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Comment by dantheman | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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

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.

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

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