Many factors affect how much your local economy is being impacted by COVID-19. One is whether your city is cripplingly dependent on just one or two revenue sources. And especially if you’re dependent on sales taxes.
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It’s getting harder and harder to prop up an economy that’s locked up trillions of dollars in the suburban experiment. We got here by not learning history’s lessons. Will we now heed history’s warnings?
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Local government must run a profit. Once we accept what that means and why it’s important, we’ll never look at infrastructure spending the same way again.
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Two residents of Santa Monica have ideas on how their city can adjust to new budget realities with focus and creativity. We think it’s an example for Strong Citizens everywhere.
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The special tax districts used to finance suburban expansion have been big trouble in past recessions. They’re worth watching now too.
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Whether we go back to work in offices or not, the commercial real estate market can’t go back to the crazy levels it was. Not without huge damage to society.
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One plan to kickstart the economy after the coronavirus crisis involves resurrecting a familiar plan: a massive infrastructure bill. Where will the money come from and where will it go? The answers aren’t encouraging.
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What technological disasters — like the Deepwater Horizon explosion — can tell us about why our economy seems to lurch from crisis to crisis.
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Financially, public pension funds are finished. There are two important reasons we need to admit this now…and find a way forward together.
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No matter the domain or field—city government, planning and engineering, and even our own families and communities—we all leave a legacy. The question is: will it be the legacy we intended to leave?
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A retrenchment in the stock market will be devastating to our cities. It’s also inevitable and, in some ways, necessary.
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The slide into municipal insolvency isn’t as fun as they made it sound. It’s time for cities to #DoTheMath.
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Maybe the one good thing you can say about municipal debt is that it’s on the balance sheets. We’re tracking it. But there is another type of future obligation that is like debt…only worse. It comes back again and again, and too many cities aren’t paying attention.
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Easy money and uncontentious budget meetings sound nice in theory. But private and public sectors beware: lack of stressors can make decision-makers undisciplined and obscure huge bills that are sure to come due.
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The desperate need to fill pension shortfalls may be wreaking havoc on the financial system.
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City officials often ask, “What target price point for new homes will ensure that we can balance our books?” Here’s why they’re asking the wrong question.
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Modern Monetary Theory is the financial foundation of the Green New Deal. It’s an experiment our cities don’t want to undertake.
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Incremental development doesn’t mean slow development. Here’s how big places that need housing fast can get there using the Strong Towns approach.
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When it comes to infrastructure spending, politicians on both ends of the political spectrum get it wrong—but in different ways.
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Ever heard road tolls described as punitive to lower-income commuters? Don’t decry them until we fix, or at least acknowledge, these ten other things that are even more inequitable about the way we pay for transportation.
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