Stay Tuned for Similar Analyses for Salem

Terrific article at StrongTowns.org about an analysis a guy did for Denver, CO, showing that, surprise! The downtown neighborhoods pay the freight for the much wealthier suburbs.  Two graphs (one of tax revenue per square foot (by neighborhood) and one showing costs for infrastructure in those same neighborhoods) speak volumes.

Bottom line, our autosprawl development pattern -- the same one replicated all over America -- from Denver, CO to Dover, Del., from Anchorage AK to Miami FL -- isn't just hurting our health and the environment; it's also the reason that cities everywhere are broke. We've taken an inheritance of productive development and squandered it on low-productivity development modes that essentially punish the people who impose the least costs on the public fisc and make them subsidize those (usually much wealthier) people who impose the greatest costs.

Property tax paid per square foot by neighborhood.

Click to view larger. Neighborhoods above the break even line generate enough tax to pay for their true cost of infrastructure. Neighborhoods below the break even line create annual infrastructure liabilities for the City of Denver, despite their property taxes.

LOVESalem morphs into STRONG Salem

Now that it appears that the threat of the gigantic billion-dollar-boondoggle of the "Salem River Crossing" is finally going to go to the graveyard of bad ideas, all the energy and effort that has been properly spent opposing that disastrous plan can be put to better use.

Thus, it's time for the people of Salem, Oregon, to start creating a positive agenda for a better Salem, a Salem that can afford nice things (because it has stopped developing in an unproductive way that only benefits developers and burdens the rest of us with the costs they have externalized while grabbing all the profits for themselves).

And so this blog, first created to raise the alarm about the dinosaur-thinking behind that "Salem River Crossing" -- the "Bridgeasaurus Boondogglus" -- can now morph into a blog with a much greater positive focus and provide a place to promote ideas for a STRONG Salem, inspired by the brilliant work being done by the group STRONG TOWNS (StrongTowns.org). STRONG Salem will now focus on being the "localization hub" for applying STRONG TOWNS thinking to harness the opportunities and solve the problems we face here in Salem, Oregon.

If you want to become a contributor, drop a comment and let me know how to reach you.