The "mall" in question is in the middle of a suburb. The "subsidy" of infrastructure that was required regardless seems spurious. Further, both areas "required the city to pay for all the aforementioned services". For that matter, maintaining roads and water/sewage in dense areas is dramatically more expensive than less dense areas.
"even now, post dis-investment, the downtown generates $344k tax and the mall $120k tax"
The article quotes current, failed mall taxes. After most tenants have moved out and the mall is in disarray. Secondly, saying that a 9 block area of mixed retail/commerce pays more taxes than a single mall seems outrageously laughable.
The word "subsidy" almost always appears in articles fomenting nonsense to pander to prejudices. The correlation between it and articles of little actual value is about 1.0.
It does not: "... produce 287% more property tax than the entire mall property. And that's before the Herberger's goes away"
> Secondly, saying that a 9 block area of mixed retail/commerce pays more taxes than a single mall seems outrageously laughable.
Not if that single mall takes up more space than those 9 blocks (which it does)
The figures are presented: even now, post dis-investment, the downtown generates $344k tax and the mall $120k tax, and the latter (1) required the city to pay for all the aforementioned services; (2) reduced the taxes produced by the core. The mall probably couldn't have been built without the subsidies from the town, and they never made sense. Good subsidies have a return greater than one; mall subsidies have a return less than one plus make you dependent on retailers that can disappear overnight even if they have an operating profit.