[jogiba]

Skyscraper in Memphis sits vacant since the 80s:


Detroit:




Detroit went from a high of nearly 2 million in the 1950’s it is down to 713,000. This makes it the first major city in the nation that achieved a population of 1 million to fall below that number, ever.

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Last edited by jogiba; 03-31-2011 at 06:56 PM.

[mikemike]

I can't comment on New Orleans, which has a fairly unique history. Most other cities around the country are dealing more with new development.

Our city has purchased some run down tracts just to help surrounding owners and to cut back on crime. I don't see taxing existing less dense urban areas differently, though. People living or owning there did not necessarily buy in knowing that it would become less dense, the way a developer knows that outlying areas will need new services.

Its true that this is not a universal problem, but it is a very serious problem for my city and many rust belt cities, whether they like to admit it or not. The city spends about $500 million/year and has been running deficits of $50-60 million/year and unlike the feds we don't have a money printer down here.

I think a buyout program to get help people relocate is reasonable but speculators and absentee property owners deserve to get hung out to dry. In the case of Louisiana, everyone whose home was damaged by Katrina was given an opportunity between 2006-2007 to either sell their home to the state for the fair market value less insurance money they received, additional rebuilding money above and beyond their insurance to get them back in their homes in exchange for rebuilding and staying at least 3 years, or to take their chances and refuse both offers.

[shooz]

Mayor Bing has been floating that idea around here for about a year.
One of the biggest problems Detroit has is it's size as well.
It's said you could fit Manhattan, Boston and Frisco within it's boarders and have room left over.
Lot's of 100yr+ old homes full of windows.
Some areas are trying urban farming, in the empty lots.
Detroit is also the home of the words largest drinking water distribution system.
Parts of it are still quite lovely and lively.

[GeneV]

I mean they would raise the rates even more... of course then the city would raise their services prices even more, rural areas raise... death spiral...

As you correctly pointed out, cities may have facilities related to their services in rural areas, for which they pay. However, cities generally don't furnish services to rural areas, so I'm not sure I follow the part about raising the rates in a death spiral. The impact fees I'm talking about apply when a city gobbles up a rural area and tries to make it part of a city. The goal of the fees is to pass on the true cost of annexing, and make it more attractive to redevelop decaying areas which already in the city. Cities which don't do this have a way of becoming donuts--sweet on the outside with nothing in the middle.

The death spiral would really apply if the tax burden were increased on decaying parts of the city, as seems to be suggested by the OP.

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Last edited by GeneV; 04-01-2011 at 05:01 AM.

[newarts]

Shouldn't the vaunted "invisible hand" take care of all this? The now-lower property costs in sparsely populated ex-high density areas should attract buyers, which will drive property up, hence drive up tax & other receipts up

The same thing works in low density affluent areas doesn't it? Highly valued properties pay more in taxes which in turn relieves some infrastructure development and operating costs.

While direct cost charges for infrastructure services makes some sense, it doesn't always work particularly well for the over-all benefit of society. Were it not for mandated infrastructure expansion at uniform cost to the direct beneficiaries we'd be in a world of hurt. I'm thinking of things like farm to market roads, rural electrification, universal telephone service etc...

But what will happen to the fragmented cities like New Orleans and Detroit while waiting for the invisible hand to move? Cash flow is a serious problem *now*; how can cities cope day to day? It is another example of how miserably society adjusts to rapid changes.

I really wish I had a crystal ball to see what will happen in the next 20 years! Will society cope or collapse?

[mikemike]

Mayor Bing has been floating that idea around here for about a year.
One of the biggest problems Detroit has is it's size as well.
It's said you could fit Manhattan, Boston and Frisco within it's boarders and have room left over.
Lot's of 100yr+ old homes full of windows.
Some areas are trying urban farming, in the empty lots.
Detroit is also the home of the words largest drinking water distribution system.
Parts of it are still quite lovely and lively.

Cities are located where they are for a reason, usually access to abundant fresh water supplies and a natural port which makes them ideal locations for trading.

100s of thousands or millions of people will still live in Detroit 100 years from now. The sprawl in detroit (LA, Houston, and Dallas) had something to do with the car culture, maybe an electric car culture will bring people back into the city since they won't be able to make it from bloomfield hills to downtown and back on one charge of their volt.

One geographical feature that I like about New Orleans is that being surrounded by a lake and wetlands you have to go over a bridge to get into the city and there are several bridges from the immediate suburbs and then to get into the immediate suburbs from the exurbs you have to cross one of only a few very long (12-26 miles) bridges. This makes it very undesirable to live in the exurbs since every trip means a journey between where you live and civilization and any traffic can turn a 30 minute commute into 1 hour commute.

Shouldn't the vaunted "invisible hand" take care of all this?

The invisible hand only works if there is some rational pricing going on. The problem I am pointing out is an example of irrational pricing where high cost citizens are getting deeply discounted services because the model for taxation is based on the city having 50% more households and growing.

[newarts]

maybe the invisible hand of greatly increasing fuel prices will drive people back to the cities?

That and Wall Street's invisible hand in our pockets will further destroy the middle class driving them back to the lower cost cities!

I'd kinda like living in the country 'long as I have electric & high speed internet. And food occasionally.

[newarts]

...............
The invisible hand only works if there is some rational pricing going on. The problem I am pointing out is an example of irrational pricing where high cost citizens are getting deeply discounted services because the model for taxation is based on the city having 50% more households and growing.

That's right. I think the original pricing was not so irrational and what we are seeing (and you are trying to cope with) is the result of sudden changes in city population due to big collapses of something or other (a levee, an industry, whatever).

If the city were to charge the high cost citizens more for their services it would have the (no-so-invisible hand) effect of ultimately driving them back to the cities.

It is just the way that progressive taxes are supposed to work! Wealth redistribution can be a good tool for society

[Ratmagiclady]

Part of the problem with Detroit in particular is that instead of 'the market' making the out-of-demand housing more accessible to people previously priced-out of home ownership, what 'the market' is doing is trying to serve its own ends to try and go back to the way things *were,* and keep the real estate prices *up* while demanding bailouts for the big finance, (which promptly gets *sat on* by people who already have billions) and the like.

(Of course this doesn't work without the actual *jobs* there. Investing in an alternative energy industry would solve a *lot* of problems at once, and start something *moving.* )


Sprawl, particularly based on a car culture and cheap oil isn't viable, but on the other hand, this is a chance to *reorganize* some of that. Destroying too much for the sake of budget cuts in the short term isn't doing much: a *plan* is what's called for. It seems to me that what should be done is part of that sprawl should be torn down to rebuild a lot of the rest, and rebuild it around some industry that needs to be invested in anyway.

[mikemike]

Sprawl, particularly based on a car culture and cheap oil isn't viable, but on the other hand, this is a chance to *reorganize* some of that. Destroying too much for the sake of budget cuts in the short term isn't doing much: a *plan* is what's called for. It seems to me that what should be done is part of that sprawl should be torn down to rebuild a lot of the rest, and rebuild it around some industry that needs to be invested in anyway.

Attracting 1 million new residents into Detroit proper with a 12% unemployment rate isn't going to be a situation resolved in the short term or even medium term. The infrastructure was built out in 1960s and even under rosy scenarios won't be utilized for another decade. Its better to trim those costs now and only rebuild it when its needed again.

[shooz]

Thanks to our awful governor, we just lost a $60,000,000 film deal along with the 2,300 jobs it would have created.
The "invisible hand" is quite visible, and quite ugly and destructive.
What is the cure for this hand?

[jogiba]

Mayor Bing has been floating that idea around here for about a year.
One of the biggest problems Detroit has is it's size as well.
It's said you could fit Manhattan, Boston and Frisco within it's boarders and have room left over.
Lot's of 100yr+ old homes full of windows.
Some areas are trying urban farming, in the empty lots.
Detroit is also the home of the words largest drinking water distribution system.
Parts of it are still quite lovely and lively.

Detroit has 138.8 sq mi compared to 757.7 sq mi for Jacksonville FL and 303 sq mi for New York City so I don't see were size is a problem.
List of United States cities by area - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia