Hacker News Reader

Comment by vkou | Hacker News Reader

Somehow, I don't see increases on municipal taxes (Which, all in all, make up a small part of our overall tax burdens) to the main cause of the exodus... Compared to the lack of employment - from, say, the demise of the Detroit auto industry.

It doesn't matter if your municipal tax bill is 0, if you don't have a job.

View on HN

Well the 1967 riots didn't help much either, nor did the downward spiral in race relations in Detroit. It drove much of populace out who could move. Taxes weren't the old reason, just compounded on top of consistently corrupt administrations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_Detroit_riot

Looking at the actual figures, I don't think the 240K who moved out in the 00s, left because they just noticed the '67 riots. The population loss in the 70s was very small.

Suggest you look at these figures -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6394464 -- and reconsider. (Or counter with better figures, if you have them.)

I don't have it the information at hand, but I believe many people moved to the towns just outside of detroit to escape the taxes. IIRC those towns/cities are doing fine.

In which case, I'd cite the ability, and the desire of the American middle class to raise their children in a gated suburbia to be a far more likely factor.

Think of it as a typical parent - would you want your kid to go to school in Detroit? (The same school that Balanced Budget politics is more then willing to defund.)

That trend lasted from the 50's through the 90's or so, but the trend now has been to move back into cities, except for Detroit.

I think it is way too early to call a trend. And to the degree cities are growing just barely faster than suburbs (.2%) for the last couple years, that can largely be explained by the housing bubble and recession. While there is some data showing young people moving to cities, there isn't much showing families returning to cities.

According to his analysis of the 51 metropolitan areas with more than 1 million people, the primary cities in those metros grew an average of 1.1 percent, compared with 0.9 percent growth in the suburban areas of those metros between July 2010 and July 2011.*

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/neighborhoods/2012/06/urban...

It remains to be seen whether the trend among young people will continue as those generations have their own children.

This is true of many metro areas. The overall decline in Dallas (Texas) schools began with the boom economy in the 70's and 80's and the flight of the middle class to suburbia, the Park cities and exurbia. It was sped up due to school integration and ever ongoing mass migration of poor and wealthy from out of state/county.

A little of both -- draw your own conclusions

  Census City   	Metro   	Region
  1940 	1,623,452 	2,544,287 	2,911,681 
  1950 	1,849,568 	3,219,256 	3,700,490
  1960 	1,670,144 	4,012,607 	4,660,480
  1970 	1,514,063 	4,490,902 	5,289,766
  1980 	1,203,368 	4,387,783 	5,203,269
  1990 	1,027,974 	4,266,654 	5,095,695
  2000 	951,270 	4,441,551 	5,357,538
  2010 	713,777 	4,296,250 	5,218,852

I thought Texas has high property taxes (no state income tax, so that's how government is funded), but $6700 per $100k valuation is steep. Plus a 2.4% local income tax, plus a tax on utilities, plus a tax on gambling. Just crazy.

The tax rate on property is closer to 1.8% and not 6.7%. So you would have to have a home over $300k to pay $6700 in property taxes. Also I am not aware of a income tax, at least not in Dallas. The sales tax is a bit high though at approximately 8%.

He means that tax in Detroit is steep relative to Texas.

Are you talking about the property tax rates in Texas or Detroit? Detroit's property tax, at least according to the article, is 6.7%. That's what the GP was referencing.

No I was referring to the rates in Texas. I may have mistook what the original poster was saying.

Property taxes in Texas can vary by quite a bit depending on where you're located, since so many special districts are overlaid, and have taxing authority. One of the properties I'm looking at has City of Austin, Williamson County, Austin Community College, Williamson County FM/RM (roads??), Round Rock ISD, and Upper Brushy Creek water collection.

Total tax was $1800 on $210k

I agree this is the main take-away from the piece. The tax base has just collapsed. Surely there was some mismanagement, but even without that they would still be in trouble.

But the tax base did not collapse. It drifted downs to ~60% of peak, while the populace drifted down to ~40% of peak.

Shrinking is always going to be a painful and not easy process, but the raw numbers suggest that it was doable.

Property Tax did collapse, and from 1960 to 1980.

http://www.freep.com/graphics/financial-history/detroit-bank...

This begets the downward circle the article refers to, i.e., that because of lower property tax revenue, they have to raise other taxes which in turn cause further decline, etc.

Just another case of corporate socialism. The big three were just following the profit when they left Detroit a hollowed husk of an auto industry. Now the people they left to clean up the mess, they did the real harm by making sure normal people could afford to live.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com