This is definitely an urban v. rural debate and the Linear Tax is a huge deal. (I am not sure why it is referred to as a tax)
Please correct me if I am wrong, as my understanding is definitely that of a layman but...
Municipalities all receive cash from the province to maintain their roads. The province pays based on a formula that is essentially x dollars per metre of road. There is no consideration if the road is a single land gravel road or a 6 land asphalt one, both get the same amount of money. This means that a large county with a lot of roads and very few people receives $2000 per capita for road maintenance while cities get closer to $28 per person to maintain their own road network. It doesn't really make any logical sense and really distorts the property tax rates between urban and rural. Another contributor that wasn't mentioned is that urban areas have to pay for their own police force while in rural areas the policing is free.
As a concrete example, in Grande Prairie, the county has started building subdivisions surrounding the city. These are normal subdivisions that you would find in any city with a bunch of houses and almost no services right on the edge of the city. They openly advertise that the taxes are 46% lower than in the city.
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