I have nothing to refute the piece? The fact that you can't even acknowledge something so simple as the fact that the author has an agenda and is failing to tell the complete story tells me all I need to know about you. You're an ideologue and not likely to be moved by facts or strongly supported opinion.

Case in point? The author creates a false dichotomy in the two neighborhoods by failing to indicate that one neighborhood is in an unincorporated part of the county and is paying much lower property taxes than those in the incorporated part. Any property owner would know this and any author making a legitimate point would indicate it as at least a counterpoint, this is what we call "objectivity". If the masses are all forced to live in high density apartment housing, what happens to the tax base to begin with? You have a small group of people or companies that are thus funding the entire tax base.

So here you say (much like your other articles recently linked) HEY these incremental property taxes don't cover the incremental cost of said services, they aren't "paying for their fair share!" like the good liberal that you are. Unfortunately that argument again, much like this author again fails to point out here Them That's Got Shall have them thats Not Shall Lose Is a false one. As he decries the disparity in money spent maintaining a road in the suburbs vs the lack of money spent on the inner city while he fails to mention the disparity in money those in the suburbs pay to maintain the police force.

"But there’s that lingering problem of public infrastructure vs. the tax base of various forms of development. The city has spent almost nothing on my old block for decades."

Surely those in the urban center utilize the police at a far greater rate than those in the suburbs. Surely the crime in those areas dictate a larger force and thus increased tax dollars spent?

See your logical argument falls on it's head when it is applied across the board. Instead we acknowledge that, for the common good, some services like fire and police, schools and previously mail were to be provided and funded via taxation by local, state and federal governments.

Just because it's a public service however does NOT mean that we are forced to accept mediocrity when it comes to improvements. All ideas, especially those funded publicly, should be exposed to rigorous scrutiny and faults called out rather than swept under the rug like they have been with ST3.

You can't just hide a poor idea behind the mantle of environmentalism or in your case trying to argue it's a democratizing idea for the poor and is somehow making amends for disproportionate infrastructure spending in the suburbs.

You chose an odd subject to champion your liberal collectivist ideals with but hey as long as you're honest with yourself and those on this board with what you are that's fine by me.

You would prefer a society in which the masses of the US are forced to further consolidate into the urban center, reducing our quality of living by most appreciable measures and furthering to put people on a "level playing field". Whether you state that as your end goal or not, it's ultimately the outcome.

I'll let you figure out where you can put your collectivism.

I'm not a collectivist. Rather a communitarian, which of course is a conservative position.

You're telling me that the owner of a half million dollar home in a rural area pays fully for the pipes and asphalt and services around him and the owner of a half a million dollar apartment building in an urban area isn't overpaying for pipes and asphalt and services. That's bullshit.

You're championing a lifestyle based on the redistribution of wealth. So tell me, which of us is a no good fucking commie and which wants people to pay their own bills?

Neither is paying their own bills, that's what you fail to realize. You think that the people of downtown Detroit are paying the bills or Seattle for that matter?

You're comparing complete apples to oranges here. Tacoma and Everett aren't rural subdivisions of Seattle, they are their own bedroom cities that  lot of people commute from. When ST3 talks about going to Puyallup you'll have an argument, until then you don't.

I own a home in Woodway and you rent, you tell me how much more one of us pays in taxes and contributes to the social services. You sure want to get into this dick measuring contest?

DBL.

Yes, I do, with the obvious exception of the homeless.

Here is a map showing tax value per acre. Tell me where the downtowns are.





Where have I said anything about ST3?



Renters pay rent, which the landlord then uses to pay property taxes. What are the long term maintenance implications of the street that you live on? How much are you willing to pay for transportation?

Sorry you don't just get to show a heat map of Tax per acre which is obviously densest around commercial districts.A fair amount of those buildings are in fact commercial..not residential sorry to burst your bubble. Show the actual dollars collected from residential property in the city core vs the city's expenses and you'll find that their income does NOT meet their obligations (school/police/fire AND TRANSPORTATION).

The entire thread is about ST3, your argument seems to be if we all live in beehives in the city we won't need it. Sorry that's not going to happen in your lifetime. If you want to argue that Light rail is monetarily more efficient than roads then have at it but I see nothing to support that.

Rent exceeds property taxes thus generating revenue for the property owner and high density housing suppresses home prices in the neighboring areas thus reducing the total tax dollars collected.

If you remove all suburban sprawl and push people into high density housing no one owns their property and the only tax payers are large businesses and investment funds that own these buildings not individuals. Thus concentrating wealth and the tax base even further to a small group, again the end result of socialism.

Taking your philosophy to it's logical extension we should basically stop maintaining ANY infrastructure in states that do not contribute to the GDP of the country. IE we should let the highway system deteriorate in states like Montana and Idaho and should you want to live there you're on your own for federally maintained infrastructure or even further you have to get a permit to live in these places and ONLY if you work in fields like logging, mining or farming. Everyone else needs to move to the population centers because of the tax base.

Again, your end state is everyone living in tiny apartments in high density housing "for the good of the tax base". The problem is, no one really wants that. So you can either do it by force, or you can force people to not do it via confiscatory taxation.

You have convinced yourself that that is what generationally people our age want and the generation under you wants. Now there are a lot of people and geographic regions where this isn't feasible because what one WANTS and what one can AFFORD differ, it doesn't change the fact that when these individuals manage to acquire the wealth, that is what they buy.

Look if you want to die on the cross of government waste and malfeasance that is public infrastructure, have at it. Meanwhile there's a shit load more things at the local, state and federal level that the government wastes money on that would make infrastructure spending be nothing but a by-line.

You're obviously free to do whatever you want (buy a house, not buy a house), vote however you want (increase in property taxes, for expensive mass transit etc) but if you think the articles you linked are indicative of some sort of mass shift in the American desire to own their own home in a crime free area vs live in a high density urban setting that's signaling the death knell of the suburbs, well we'll have to just agree to disagree.

The only place where that has been done, that I know of, is Lafayette, LA, and the two that produced the report found that urban areas were paying the freight for suburban areas.

Here is a link to a short article by one of the authors.



No, it isn't that. Rail increases values around it which means that while you lose money on ridership you make that money back on property taxes. Of course, the tax system isn't set up to pay for rail that way, but it certainly could be.



There is scant evidence of that. Quite to the contrary, homeowners use zoning to keep the value of their land low by ensuring that multifamily can't be built on it. If your argument were true then you wouldn't need to use zoning to keep MF developers out.



This is a valid concern. The problem that I see is that we've locked all the small owners into single family homes and the large companies get to won MF and hotels. Why not build duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes and ADUs so they can rent out, on a nightly or yearly basis, their property, thereby accruing value to themselves? Why is that illegal? Are the streetcar suburbs of the east and midwest so awful that we have to make them illegal in WA?

I've never taken the argument that far, although I do find it interesting that you are willing to admit that most of the West is a publicly funded enterprise that would fail without massive injections of cash from city dwellers.



If people want to live in big houses on the edge of town then why aren't they willing to pay the taxes and fees that such a lifestyle requires?



Everyone has got to have an issue. This one is mine.



Crime free area? The only residential burglary that I've ever suffered was in the sticks.

Hell, there are cities that have built real downtowns and increased their tax revenue so quickly that they've lowered their rate.

Yet again, you bring no data, you simply state what is obvious.

Apartments don't lower property valuables, except in limited cases where they are permanent supportive housing.

The link between property taxes and infrastructure is tenuous at best but needs to be strengthened. It's certainly true that suburban housing and retail won't pay for the freeways that connect them but in the case of fixed guide path transit in places with density it is possible to tie the two together.

Crimes and apartments aren't connected.

I state what is obvious....but is apparently obviously incorrect? This statement doesn't even make sense...

Look I'm not going to debate it with you anymore other than to say this

You should move into some high density housing downtown for a while, preferably with the writers of your blogs you like to cite  so you can at least have someone you can talk to about this this subject that agrees with you. Notice virtually no one else does?

You should consider the logical extension of your philosophy and whether that's truly the country you would want to live in. I hope for your sake you're not staking your livelihood on the notion that America wants high density urban housing because the only people that want that are people in their 20s and what they don't have...is money.

Sarcasm doesn't work in text.



What do you do for a living?

I am a product manager of sorts.

So if I were to tell you that the entire real estate industry disagrees with you, would you have any special insight with which to refute my claim?

Keep in mind that when I make these points in the industry most people squirm a little and dodge the subject because it is uncomfortable rather than untrue.

Although on one memorable occasion I did have a developer agree wholeheartedly and proclaim that the government (at all levels) needs to subsidize urban development with the same gusto that it has subsidized suburban development.

Look if you're right then then the suburban housing market will collapse soon and you can come back and laugh at everyone. I frankly don't care because I don't believe it's going to happen in our lifetime and frankly even if it does it won't really effect me as I'm 14 miles from downtown.

The thinking right now is that the suburban market is most at risk. Its impacting offices right now but over the long term it will impact single family houses as younger people don't have the money to buy the housing that baby boomers will either sell or leave behind.

Agreed! My point exactly, Seattle was going to lead the world with mass transit, how's it working out now Seattle! Why didn't the monorail get extended and enlarged?

I'd bet we will never have wolf hunting here, this state is damn liberal, I hope I'm wrong, but I don't see it happening, a friend of mine managed to get pictures of wolf pups, the first ever in this state, in the Methow Valley, state wildlife officials did all they could to discredit him and the validity of the pictures, he retained them, and they wanted them, meanwhile a duplicate set were sent to WSU, and yes they verified them, but still the state said no, until he made a copy for the spokesman review, finely the state said t appears we have one set of wolves that the pack they didn't know about was having pups

This is the exact area we had our experience in,  Methow near Carlton and Twisp. Locals have been seeing wolves for years,  state has denied it up and down just as you say.

Could you possibly PM more info?

Sounder train from Tacoma or Puyallup to Seattle is 50-60 mins 1 way. Bus from Puyallup to Seattle is 1.5hrs.
I'll drive my car before I ride the bus, but I take the train to Seattle for work when it's feasible. Take a nap, read, surf the 'net etc. for 50 mins and not worry about traffic or car pooling or parking in Seattle.

What are the comparative costs?  Same with the bus.

Commuting to/from Seattle will always be inconvenient, no matter the mode.  Balance the cost of mass trans against convenience, understanding that over the long term, both factors will be aggravated, then tell me why yet another tax won't be abused this time.

What I don't understand is why, when voters in many areas which overwhelmingly reject light rail projects and their attendant costs (when given the chance to vote on them), the politicians put it in regardless of the voters desires.  Maybe is is just the federal funds are to politicians as heroin is to a junkie...they just can't leave them alone.

I think this will pass whether voters approve it or not.

Seen a lot of first hand work of tracks already going into place.  Bridges being built, etc.  it all taises an eyebrow for me.

 

Conservative in a classical sense. Distributism would be a word that you might not recognize but would be more accurate.

What you're describing is a classical liberal ideal.

 
And classical liberalisim is modern movement-conservatisim, more-or-less.






There's a reason that all these half-million-dollar houses are being built in exurban areas.






People who want OUT of 'community' and all the crap that comes with it are buying them - it's a ticket to 'freedom from strangers' after the workday is done...










 

They aren't though. And I'm curious where you found a half million dollar house in Yelm, there aren't many.

I didn't say I was in favor of ST3, I said I ride the Sounder when I can. I've been paying for mass transit via taxes and add on's for years without using it. I started using it last year because it was advantageous to me personally, it's in place, isn't going to go away and I already pay for it. No point in sitting in traffic in my car, plus paying for parking in Seattle, when I could be on the train.  

Fuck riding buses. The extra hour plus a day of my time spent riding a bus in a cramped seat (for the same cost of riding the train which has fairly spacious seating) isn't a selling point to me. Id rather drive and pay for parking.

 
I don't know that Flying B counts as 'in Yelm', but the place on the 148th St end of the runway just sold for somewhere-north-of-600k. Mine was in the low/mid 400s (granted, that's 4000sqft of hangar/shop space and a mother-in-law apartment, along with the main house, on 4 acres, with a runway...).






Most of the large (20+ acre) farm/hobby-horse-ranch properties around us are 'up there' as well...






You can say 'people aren't' all day long, but everything around us with a for-sale sign on it is selling lately... As are the 250-300k homes on slightly-smaller (1-3ac) lots... And the low-200k ones with sub-1ac in the cookie-cutter HOA subdivisions between Yelm & Roy...






Not everyone wants to live like a Tyson Chicken renting someone else's little box to live in (although fortunately for me, some have no other choice... Else I'd have no one to rent my old house or that MIL apartment to)...




 

Of course not. And as long as you buy your own utilities and infrastructure I don't care how you live.

Though you will still interject into every thread about how inefficient someone else's preferred lifestyle is.

The system that we have is designed at every level to benefit people that want a home on a suburban cul de sac.

That puts everyone else, including municipal finances, at a disadvantage.

Traffic is lousy there because the planners and governments wanted it that way.   They wanted it that way to deter people from driving, and to encourage projects suitable for graft.

It's not like this hasn't happened a hundred other places.

People wouldn't be so insistent on having homes on suburban cul de sacs if the city and local government didn't have such a hardon for policies that flood the area with illegals, criminals, and bums.

Having space to breathe is not a disadvantage.





Going back to the 1910s & 20s, when all but the richest-of-the-rich were crammed into big-city tenements, is a recipie for crime & misery.


 

No... That was the era of the streetcar suburb and Craftsman houses.

Your way of living requires subsidies and of expanded would require tax increases to pay for its massive infrastructure needs. Don't be a commie.