Re:San Francisco: The Worst-Run Big City in the U.S.
by ahi on Thursday December 17, 2009 @02:39AM
(#1000621)
Density lowers per capita infrastructure cost, but it also decreases tax revenues per capita. High density cities have to support the infrastructure used by commuters but can only capture a little of their tax value. During the day DC's population nearly doubles so they have to provide infrastructure for 1,000,000 people with a tax base of 600,000.
Re:San Francisco: The Worst-Run Big City in the U.S.
by ghshephard on Thursday December 17, 2009 @04:13AM
(#1000706)
...Except for the fact that in California, with the inability to increase Property Taxes quickly (Thank you Prop 13), an inordinate amount of revenue actually comes from commercial taxes (Sales Taxes being a large one). As a result, counties engage in a game of _discouraging_ residential zoning, and encouraging commercial zoning. I'll find a citation. [Edit - http://www.caltax.org/MEMBER/digest/feb2000/feb00-4.htm - See: What are some of these side effects? ]
I think you're wrong about population and density though. I'd expect that the huge concentration of people would lower per-capita infrastructure costs and enable other economies of scale. Comparing San Francisco to New York City, we find that NYC, with 8.3 million residents [1] in 305 sq. mi [2] has budgeted $43.4 billion for FY2010 [3]. San Francisco has 47 sq. mi [4], so it's much less dense and yet spends over 50% more per capita.
[1] http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/census/popcur.shtml [2] http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/landusefacts/landusefactsho... [3] http://www.nyc.gov/html/omb/downloads/pdf/sum1_09.pdf [4] http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:pRkHCezT76IJ:www.ci.sf.c...