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A comment on Americans need a six-figure salary to afford a new home in most cities. Parent comment

Re:Americans need a six-figure salary to afford a new home i... by guestbest on Saturday November 11, 2023 @02:02AM (#38228164)
What makes a suburban area a hellscape? Is it unusually hot? Are there a large amount of murders? Just curious what that means since I grew up with the term and years later still bought a house in a city next to a large city which is really an unbroken metropolis without a real green space between. There are a few farms nearby and ranches getting converted to 5 story apartments and 4 lane roads, and that seems less friendly than the small city of homeowners the city has evolved from which is what it was when I bought my house here. Small cities seem nice to me.
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Re:Americans need a six-figure salary to afford a new home i... by t-writescode on Saturday November 11, 2023 @02:20AM (#38228240)
Nothing is walkable. It cannot pay for itself in taxes because the income is too spread out. You have to use a car everywhere. The proliferation of car-centricness that it encourages also encourages the increase of stroads which becomes a self-perpetuating cycle that forces more car usage, and so on.
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Re:Americans need a six-figure salary to afford a new home i... by guestbest on Saturday November 11, 2023 @02:53AM (#38228394)
It pays for itself with property taxes (Texas) and sales taxes from car dealerships.
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Re:Americans need a six-figure salary to afford a new home i... by t-writescode on Saturday November 11, 2023 @02:57AM (#38228403)
The property taxes don't anywhere near cover its costs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI

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Re:Americans need a six-figure salary to afford a new home i... by guestbest on Saturday November 11, 2023 @03:00AM (#38228417)
That’s a link to a video. Just summarize in text what you mean
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Re:Americans need a six-figure salary to afford a new home i... by t-writescode on Saturday November 11, 2023 @03:14AM (#38228462)
Summary: it cannot pay for itself in taxes because the income is too spread out.

To the downvoter: I don't know what more you want. That's the synopsis. The density is too low, so they don't get enough money to sustain themselves with all the infrastructure that is required to have suburbia

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Re:Americans need a six-figure salary to afford a new home i... by Terr_ on Saturday November 11, 2023 @03:46AM (#38228584)
(Not parent poster) Suburbs generally need more money for their sprawling infrastructure than they can supply with tax revenue from the suburbs.

This means that they exist because they're being subsidized by revenue collected from elsewhere, such as from cities.

Whether this is fair or exploitative depends on how you figure the math for "it's being collected from people who live in the suburbs and just happen to work in the city."

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Re:Americans need a six-figure salary to afford a new home i... by Always_Anon on Saturday November 11, 2023 @04:23PM (#38234680)
That's not true for Texas. In Texas, the entire costs of suburbs are paid for in property taxes and utility district fees and bonds. Texas is one of the few states where the majority of taxes collected by the state are property taxes. Or so I was told by a coworker living in Texas when I brought this up.
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Re:Americans need a six-figure salary to afford a new home i... by Terr_ on Saturday November 11, 2023 @09:57PM (#38236817)
> In Texas, the entire costs of suburbs are paid for in property taxes and utility district fees and bonds.

The question is how long they can keep taking out more and more debt against the promise of never-ending growth and income from one-time development sales. The answer probably isn't "forever".

https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/11/21/choose-your-f...

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Re:Americans need a six-figure salary to afford a new home i... by Always_Anon on Sunday November 12, 2023 @01:31AM (#38237870)
This is a predicament everywhere in the US, the suburbs are not alone in this issue of debt financing for... everything...
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Re:Americans need a six-figure salary to afford a new home i... by pkulak on Saturday November 11, 2023 @04:57PM (#38234978)
When housing is spread out, each house is responsible for so much infrastructure, taxes by the one property can’t hope to cover it.
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Re:Americans need a six-figure salary to afford a new home i... by Always_Anon on Saturday November 11, 2023 @04:19AM (#38228722)
That's not true for Texas. In Texas, the entire costs of suburbs are paid for in property taxes and utility district fees and bonds. Texas is one of the few states where the majority of taxes collected by the state are property taxes.
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Re:Americans need a six-figure salary to afford a new home i... by guestbest on Saturday November 11, 2023 @01:33PM (#38233067)
Thanks. This is why I brought up Texas. Only the schools funding are from a pool of property taxes due to the ‘Robin Hood plan’ from the 90s. Local roads are country or city maintained from taxes. And the state roads are from state taxes. It’s all logically laid out.
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Re:Americans need a six-figure salary to afford a new home i... by lesuorac on Saturday November 11, 2023 @12:11PM (#38232175)
I mean with a six-figure income instead of 41k like the video has it becomes pretty sustainable to pay $9200/yr in property taxes.

I also bet a lot of people in suburbs of Bay Area / NYC wish they only payed $9200/yr.

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Re:Americans need a six-figure salary to afford a new home i... by opportune on Saturday November 11, 2023 @02:42AM (#38228346)
Less friendly how? I think you are confusing size with development pattern. A smaller community will always be more friendly than a larger one. The problem with suburbs is when they are forced on a community that has outgrown them.
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