Maybe the one good thing you can say about municipal debt is that it’s on the balance sheets. We’re tracking it. But there is another type of future obligation that is like debt…only worse. It comes back again and again, and too many cities aren’t paying attention.
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We have to stop looking at the stagnation and decline of our blocks and neighborhoods as a normal part of the development process.
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The problem with new American suburbs isn’t a "lack of planning" or “uncontrolled growth” or “inadequate infrastructure.” The problem is a lack of basic financial solvency.
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We’ve been living for decades on the urban economic equivalent of anabolic steroids: it’s time for some good old-fashioned diet and exercise. The key is to reorient the way we approach growth. Instead of thinning out our cities and taking on more infrastructure liabilities, we need to wring real value out of the places we’ve already built.
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Tampa has an epidemic of leaking and bursting pipes. But don’t worry, the city’s taking action! …by proposing an eightfold increase in the amount it spends on maintenance for the next 20 years, half funded by new debt. How did we get to this point?
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The unproductive use of infrastructure has put most cities, even those that are superficially prosperous, in a position where they won’t be able to afford to maintain what they’ve built. The signs of this crisis are everywhere—if you’re willing to look.
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Why does infrastructure cost so much to build in the U.S.? The fundamental reasons aren’t technical. We’ve structured our postwar economy to use overspending on infrastructure as a way to induce short-term growth.
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Pine Island, MN (population 3,000) has huge dreams, yet they can’t take care of their basic systems. Who pays the price?
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How much road does your city have—and how much does it actually have the money to maintain? We compare “calories in” to “calories out” before we binge on ice cream; what if we took the same approach to our infrastructure budgets? One city did, and here’s what they found out.
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America has an excessive infrastructure problem—and perhaps nowhere is that more clear than in places like the massive, center-less city of Palm Bay, Florida.
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This Canadian city is set to get a new, $2 billion, state-of-the-art hospital. All well and good except for one thing: why do they want to build it in a rural area on the far outskirts of town?
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More than ever of what we make is produced with little thought to its durability. But what happens when we apply this mindset to the very communities we live in?
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The discipline of not acquiring more until we've wrung true value out of what we already possess can make our lives richer and fuller. And this is a lesson we need to apply to our cities as well.
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Regional fragmentation allows cities to pursue quick growth and shift the long-term costs onto their neighbors. Can a proposal to merge St. Louis with its suburbs make the region stronger by fixing these incentives?
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There are many ways for state and local governments to run hidden deficits, one of which is deferred maintenance. But it turns out there is a way to measure the extent to which local governments kick the maintenance can down the road.
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County leadership continually brags about its low tax rate and high amount of services. But if you doubt the fundamental math behind that equation, there’s no need to look behind the curtain because the ratings agencies have given Cobb top marks.
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Why do places like Cobb County, Georgia keep spending more and more, while their municipal budgets go further and further into the red? This week at Strong Towns, we’re going to dig into the tale of Cobb County: a poster child for the Ponzi-scheme approach to growth.
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The crazy distortions we see in housing and real estate won't be solved by centralized interventions, be they corporate or government. Only at the local level do we have the nuance to start creating something that works.
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Edina, MN, is a very impressive suburb that is asking a lot of the right questions.
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Suburbia is a massive experiment, and millions of Americans are finding out that it doesn’t work.
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