Brainerd, Minnesota’s newest addition isn't exactly cause for celebration. Instead, this “high-tech” ice machine reveals deeper issues with public investment, community apathy and neighborhood decline that can plague cities.
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A city may not be able to change from a sales tax system to a different approach—it might be stuck with what the state allows—but that doesn’t make them helpless to overcome the challenges the sales tax presents.
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This creative use of shipping containers has brought new life—and new opportunities for the local economy—to a dreary, vacant parking lot in downtown Saint John, NB.
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A local fitness center in Chisholm, MN, shows that you don’t need to look far outside of your city or town to find the best people to develop it.
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As the Americans With Disabilities Act turns 33 years old this week, let’s debunk some myths that are commonly used as excuses for not making our built environment more accessible.
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Dating back to the 1800s, researchers in the U.S. have challenged the property tax system. So why, to this day, do the richest continue getting a "discount" on their taxes, while the poorest are overcharged?
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At a glance, the sales tax is a nearly invisible revenue source that is also a cash cow. Yet, for local governments, it is the most distorting of taxes. Here’s why.
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Data from North Carolina points to a nationwide problem: that services may be going unfunded in your community because of flawed processes, sloppy math, and lack of respect for the law in the property tax system.
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In Buncombe, NC, flawed computer formulas are being used to generate thousands of dollars in "tax breaks" for owners of larger, more expensive homes.
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Warren Buffet has broken his practice of “staying out of local politics" to criticize a streetcar project in his home city of Omaha, NE…but why does he have nothing to say on the city’s ridiculous and reckless highway projects?
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You can learn a lot about a place by how easily you can do some great Christmas shopping.
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Neighbors in Chapel Hill, NC, mobilized to raise awareness of property tax inequities within their community…and ultimately brought about a $7-million reduction in home assessed values.
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Part of having transparent local accounting is ensuring that the people living in a community know and understand the public costs associated with their homes and businesses. Right now, that isn’t the case in most places.
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A recent study on curbside dining in Toronto found that there are loads of financial possibilities waiting in empty parking spaces.
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We've said it'll take 39 years for Salem, OR, to recoup the money they're spending on the McGilchrist Street “Improvement” Project, and you've asked us to provide more proof for this assertion. So, let's do the math.
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If a natural disaster hit your city, would your tax revenue pay for the damage, or would you be underwater—literally and figuratively?
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Property taxes represent the largest source of revenue for most local governments, and data shows that even unglamorous downtown areas offer more value as taxable properties than big box stores.
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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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Mansions on large lots, not rundown properties in low-socioeconomic-status neighborhoods, are the real blight on a community’s financial health.
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Strong Towns interviews Dr. Christopher Berry, of the University of Chicago, on how we can begin making meaningful changes to the U.S.’s broken property tax system.
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