![]() Families who choose to live in in the downtown take on a special kind of bargain. And thanks to taxes paid by downtown businesses, property taxes are lower for everyone in the city.Ĭonsequence 2: Stealing piecemeal hurts existing communities. Traditional, walkable downtowns consistently produce far more tax revenue per acre than outlying areas. They also bring in a significant amount of tax funding that pays for city services like parks and crosswalks. Office, retail, and restaurants provide opportunities for all residents to work and enjoy themselves without a long commute. A thriving downtown bolsters everyone, even residents who don’t live in the core of the city. Here are a few of the outcomes of this "suburban stealing":Ĭonsequence 1: The loss of a strong downtown hurts everyone. The Negative Consequences When the Suburbs "Steal" Services from the City It has lasting consequences that hurt the downtown area and also end up hurting the families in new suburban developments. Stealing public assets from the downtown isn’t a sustainable way to grow a community. ![]() However, many families in both the suburbs and the downtown realize that this kind of tit-for-tat thinking is a mistake. ![]() If suburban kids had to be driven to school before, why not require downtown parents to drive their kids now? Some residents in the suburban area have argued that the situation is only fair. Some of these roads do not have developed sidewalks. Downtown students who can currently walk or bike to school would have to be bused to the new location or take on a treacherous route that includes a 7-lane intersection, 3 sets of active railroad tracks, and a tunnel under the interstate freeway. Stopping the proposed move required a significant, months-long investment of time and effort from concerned citizens.Ĭurrently, the Provo School Board is attempting to relocate yet another school, Dixon Middle School, from its central city location to a lot in an undeveloped area of the suburbs. Last year, a group advocated to move the City Center (with administrative, municipal, and police departments) from its old home on the city’s main Center Street to the vacant Sears building in a struggling mall on the south end of town. (The old, centrally-located campus is now a parking lot.) Even after the public outcry that followed, we’ve been overwhelmed with similar attempts to relocate public facilities. The move had major consequences for the city and required the creation of new roads and infrastructure. In 2016, the school board moved our downtown high school from a central location with a walkscore of 65 to the edge of suburban development with a walkscore of 3. In the last several years, Provo, Utah has dealt with a barrage of attempts to move centrally-located public facilities to unwalkable, suburban (and even undeveloped) areas. Now that my city’s downtown area is starting to thrive, we’re facing a new problem: the suburbs are trying to “steal” the best parts of downtown and move them to the outskirts.
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