"Conservative state leaders appear to be nearly unanimous in their view that big cities should be prevented from governing themselves. In particular, they are committed to denying local governments the freedom to ask their own voters to raise their own taxes" -- humantransit.org/2025/08/the-...
I just really want to drill into this great post by @humantransit.bsky.social, who has forgotten more about transit and urban planning than most of us will never know.
"When dense cities are not allowed to fund their services in a way that reflects their needs and values, it guarantees that the city will be a site of failure — failure that will be especially visible ... because in dense cities everything is more visible." -- humantransit.org/2025/08/the-...
You see this over and over and over again. People complain about subway stations and trains being filthy, but those very same people are the often the folks who forced the layoffs of literally thousands of cleaners in the 1980s and 1990s as part of the small government push.
I've been working out the way to say this in my head for a couple weeks. Absolutely spot on.
You see it in the mental health crisis, which is particularly acute underground just by the nature of the environment -- people standing just feet from a million pounds worth of train rumbling past every few minutes, powered by a third rail that should not be touched in any situation.
We closed the asylums partially because civil rights/personal liberties push of the 1950s-1970s, but also because they were massively expensive and we couldn't afford them anymore. We replaced them with nothing. Then we cut funding for the last of that safety net, public hospitals.
You don't get what you don't pay for. Put it on a gd bumper sticker.
"The idea is to make city governments helpless while continuing to blame them for everything that goes wrong" "It plays well in conservative media, but it’s not fair and it’s certainly not democracy." I don't know that I agree that this is the intent, but it is certainly the effect.
Do you think the MTA Payroll Tax or CBD Tolling would pass as a ballot measure in NYC?
Payroll tax for sure, congestion pricing depends on the year. LA hiked its own sales tax twice to pay for subway expansion. If it's a ballot measure to keep the subways running or turn every line into 20 minute service? It'd pass in a heartbeat.
What about the railroads?
I dunno. If a city fails far enough or hard enough (perhaps to the point of civil unrest), that sets the stage for federal (armed) intervention. You don't think that's what conservatives want? Not saying that's where Philly is headed, but it sounds like a favorable endgame for the people in power
And to bring it full circle. You'll hear the constant complaints "New York City gets billions while we get peanuts. Look at those towers." The unspoken truth that never gets said as plainly as it should be is that New York City (or any major city) is the profit center -- bsky.app/profile/ndha...
From a 2018 study, Chicago gets 90 cents on the dollar for its state taxes. The burbs are even worse off. Meanwhile, downstate gets almost a 300% bump on its tax dollars.
Rich states send more to DC than they get back. Cities send more to state capitals than they get back. This is inherent to any business or project. And a nation or a state is the grandest of projects, because it's the public project. But this is a give-and-take; *not* a hostage-taking.
City-bashing has been a feature of US politics since Jefferson. A virulent form has re-emerged recently. But @humantransit.bsky.social notes: "None of which changes the fact that cities are engines of prosperity, and that to hate the city is to hate your own prosperity." Hang that on the wall too
Is funding for PATCO in jeopardy?