One of the
great aspects of writing about urbanism is the multitude of other folks writing
eloquently and persuasively on the same topic.
Yes, the wealth of good scholarship casts my efforts in a harsh light,
but that’s a small price to pay for being in the company of insightful and
passionate people.
I was
reminded of this a couple of weeks back when I listened to a StrongTowns
webinar. The primary topic of the
webinar was an approach to low-cost, neighborhood-level community improvement
projects. It was an intriguing subject
that will eventually work its way into this blog.
But for this
post, I want to write about and build upon a story that StrongTowns founder
Chuck Marohn told during his introductory comments.
StrongTowns
is a well-known and well-regarded urbanist advocacy organization. I have objective data on this from a
questionnaire I was recently asked to complete, asking to which urbanism
organizations I belonged. StrongTowns
was among the fifteen organizations listed.
So I have at least one data point putting StrongTowns among the top
fifteen urbanist organizations.
StrongTowns
was founded and remains based in Brainerd, Minnesota, a community of fewer than
14,000 people about 125 miles north of Minneapolis. One would think that a town of that size, as the
headquarters of one of the top fifteen urbanist organizations, would have an
awareness of urbanist thinking, if not an urbanist policy slant. One would apparently be wrong.
Marohn told
of recently being surprised by a proposed $7.15 million water and sewer extension
from Brainerd to the nearby Crow Wing County Airport. Despite
the absence of public awareness, the concept was well along, having been
included in state legislation that allocated dollars from a state
infrastructure revolving fund.
When
StrongTowns tried to research who the project advocate might have been, the two
state legislators were unhelpful, one advising that funding action had been in
response to a request from constituents and the other saying that the funding was
intended only to begin the conversation, not to conclude it.
City Hall
wasn’t helpful either, claiming that the waterline extension was required by
the State Fire Marshal to improve water pressure at the airport, only to have
the Fire Marshal dispute the account, stating that he was told the extension
was already underway when he first began the conversation about airport
service.
Thwarted on
their initial argument, City Hall rolled out the standard arguments about job
creation, development potential, and free money.
Despite the
lack of anyone claiming parenthood, the project moved ahead, advancing to the
City Council for approval of the local funding match of approximately
$700,000. The Council expressed
dubiousness about the project, questioning whether it was worth the use of city
funds. (Let’s take a moment to consider
that position. If it’s uncertain whether
it’s worthwhile to spend $700,000 to gain a $7.15 million improvement, doesn’t
that imply that the benefit/cost ratio, at least in the minds of some
Councilmembers, is around 0.10?)
Faced with a
wavering City Council, the regular infrastructure supporters rallied to the
cause. The contractors, developers,
engineers, and realtors waved the same flags as City Hall. Those being the banners of job creation,
development potential, and free money.
The City Council fell into line and approved the project, leaving the
public with a debt of $7 million and the only clear benefits being to the
pockets of private businesses.
I’m not
suggesting that this story is in any way unique to Brainerd. I expect that similar stories can be told
about pretty much every city in the U.S.
But doesn’t it feel like a silly way to make public funding decisions?
Pondering
that silliness, I found myself toying with an analogy. What if, in addition to funding our roads, we
also funded our cars with most of the cost being covered by the tax rolls? If we wanted a $30,000 Ford, it would cost us
only $3,000, with the other $27,000 becoming a public debt, secured by ourneighbors
and others in the community. What would
the world look like in this scenario?
·
To begin with, we’d all be driving Mercedes,
Porsches, and Ferraris. If they had a
total cost to us of only $10,000, why wouldn’t we go upper-end? It’d be stupid not to, right? And it would create jobs.
·
Our tax bills would be significantly higher from
the cost of covering our neighbors’ cars.
But the bills wouldn’t be as high as they should be, because our
political leaders would be busily creating financial schemes to move much of
the debt onto the next generation, leaving it to our children to pay for our
cars.
·
Our roads would likely be more crowded, with
everyone driving their Mercedes, Porsches, and Ferraris, putting more strain on
road budgets.
·
But at least we’d be driving cool cars,
right? Well, maybe. Another possibility is that we’d be so
stretched with the tax increases, insurance, and gas that we’d have to scrimp
on maintenance, resulting in our Mercedes, Porsches, and Ferraris rattling down
the roads.
·
Sensing our disappointment in our
under-maintained cars, our political leaders would propose new taxes to help
cover maintenance. But knowing that
maintenance alone likely wouldn’t get much support in the voting booth, they’d
also include an expansion of the car purchase program, perhaps reducing our
share of new car costs. It’d be the 21st
century version of bread and circuses.
·
It wouldn’t be that the politicians are
blind. Most of them are relatively
intelligent. They’d see the flaws in the
car purchase program, but they’d also be aware of re-election. And as much as we say we want to be told the
truth, we relegate most truth-tellers to the sidelines. And so the car purchase program would
continue.
It’s a
pretty ridiculous picture, isn’t it?
But, while no analogy is perfect, it does mimic our current
infrastructure funding approach on many points.
I’m not
arguing that we need to immediately cease all cost-sharing and revolving fund
approaches. Going cold turkey would
create unreasonable dislocations. But we
do need to begin unwinding the most unreasonable and unintended effects of the
current funding approach.
I don’t know
exactly what that unwinding would look like, but I know it’s time to begin
discussing it. Indeed, it’s well past
time.
Related Topic
I was offended
yesterday morning, barely 24 hours after the natural gas explosion in Harlem
killed at least seven people and destroyed two buildings, to receive an email
from the American Society of Civil Engineers claiming that the explosion and
loss of life highlighted the need for infrastructure funding.
It’s a
legitimate argument that the Gothamist makes well. It’s the contention I’ve often expressed that
“We built all this stuff, we really should take care of it.”
But ASCE has
always paired funding for infrastructure maintenance with funding for new infrastructure, effectively
building more stuff for which the maintenance will be uncertain. Given that background, I found it in poor
taste for them to use the loss of life and property in Harlem as a point in
their favor. They should have waited. Or perhaps never made the connection.
As always,
your questions or comments will be appreciated.
Please comment below or email me.
And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)
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