There’s been no disinvestment in infrastructure (2017)
strongtowns.org
strongtowns.org
2) No, he's responding to / explaining Jacobin's use of "Accounting Magic".
3) Are you saying that it isn't appropriate to attempt to account for the degradation of our infrastructure due to time? I don't really think you're expressing an actual thought here.
4) In what sense? It seems pretty straightforward to me.
5) Sure, but let's not stop at accountants.
All in all, your criticism isn't actually saying anything. I still have no idea what exactly you find objectionable. You're only expressing derision for its own sake, I still have no idea what your stance is or even in what direction you disagree with Strong Town's conclusion.
With what you've said, you could just as easily be a Communist or an Anarcho-Capitalist, because you haven't actually expressed anything, aside from a vague and unjustified distaste for Accounting.
They prefer more housing density and transit options so infrastructure investments are more sustainable.
"Fuck the absolute necessity of car ownership" I'd say strikes a balance.
But when people can't even afford cars, it becomes something even weirder than subsidising cars.
Small scale self dependence is a significant problem in the US (and many parts of the world) where the poor have been, through intentional historic policy, ghettoized. If you first scale back spending to maintenance levels, and then push against state level redistribution, you end up with pretty predictable results that look alot like the ghost of redlining come back to life. Even if you excise #2 from the platform, it's still the end result. By explicitly adopting strongtowns brand fiscal austerity, there just wont be money left to fund schools in poor neighborhoods.
Look, I'm not saying what we've got now is a perfect solution, far from it. I even think that if we could start from absolute scratch, there are some aspects of strong towns that would solve some of today's ills. But we have poor cities, of every makeup, size, demographic, and skin color, and I don't think that "market urbanism" (ie the same market forces that got us to where we are today albeit with stronger federation) can get us out.
Edit: I guess I should clarify that my criticism of strong towns applies equally to economically destroyed rural communities, who make up the largest recipients of food stamps in America.
When we’re talking about government services that literally everyone uses multiple times over it stops being a subsidy and starts being “we all pay for it collectively.”
> Exempting pickup trucks and SUVs from emissions laws
> Lack of vehicle safety laws to protect pedestrians and cyclists
> A mortgage interest deduction drives suburban sprawl
> Pedestrians have limited ability to sue drivers
> Pedestrians can’t sue car makers for defects
> Hit and runs are rarely prosecuted
> Out-of-pocket car expenses don’t cover the cost of roads
> That’s right: Registration fees, rising gas prices, insurance, and toll booths don’t come close to covering the cost of roadways. The federal gas tax hasn’t gone up since 1993, under-pacing inflation along with state gas taxes. The difference is recouped with universal taxes that pay no attention to how often a person drives.
-- https://stacker.com/society/how-driving-subsidized-america
Also: https://usa.streetsblog.org/2022/02/09/study-car-ownership-c... , https://medium.com/radical-urbanist/cars-gets-billions-in-hi... , https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S092180092...
They are not against infrastructure development but they are against unprofitable infrastructure development and they see "infrastructure for the sake of infrastructure" not as something that will lift people out of poverty but as something that will keep people poor.
I'm not even sure I should call it a debate - more funding for infrastructure seemed to be popular and bipartisan, even if some parts of the actual bill were controversial.
The dollars that need to be diverted to infrastructure could be invested in education, social programs, parks, and so on.
As I understand it, the “unsustainable” argument makes the case that the real costs of maintaining the infrastructure are going to become large enough that there will be no room left without raising taxes (to unsustainably high levels) or (also unsustainably) cut from other also necessary programs.
Judging from the ongoing debate about raising the debt ceiling, one might even argue that we’re already there..
The Strong Towns movement believes [1], for many decades American towns have been building suburban homes with 75ft of road in front of them, but only making enough tax revenue from the homes to maintain 50ft of road.
Such developments seem like a good deal for the city in the short term, because the tax revenue starts coming in immediately, while the maintenance costs won't come due for 10+ years as the road starts showing its age.
But beyond the short term, it's unsustainable and leaves towns teetering on the edge of bankruptcy because they've got more infrastructure than they can afford to maintain.
So Strong Towns argues for denser communities; but they do so from a fiscally conservative republican standpoint, rather than using left-wing arguments about community, environmental friendliness and public transit.
[1] https://www.minnpost.com/politics-policy/2015/12/why-conserv...
But I think that you may be missing the point of the article, which is simply criticizing the heading of the first graph: "Net Civilian Public Investment, percent of GDP". The article is merely claiming that that metric isn't valid, while assuming that you, as a reader of Strong Towns, already believe that too much is being spent on the creation of new infrastructure.
Justifying that point is basically the entire purpose of the rest of the website.
I’m not sure if I really understand this part. But I’m familiar with StrongTowns cause (parafrasing):
There is a lot of public infrastructure build (roads, power, water, sewage, drainage)for land that will never provide enough tax revenue per square foot to pay for maintenance of said infrastructure. This will bankrupt cities and towns.
What these folks are quietly calling for is Conservatism. What is novel is wrapping conservatism in new urbanism psudoprogressive language.
"Fiscal Conservatism"? Maybe. But only if we go back to an older definition of "fiscal conservatism", which is closely in line with "financial sustainability". But honestly, many people calling themselves "Conservative" these days care not a single whit about financial sustainability, at least when it comes to the public sector.