August 24, 2004
GUEST BELI-BLOGGER DAVE MEEK: WHAT'S THE SOLUTION?
Ford Church has posed a question continuing a previous conversation about taxes beginning back in July. I thought I would repost it as new followed by my comments with the hope of bringing more voices in on the topic.
"I have a question I do not know the answer to: Why have we seen property tax hikes, sales tax increases, tuition hikes? I am pretty sure people vote on sales taxes, but aren't state and local taxes increasing because Federal revenue streams are drying up because of Federal tax cuts? Money has to come from somewhere to pay for public services.
I think Boulder, CO has consistently voted to raise their sales taxes to pay for much needed public services, but large mega super whammy malls outside of Boulder are sucking out all the local business and tax revenue. What's the solution?"
Housing prices in Boulder as compared to outer areas such as Longmont and Louisville have increased dramatically in the past decade. From 1990-2000, the median sales price of a single family home has risen $131,653 to $345,414 while Longmont and Louisville have median prices of $198,042 and $244,624, up from $78,704 and $125,525 respectively. The Boulder housing prices can be devastating to families looking to move into the area. Furthermore, graduates looking to remain in the area are facing condo prices reaching $350 per square foot. Many families that consider moving to Boulder are stunned to find that the asking price for 2,000 sqft homes is around $550,000, a price they just can't justify on middle-class wages.
Those that yearn to stay in the area and do not currently own property but are looking to purchase must compromise by moving to the outer areas and commuting if they can land a job back in Boulder which may not pay better than the jobs closer to home. More and more businesses are opening in these outer areas with the influx of people moving in escaping the high housing costs of Boulder. With open-space laws restricting development in the immediate outer fringes of Boulder, people must drive long distances which, with high fuel prices, puts a strain on modest budgets.
This is showing up in retail sales in Boulder, a golden goose for the city. Retail sales dropped 2.4% from June 2003 through June 2004 whereas Longmont and Louisville rose 8.1% and 6.5% respectively. This tends to lead credence that this financial lull is a local problem to Boulder rather than a widespread problem in other communities particularly those adjacent to it. Therefore, if unfunded mandates from the Fed are pinching the budgets of local and state economies, Longmont and Louisville should be equally lagging as well.
Boulder is betting big on the success of the Twenty Ninth Street shopping center opening next year which is being built on the site of Boulder's Crossroads Mall. The problem is that while the mall may be a success, it will only be successful to the city if people from surrounding areas choose to drive the 10 or 15 miles from Longmont or Louisville on a regular basis or if it combined with other amenities will be enough to attract wealthy people to the area to live. If Boulder city residents represent the vast majority of sales, then other local businesses will surely suffer equally with similar job losses. The initial prospect of new jobs is alluring but if there is little net gain of customers coming to Boulder either by visitation or migration, there will be similar job losses from other retail stores currently in business.
The super whammy malls are very attractive to consumers since folks can purchase many items with one stop, something extremely important to those with small children. Variety, selection and prices are key factors underestimated by those that feel top-notch service and mom-and-pop traditional retail is truly what people desire. With Home Depot filling the big anchor position in the Twenty Ninth Street project, McGuckin's who employs about 280 people is going to feel considerable pain. I've seen prices in McGuckin's that are sometimes double and more when compared to the same exact items in Home Depot.
Finally, by purposely evading Ford's specific question of "What's the solution?" I'd like to hear from everyone else (and not just those folks that live or have lived in Boulder) as these economic issues are important to everywhere. With so much interstate and intrastate migration as well as immigration from other countries going in this country, all cities are vulnerable to radical changes in the coming decades.
Posted by Guest Beli-Blogger Dave Meek at August 24, 2004 12:14 AM
| TrackBack
Typically, *A* solution would be building up to increase the population density and to create more available residential and retail areas, think Manhattan. Fortunately/Unfortunately, Boulder has significant restrictions on building height in order to maintain the beautiful views that often bring people to Boulder in the first place.
Population density seems to be one of the most practical ways to overcome the exportation of your local dollars to nearby communities. But, a dramatic shift in American thinking is required and a more dramatic shift in Boulder thinking to change the footprint of commercial real estate. Imagine a mall that doesn't just sprawl for acres and only has 2 stories. Imagine a mall that takes up 5 stories and has living areas integrated into the building. The more services immediately available to the people of Boulder, the more likely they are to spend their money in Boulder on those services.
That said, it will be sad to see America's largest independent hardware store close in the wake of the low price, low service giant, home Depot. Cheers to Mikal and strolling McGoonieGooGoos.
Matt, I think you have successfully outlined a sizable conundrum in Boulder by summarizing the precarious balance between providing landowners leeway to build much need housing and commercial space with their constrainment for the sake of the city's environs, ironically the particluar reason housing is in such demand.
But your mention of Manhattan and population density jogged some ancillary thought. By coupling these two issues with Boulder County's obsessive guard of open-spaces, I discovered some interesting data.
In 2000, the U.S. population was 281,421,906 and the square mileage of U.S. land (excluding water bodies) was 3,537,438.44. The population density of New York city is approximately 23,700 people per square mile which means that the ENTIRE U.S. population, at New York's density, could fit comfortably inside the borders of Massachusetts and Connecticut combined and still have room for 19 million more citizens. For you folks in Indy, if your population density of 2,000 per square mile were the model, the country's population could fit inside the state of California leaving the other 49 states pure wilderness.
The above mathematics concludes that our great country is replete with open environments we are free to enjoy without paving or building over them. However, by insisting that these open-space parcels be conveniently located near the fortunate few bears great cost economically and environmentally on our communities and country at-large.
Infrastructural efficiency can best be achieved by allowing the natural compression of people coexisting in a given space while simultaneously improving the environment of the unused acreage. VMT (vehicle miles traveled) drops dramatically as more citizens live and work freely within smaller spaces allowing less energy expenditure thereby freeing up resources to be reutilized in more productive ways.
The natural condensation and expansion of communities makes better use of resources which people require. When government places arbitrary land restrictions particularly adjacent to popular communities, it necessarily establishes an auction between the classes. Boulder's primary environmental attraction are the flatirons, not the bland rolling acreage that sits at its base. Yet, the city's insistence on encapsulating itself as the hole of an open-space doughnut while restricting building heights creates a situation in which coveted housing within the fortress of it's limits has driven out the unwashed who can afford "only" $300,000 for a modest bungalow. This well-intentioned populace, migrating to Boulder due in part to its natural beauty, unwittingly contributes to its destruction by residing beyond the moat of open-space into the suburbs. Residents, once inspired by the openness of the rolling plains, now dutifully traverse back and forth through the grassy desert, glimpses of which their peripheral vision no longer seems to capture.
Post a Comment:
|
