Hacker News Reader

That's fair. One issue is that the collection of city taxes is severely constrained by the state (at least where I'm at).

Maybe the richer sprawl is paying on a higher valuation, but I don't know if that's enough to even things out.

View on HN

https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/8/10/i-did-the-math...

This is very much a tangent, but that article seems to state that per mile, a sidewalk costs about twice as much as a road. Does anyone know why that is?

That's interesting. Pure speculation but I can imagine they have a higher material and labour cost per sq meter. The Installation of curbs and curb cuts must make a difference. Also, in the UK at least, while low traffic pavements (sidewalks) are generally tarmac, in high traffic areas they're often paving stones, brick or even concrete. These must be more expensive. I'd guess you're also more likely to hit utilities. Whenever I see workmen installing or fixing water pipes, sewers, fiber atc they're usually doing it along the side of the road or under the pavement as this means you only have to close one half of the road.

From looking at repairs around me, the road stuff is mostly done with large machines, whereas sidewalks are very much a manual hands on process.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com