The American Jobs Plan Will Make Our Infrastructure Crisis Worse

Re:The American Jobs Plan Will Make Our Infrastructure Crisi... by Retric on Wednesday April 14, 2021 @10:59PM (#26815753)

You’re assuming there is some city near by. Most small towns in the US are on their own well outside of commute range for any cities. The US only has 310 cities, if you’re using 100,000+, people as a city and they largely cluster near each other

Further, Education and it’s associated pension and healthcare costs are by far local governments biggest expense so office buildings are a much better deal for local governments than housing. This gets reflected in zoning where many local governments actively discourage people moving into them.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The American Jobs Plan Will Make Our Infrastructure Crisi... by alanbernstein on Wednesday April 14, 2021 @11:29PM (#26815926)

Those 310 cities "only" include 90+ million people, not counting wider metropolitan areas. What's your point?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The American Jobs Plan Will Make Our Infrastructure Crisi... by Retric on Wednesday April 14, 2021 @11:52PM (#26816032)

Generalization across 332 million people in the US is always going to oversimplify things. Thinking in terms of funding for schools is generally vastly more costly than water and sewerage, but in a few communities that’s a major issue.

Local governments are responding to local issues. Some cities are actively zoning to discourage people living in them because they don’t want to fund more schools. Office buildings are in effect more profitable than condos when a state and local government is primarily funded via property taxes. And guess what Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming have no income taxes.

[ Parent | on HN ]