an example of a locally owned store in a small city Downtown about 25 miles west of where I live: The Liberty Store | Four generations of quality service!
Here is a streetview of the Downtown, which also has a jewelry store, a Wegmans grocery store, a YMCA, museums, community theater, restaurants, new loft apartments, a library, etc. It still has room for improvement though. Google Maps Street View
^^My point is, most of these downtowns don't have any general shopping at all. The coal town turned suburb where I live never really had shopping outside of the "company store", long closed. It is now an office building/coffee shop. People went to Boulder or ordered from the Sears catalog. People living in Illinois farm towns usually went to the nearest city for most of their shopping needs, other than groceries, as late as 1980 when I last lived there.
Plenty of those towns did have shopping. The towns ckhthankgod posted are mostly larger than a farm town or a coal town. Auburn must have, it had 30,000 people in 1900, slightly less now. Here's its downtown in 1910:
Many towns (I'm thinking a population of 10,000 to 40,000, maybe a little smaller), including his upstate examples, I've seen lost a lot of their downtown business to surrounding highway strip developments. Most towns of that size in New England or New York Statehad plenty of businesses. Greenfield, MA is better than most, it still has a few normal store (clothing, furniture).
The suburban downtown near where I grew up (Huntington, NY) had a number of large clothing stores; one or two have managed to survive to this day.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
