Kraz_I t1_iwr7i1d wrote
>"One of the things that really upset me was that the desolate asphalt covered cities I had visited in the US and Canada weren't always this way. I was told the cities were like this because they were designed for the car. That's not true. They weren't designed for the car. They were BULLDOZED for the car.
>.... This is a picture of Houston in the 1970s. No, it wasn't bombed, they did this to themselves. This used to be a compact, walkable city that was just as good as those in Europe or Asia, and they destroyed it."
https://youtu.be/uxykI30fS54?t=449
>People used to be so proud of this place they had built [downtown Brainard Minnesota] that they put it on postcards. No one is making a postcard of this place [the same place today].
https://youtu.be/XfQUOHlAocY?t=140
Suburbia is subsidized by city centers and even poor neighborhoods are more cash positive than car centric suburbs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI
These videos by the excellent channel Not Just Bikes explain where North American urban planning went wrong and how redesigning our cities for the car has destroyed communities.
Hartford isn't even as bad as some of the cities he mentioned, like Houston, where you can't even walk in most places. Also because Connecticut doesn't have property taxes at the county or state level, Hartford isn't directly subsidizing suburbs like West Hartford. Although the mill rate in Connecticut cities like Hartford is much higher than the suburbs to offset lower property values, which unfairly targets the poor.
Hartford keeps almost going bankrupt, and it IS subsidizing the suburbs- only not through direct taxation. Suburbanites always complain about Hartford's "urban blight" and mismanagement as it can't provide the same quality of life as they expect. It has the single lowest per capita income of any municipality in Connecticut. Yet, it is the economic powerhouse of the region! Without Hartford providing so many high paying jobs in Insurance, government and other industries, then towns like Glastonbury, West Hartford, and Farmington would not be wealthy and desirable places to live for the upper middle and upper class families. The only significant revenue that Hartford proper gains from all this insane wealth is the property taxes from businesses offices, and whatever professional workers spend at the local cafes and lunch places during their day. The rest leaves the city. And when Hartford wants to increase property taxes, these companies threaten to move their headquarters to Massachusetts (Taxachusetts, lol) of all places!
Why do we neglect our economic centers, depriving them of their community and spending thousands of hours of our lives commuting to them?
johnsonutah t1_iwruak3 wrote
Agree with almost everything but we should clarify that:
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Hartford does receive significant state funding to help make up for its small footprint and the fact that government buildings take up a sizable chunk of taxable land
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CT has an equal or higher tax burden as Massachusetts with none of the economic strength (except for maybe in Stamford). Taxachusetts is a misnomer nowadays, at least when comparing MA to CT
Whaddaulookinat t1_iws28zp wrote
>Hartford does receive significant state funding to help make up for its small footprint and the fact that government buildings take up a sizable chunk of taxable land
PILOT has been underfunded by the state basically since the beginning of the programme, and even at reimbursement obligated would only cover about 60% of the grand list tax value
milton1775 t1_iwsfpmr wrote
In addition to PILOT, cities like Hartford receive Education Cost Sharing (ECS) and municipal aid funds from the state to bolster their education and general operating budgets, respectively. Cities also receive state and federal grants for specific programs and capital improvement projects. Last I checked, roughly 50% of Hartford's yearly budget was supplied from state coffers.
Whaddaulookinat t1_iwsghyk wrote
And Hartford takes on the entirety of the responsibility of handling the second busiest downtown in New England, and vendors collecting an absolutely insane amount of sales tax. I seriously cannot fathom how the anti city crowds think they can throw out numbers not thinking we don't already know how the state works.
Oh and PS ECS helps all municipalities in the state to a significant degree... It's not a freebie that Hartford gets. Ffs.
milton1775 t1_iwsh0qt wrote
> And Hartford takes on the entirety of the responsibility of handling the second busiest downtown in New England, and vendors collecting an absolutely insane amount of sales tax.
Any business in Hartford is either paying property taxes or rent which in turn had a property owner paying taxes to the city. And the sales tax goes to the state...part of which goes back to Hartford.
> Oh and PS ECS helps all municipalities in the state to a significant degree... It's not a freebie that Hartford gets. Ffs.
Yes, and Hartford receives a disproportionate amount (both overall and per capita) compared to other municipalities.
Whaddaulookinat t1_iwssqa3 wrote
>Yes, and Hartford receives a disproportionate amount (both overall and per capita) compared to other municipalities.
When you account for the shortfall in pilot promises in previous decades it honestly pales. I really do not see your continued point... Hartford gets help for getting a distressed community much like many others including the state fund dependent rural areas. Yet you never see such attention to the minutia detail of their funding sourcing. Just get fucked mate.
Kraz_I t1_iww1hv7 wrote
Hartford has incredible economic strength. It's GDP per capita is one of the highest in the world. I couldn't find data for the city alone, but just for the "Hartford, East Hartford, Middletown Metropolitan statistical area", aka the "Greater Hartford Area", which includes all of Hartford, Middlesex, and Tolland counties. In 2013, the Greater Hartford Area had the 4th highest GDP per capita of any metropolitan area in the world, behind only San Jose, Zurich and Oslo. It even beat out Boston, New York, Paris, London and San Francisco. The economic powerhouse of the area is the city of Hartford, with its insurance industry, which means its GDP per capita is likely much higher than the area as a whole. The economy of the region has been pretty static since then, with only a minimal change in population or GDP since the insurance industry has been shrinking a bit; so it has fallen a bit on the list as a few other cities have become insanely wealthy in the past 7 years. But it's still one of the most productive cities in the US.
Per capita income on the other hand is much lower, because most of that GDP goes to stockholders of Hartford's companies. The only town in the Hartford Area with a per capita income higher than the GDP is Glastonbury, only by a small amount and it's not a very large town.
In contrast, the Bridgeport area, being a suburb of NYC, has since surpassed Hartford only slightly, and has several towns with per capita income higher than its gdp per capita.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Connecticut_locations_by_per_capita_income
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_GDP
https://www.brookings.edu/research/global-metro-monitor/
And yet the city struggles with its finances and it somehow needs government welfare programs like PILOT and ECS to survive.
They damn well should get ALL that state funding and more. They ought to have their municipal budget funded ENTIRELY through state and federal grants instead of local property tax. After all, they produce the highest value for the state.
johnsonutah t1_iwxp9mg wrote
Hartford’s a melting ice cube. The state of CT budget is too broke to fund Hartford like a proper city because the state is heavily indebted to legacy pension debt.
I fully expect New Haven and Bridgeport to grow faster than Hartford and to be more impactful to the state economy.
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