Why is this official course from the International Association of Assessing Officers still teaching outdated redlining practices to categorize neighborhoods?
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Strong Towns interviews Dr. Christopher Berry, of the University of Chicago, on how we can begin making meaningful changes to the U.S.’s broken property tax system.
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As an ad hoc committee recently discovered, owners of higher-valued properties are more likely to receive a tax break…simply because of bad data.
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This case shows why local governments need to do a better job accounting for maintenance costs.
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What is the real reason behind our striking property tax disparities?
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The inequities in the tax assessment system are national. But the solutions will have to come from the bottom-up.
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If we want to live in a free and equitable society where everyone has the potential to succeed and experience prosperity, we have to understand where the inequities begin.
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Has your property tax bill skyrocketed this year? It’s worth taking a deeper look into how your county or city does their assessments...
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If the city fixes the street outside of your home and increases the value of your real estate, you should have to pay the city back some of that windfall…right?
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The concept of a special assessment contains little dark secrets that city officials like to keep to themselves. The ability to assess the cost of maintenance -- a questionable concept at best -- is the only thing allowing many cities to avoid facing their true reality.
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We can't prevent mass delusion, but we can work to establish an alternative model for achieving prosperity so there is a viable option to hysteria (and all its handmaidens) when the Illusion of Wealth vanishes.
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Monday Member Blog Digest: Identifying places of real versus illusory value. What is a "bad neighborhood" anyway? What is the best use of land under or next to an urban freeway? The bright future of the Midwestern "Rust Belt," and why the past isn't a good guide to the future when it comes to real estate values. Neighborhood churches as an urban litmus test. Thoughts on Pope Francis's message re: cities and urbanism. Block parties and red tape. A victory for cyclists in South Florida. When to put your time and energy into an idea when you have more of them than you can effectively advocate for.
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