Public officials may feel forced to approve large, expensive projects. But in doing so, they are making high-stakes financial commitments with taxpayer money, often without fully understanding the long-term consequences. The results can be devastating.
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The Growth Ponzi Scheme encourages city governments to take on obligations they can never hope to sustain. Purcellville, Virginia, offers a stark example of where this path leads.
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Having to shut down major pieces of infrastructure because it can’t afford to repair or replace them is a bad position for a city to be in. But in some cases, it’s just the wake-up call officials need to start making better decisions.
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In this episode of Upzoned, co-hosts Abby Newsham and Chuck Marohn talk about the crisis currently facing the Florida condo market. They discuss the backlog of deferred maintenance revealed by new safety regulations, what this means for individuals and communities, and possible paths forward.
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Annexation is a method of city growth in which parcels or developments are added to municipal borders by city officials and staff. It's usually a disaster for a city's finances. But there are a few (very rare) cases where it might be advantageous.
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Are urban areas really more financially sustainable than suburbs? Do urban areas inherently have higher infrastructure costs? Here's what Strong Towns actually says about the Suburban Experiment and infrastructure spending.
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The financial struggles of Houston and the cities of the Silicon Valley area—as well as tens of thousands of others across North America—have the same underlying cause.
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Houston’s fiscal problems are less critical than other major cities with large budget shortfalls—yet, their mayor is correct when he said his city is broke, that the financial approach of the city is clearly not working. Here’s why.
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Five families from Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, Los Angeles, and Pittsburg move to the suburbs in search of the American dream…only to find decline.
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The proposed annual budget for Winnipeg, MB, reveals the true cost of the Suburban Experiment, and the vibrancy that the city (and so many others like it) has sacrificed in many of its neighborhoods.
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The town council in Castle Rock, CO, received a shocking briefing at a recent meeting: that their single, mid-sized region within a single, mid-sized state has accrued almost a billion dollars of debt. But how?
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How does the suburban development pattern present itself in a smaller island space, versus in the contiguous United States?
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For seven weeks Jackson’s residents had to bear the brunt of a failing water system, and unfortunately it was bound to happen.
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The Suburban Experiment is a bad business model, and nothing demonstrates that more clearly than Jackson, Mississippi’s, ongoing water crisis.
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This Canadian city made an unprecedented decision to stop expanding its urban growth boundary. What comes next?
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Don’t be fooled: Winnipeg’s newly proposed “rapid transit” project is actually a road-widening project in disguise. And it aims to borrow money so the City can destroy millions of dollars of its own tax base.
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You don’t want to miss this CNBC documentary video about the financial fragility of the suburban development pattern.
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Sarasota County, FL, is viewed as a trailblazer in the prevention of unchecked suburbanization. So why has its growth management plan has not resulted in a better pattern of development?
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The recent tragedy in Surfside, Florida, is both a harbinger of things to come and emblematic of the nation’s larger problem with maintaining our built environment.
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Collier County is poised to spend over $200 million extending utilities to a whole new, previously rural, portion of the county. Let's #DoTheMath on this plan.
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