[timun]

Originally Posted by Wormius

Distance from downtown or distance from the service provider?

Generally the two are going to correlate. And don't forget that every new 'burb means more roads, more water and sewer pipes, etc., which have to tie into our existing networks somehow, which often entail having to upsize the existing stuff to make the new tie-in work. Development at the periphery of the developed parts of the city causes us to have to make upgrades closer to the core.

Take roads as an example. Consider the Crowchild Trail bridge improvements that have been going on the last few years. Why did that project have to happen at all? Brutal traffic crossing the bridge. Where'd it come from? Commuters from Royal Oak, Rocky Ridge, Tuscany, Scenic Acres, Arbour Lake, Citadel, etc., etc. It was an inner city project, but had their suburban neighbourhoods not existed it wouldn't have caused the problem in the first place.

Same with the transit system. Fares only cover about half the system cost, and far more money is spent on a per-rider basis on the service that the 'burbs get. Take our LRT system: it's geared toward getting suburban commuters downtown, it barely serves the inner city outside of downtown at all. We're talking about expanding it with the Green Line, that'll go waaaay the **** out to Shepard, but one of the first things in the plan on the chopping block was a station in Crescent Heights, right across the bloody river from downtown.

But this is all getting into very esoteric externalities. How'd you even quantify it? How would do so without pissing a hell of a lot of people off? Practically you can't, hence we charge people based on a guess at their property values. At least you can do an analysis that makes property values fairly easily explainable.

Originally Posted by GGG

No,

The cost of sprawl is based on the square footage of land you occupy

And I said property tax ought to be based on density, didn't I? Let me check the tape... yup, sure did.

...rather than distance from downtown. Distance from downtown is just a matter of income.

A person with a 50 foot x 150 pre 1990 lot causes the rest of the city to be get bigger requiring servicing. A modern burb with a 35 x 100 has 1/4 the impact. Apartment dwellers get screwed even more where they might only take up 50 square feet of city. The goal should be to have to pay for the externalities of your decision.

So a portion of property taxes should be area based and a portion flat and a portion based on income.

Ah, now we're really starting to get esoteric, hahaha! "The blame for someone buying in some greenfield development rests with the greedy people who live on 50-ft inner city lots and won't divvy 'em up!" Hahaha, that's a new one.