I’m sure whoever thought this might be a good idea — that would be the Dallas city council members who approved this contract — thought no one would ever find out about it. But no…
No, for a number of reasons the city is facing a $51 million budget shortfall and instead of fixing the problem they’re doing shit like this to bring in new revenue. They’re even talking about putting up billboards in parks
There is really no way to fix the problem though. The problem with Dallas and cities like it is not one of management or ruling political party. It is simply a problem of urban design. Low-density sprawl doesn’t pay for its own maintenance. You have a “city” full of people that expects city-level services with rural population densities. There just isn’t a big enough tax base to cover the infrastructure and services that people expect. Elect Republicans. Elect Democrats. Elect DSA. Elect the Klan. It makes no difference. You can’t vote your way out of math.
You can keep the low-density game going for awhile by propping things up with growth. The initial infrastructure buildout gets paid for by developers, and that cost gets rolled into the purchase price of everyone’s homes. But the property taxes people can afford to pay just aren’t anywhere near what is needed to keep a low-density city like that going. But eventually you can’t grow anymore. Cities like Dallas will either have to substantially densify or face bankruptcy and collapse. They may have to kick certain particularly low-density neighborhoods out of the city entirely in order to shore up finances.
To get a feel for the size of budget hole we’re talking about, imagine this. Imagine if once every 30 years your city put a levy on your home equal to 50% of its value. Every 30 years each homeowner would have to take on a second mortgage to pay these levies. That’s about what a city would actually have to charge to truly cover the cost of suburban infrastructure and to keep everything properly maintained.
Yeah, but one of the main ways a city can drive revenue is to increase the cost of property. Fines like that are small and short lived. Plus the people they’re targeting are unlikely to ever be able to afford to pay them. It’s not like speeding, red light, parking, or HOV tickets where rich people just consider it pocket change and just the cost of having a car and so they don’t change their behavior like poorer people might. So revenue is often steady. Plus targeting neighborhoods of fixed assets that most people will never actually even see is way different from targeting vehicles that could belong to people outside the community and generally people keep a little nicer since they are much more publicly visible. It’s much more obvious who is forced made to pay, and it’s much more obvious those people can’t and so there won’t be revenue, only an excuse to arrest, evict, or whatever other punishment the law allows when people accrue too much debt from the fines.
And property taxes are the primary tax revenue in Texas since there’s no state or local income tax and relatively lower sales taxes. I lived there for a while and the property taxes were nearly as much as the property I now own in another state that is valued at about 8 times as much.
No, for a number of reasons the city is facing a $51 million budget shortfall and instead of fixing the problem they’re doing shit like this to bring in new revenue. They’re even talking about putting up billboards in parks
There is really no way to fix the problem though. The problem with Dallas and cities like it is not one of management or ruling political party. It is simply a problem of urban design. Low-density sprawl doesn’t pay for its own maintenance. You have a “city” full of people that expects city-level services with rural population densities. There just isn’t a big enough tax base to cover the infrastructure and services that people expect. Elect Republicans. Elect Democrats. Elect DSA. Elect the Klan. It makes no difference. You can’t vote your way out of math.
You can keep the low-density game going for awhile by propping things up with growth. The initial infrastructure buildout gets paid for by developers, and that cost gets rolled into the purchase price of everyone’s homes. But the property taxes people can afford to pay just aren’t anywhere near what is needed to keep a low-density city like that going. But eventually you can’t grow anymore. Cities like Dallas will either have to substantially densify or face bankruptcy and collapse. They may have to kick certain particularly low-density neighborhoods out of the city entirely in order to shore up finances.
To get a feel for the size of budget hole we’re talking about, imagine this. Imagine if once every 30 years your city put a levy on your home equal to 50% of its value. Every 30 years each homeowner would have to take on a second mortgage to pay these levies. That’s about what a city would actually have to charge to truly cover the cost of suburban infrastructure and to keep everything properly maintained.
Yeah, but one of the main ways a city can drive revenue is to increase the cost of property. Fines like that are small and short lived. Plus the people they’re targeting are unlikely to ever be able to afford to pay them. It’s not like speeding, red light, parking, or HOV tickets where rich people just consider it pocket change and just the cost of having a car and so they don’t change their behavior like poorer people might. So revenue is often steady. Plus targeting neighborhoods of fixed assets that most people will never actually even see is way different from targeting vehicles that could belong to people outside the community and generally people keep a little nicer since they are much more publicly visible. It’s much more obvious who is forced made to pay, and it’s much more obvious those people can’t and so there won’t be revenue, only an excuse to arrest, evict, or whatever other punishment the law allows when people accrue too much debt from the fines.
And property taxes are the primary tax revenue in Texas since there’s no state or local income tax and relatively lower sales taxes. I lived there for a while and the property taxes were nearly as much as the property I now own in another state that is valued at about 8 times as much.