Welcome to my weekly digest for April 22, 2022. For new subscribers, this contains a roundup of my recent writings and podcasts, as well as links to the best articles from around the web this week. You can control what emails you get from me by
Aaron - putting in a plug for your past urban policy work - how much of the decline are we seeing as the inevitable cresting of the wave of suburban development patterns that are slowly bankrupting to municipalities?
Do you see this as a meaningful factor in the decline of places that seemed quite prosperous when they were new, but now seem in decline? Conspicuously, right around the time that their Boomer infrastructure reaches the end of its lifecycle...
A place like Spokane or Lafayette wakes up and realizes that all of the free state and federal highway infrastructure of decades past now carries a maintenance price tag that their tax base will never support.
Debt and more Ponzi scheme development (more revenue now, off-balance sheet liabilities for later) forestall the inevitable. Eventually there is no money to prop up the illusion of prosperity. Taxes increases, services decrease - welcome to the descending world.
Aaron - putting in a plug for your past urban policy work - how much of the decline are we seeing as the inevitable cresting of the wave of suburban development patterns that are slowly bankrupting to municipalities?
Do you see this as a meaningful factor in the decline of places that seemed quite prosperous when they were new, but now seem in decline? Conspicuously, right around the time that their Boomer infrastructure reaches the end of its lifecycle...
https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/10/24/dispatches-from-spokane-living-a-soft-default
https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/9/the-real-reason-your-city-has-no-money
A place like Spokane or Lafayette wakes up and realizes that all of the free state and federal highway infrastructure of decades past now carries a maintenance price tag that their tax base will never support.
Debt and more Ponzi scheme development (more revenue now, off-balance sheet liabilities for later) forestall the inevitable. Eventually there is no money to prop up the illusion of prosperity. Taxes increases, services decrease - welcome to the descending world.