| A local municipality here, Mississauga (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississauga) grew as a typical suburb does, relying on aggressive expansion of low-density housing, with a large portion of that growth being in the 1960-1990 era. The city pursued an agenda of low taxes by leaning heavily on subsidies paid by large-scale developers directly to the city. This was something very much embodied by the city's long-time mayor McCallion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hazel_McCallion) who was something of a titan in her time and governed over the city from 1978 to 2014 with little political opposition. The idea was that they'd build infrastructure to last 30-40 years and then figure out what to do later. Not surprisingly "later" came around all too soon and they were left scrambling. The mayor pivoted from producing more sprawl, which just doubles down on the problem, to inviting developers to densify portions of the city, building codos and office towers. Through development fees they'd try and work their way out of a jam without having to massively increase taxes for everyone. It looks like this strategy has so far worked, but it's not without risk. It's dependent on passing the buck to the typically younger crowd that's buying condos. They're paying for sewer replacements in those older neighborhoods that apparently never paid their fair share in taxes. Who will bail them out when their time comes? Hopefully the increased density makes it more cost-effective to do that. There's a number of things working in favor of the city, like they're close to Toronto, so the're an ideal commuter hub, plus the regional airport is there, so there's a large buisness hub built out around it. Without that tax base and proximity to another city they'd likely be doomed. Nobody would ever want condos there. If you're looking for those cities, look for suburbs built near major US cities that can leverage their location. Any that are on their own are ultimately doomed unless they dramatically re-work how they plan their urban layout. Low-density housing will strangle a lot of small cities to death. Honestly it should be illegal for municipalities to collect less in taxes than they need to maintain their infrastructure in the long haul. They should be factoring in 60-year replacement costs and collecting money towards that in the decades leading up to a major overhaul. A change in the accounting rules to include this sort of depreciation as an expense that must be balanced out with revneue could go one step towards that, factoring in replacement costs and so on. |