Would you take free land in rural America?

Re:Would you take free land in rural America? by JoeAltmaier on Sunday January 30, 2022 @03:36PM (#30140829)

Not my point. Tax income for small towns no long match infrastructure support costs. Never mind who's buying what where.

It's the small town buckling to the WalGetCo corporate negotiators, giving them tax breaks and new roads and water and sewer expansion. With just one business served by the new infrastructure: the big box store.

Sure the taxable property goes up, city income goes up; but the density is way less than the old downtown, the new income doesn't come close to paying for the new outflows, and the old downtown businesses find themselves subsidizing their competition on the edge of town.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Would you take free land in rural America? by beerandt on Sunday January 30, 2022 @03:47PM (#30140923)

So wrong.

For places with sales tax, a big box moving in can easily double a small towns tax revenue overnight.

I don't dispute that small business suffers, but its far from zero-sum. The increased revenue benefits the town far more than the town pays for any infrastructure upkeep.

Especially since most cities require the developer to pay for all the initial upgrades in the first place, including their own utilities tie-ins and improvements to extant public roads (eg traffic studies, adding lanes, installing signals).

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Would you take free land in rural America? by JoeAltmaier on Monday January 31, 2022 @09:28AM (#30148215)

So right. This was covered on a post here on HN last week. An in-depth review of an (Illinois?) town and the hole they'd dug for themselves.

Read it, and reconsider.

[ Parent | on HN ]