Indianapolis: over 50 years of urban "cheating"?

[Emprise du Lion]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Do other cities have income taxes on suburban commuters?

Both St. Louis and Kansas City, MO have an earnings tax on residents and commuters who work in the cities. The 1% tax is St. Louis' largest single source of revenue, and it accounts for more than a third St. Louis' annual budget.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by Emprise du Lion

Both St. Louis and Kansas City, MO have an earnings tax on residents and commuters who work in the cities. The 1% tax is St. Louis' largest single source of revenue, and it accounts for more than a third St. Louis' annual budget.

I've lived in St. Louis City or KCMO for the vast majority of my adult life and never minded paying the earnings tax unless there was a hiccup actually paying it and I ended up in arrears (which happened). Now, it's worth mentioning that I've been a homeowner for the majority of that time as well - and the difference in property taxes between St. Louis City and St. Louis County has made my overall tax burden significantly higher in St. Louis County. The earnings tax is a pain in the ass for low income renters - but I don't think that factor keeps more middle class homeowners from living in St. Louis City. I think it may impact some business placement decisions, but again property taxes are lower (sometimes significantly less) in St. Louis City than St. Louis County.

[3rd&Brown]

Philly has a income tax on workers both resident and non-resident. I think the first is about 3.8% and the second is 3.2% the last time I checked.

IMO the impact is relatively muted though for a few reasons.
1. PA's (state) income taxes are very low (3.08%). It's the lowest income tax of any state that charges an income tax (if that makes sense). Basically, you have all the "no tax" states like TN, FL, WA...then PA. Thus, generally paying PA state + Philly city you're still lower than NJ across the river and even the other surrounding states.
2. We're surrounded by higher tax states in every direction. PA's (state) income taxes pale in comparison to NJ, NY, MD, and even Delaware's. (Delaware is known as a "low tax" state, but its income taxes are actually very high).
3. Comparitively, Philadelphia has low property taxes (about 1% of market value). Again, far lower than surrounding states (exception Delaware) as well as PA's suburbs.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

The comparison is often made between Kansas City and Indianapolis - wondering how they compare apples to apples (other than KC has slightly better pre-war bones even though its 500 miles further west).

Speaking of KCMO, I recently came across this before/after scene that's apparently Kansas City, it's close to the worst destruction I've ever seen... I mean, I'd agree that it HAD good prewar bones. (Is the pic kinda out of context? Judging solely from it, looks like the scale of the destruction is somewhere between WWII Dresden and WWII Hiroshima, and much closer to the latter ...)

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

That's a pretty terrible idea since every economy needs low wage workers, whether or not they directly show up in the bottom line of the tax coffers.

Supposedly most service workers commute to Monaco from France - probably the most extreme example of this dilemma.

But the whole issue with U.S. cities is that they really don't do much at all. Police, fire, maintain local roads...that's pretty much it. You might hear about other things a city is doing, but as a percentage of their budget, it's tiny. It's often the case that park boards and school boards and transit commissions and the sewer district and the waterworks are technically under the auspices of the city and those budgets can appear in the total city budget, but a mayor and city council usually has no say whatsoever in their budget or affairs. These procedural boundaries differ somewhat from state-to-state but there is almost no such thing as a truly strong mayor anywhere in the United States who lords over the parks, waterworks, airports, etc.

Do other cities have income taxes on suburban commuters?

Yes. Ohio cities collect an earnings tax from *all* earnings in a city, irrespective of a worker's residence (even from those who commute into Ohio from bordering states). But this is currently being challenged as work-from-home people are trying to win an exemption.

The "low-tax" states like Tennessee that do not allow municipal earnings taxes make up for it with very high sales taxes (approaching 10% when combined with state/county). Nashville boosters like to cite "low taxes" for that city's boom while completely ignoring languishing Memphis, which enjoys the exact same tax environment.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

^and residential population is basically irrelevant.

How is residential population an irrelevant stat?

It's by no means the only piece of the puzzle, but population decrease is one of the most readily available and clearest proxies that we have for American post-war urban decline.

Now, because household sizes have also been steadily declining over the same time period, I'm of the opinion that # of households is an even better measure, but historical data for that can be more cumbersome to find. And straight population hits pretty close to the same bullseye anyway, if you adjust for the roughly 30% decline in average household size over the last 70 years.

[twinpeaks]

Originally Posted by lio45

Speaking of KCMO, I recently came across this before/after scene that's apparently Kansas City, it's close to the worst destruction I've ever seen... I mean, I'd agree that it HAD good prewar bones. (Is the pic kinda out of context? Judging solely from it, looks like the scale of the destruction is somewhere between WWII Dresden and WWII Hiroshima, and much closer to the latter ...)

This is pretty sad. those were beautiful buildings

[meh]

There are a few then/now comparisons floating around for KC.


https://x.com/FuckCarsReddit/status/1584950741617487874


https://www.reddit.com/r/OldPhotosIn..._1906_vs_2015/

[mrnyc]

^ how very clevelandy. ugh.

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

By contrast, the Cincinnati Public School District extends randomly outside the city limits of Cincinnati:

This stuff varies quite a bit from state-to-state. I have no idea what the laws are in Indiana.

The two islands inside the Cincinnati city limits are not Beverly Hills-type enclaves. They are all factory working class areas that the City of Cincinnati didn't get around to annexing before the state law changed in the 1920s and Cincinnati became landlocked by surrounding (and interior!) incorporated areas. Obviously, Columbus went on a postwar annexation spree, but that was of unincorporated territory.

columbus also has outside the city boundries schools along with inside the boundries suburban in the city schools, or bascially shared border areas (the agreement is called win-win). works for them.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

"Old City" Columbus (51 sq. miles):

1960 (peak): 389,222

2010 (nadir): 234,582

Change: -40%



Center Township, Indianapolis (42 sq. miles):

1950 (peak): 337,211

2010 (nadir): 142,787

Change: -58%

So, sticking with the whole "fixed geography of the urban core over time for Midwest post-war land annexers" theme, I calculated Milwaukee's 2020 population within its original 1950 city limits of 50 sq. miles (just prior to the city going on a mini-annexation binge of unincorporated county land in the '50s when Milwaukee nearly doubled in land area from 50 to 96 sq. miles).


"Old City" Milwaukee (50 sq. miles):

1950 (peak): 637,392

2020 (nadir): 418,206

Change: -34%


So "Old City" Milwaukee really isn't doing all that poorly when accounting for average household size shrinkage. And it's still roughly 2 - 2.5 times denser than the other two within these tighter geographies.

[craigs]

Interesting chart touching on the subject:

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

Supposedly most service workers commute to Monaco from France - probably the most extreme example of this dilemma.

Monaco wouldn't be able to support itself if they didn't commute in from France. Monaco is smaller in area than New York's Central Park.

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

But the whole issue with U.S. cities is that they really don't do much at all. Police, fire, maintain local roads...that's pretty much it. You might hear about other things a city is doing, but as a percentage of their budget, it's tiny. It's often the case that park boards and school boards and transit commissions and the sewer district and the waterworks are technically under the auspices of the city and those budgets can appear in the total city budget, but a mayor and city council usually has no say whatsoever in their budget or affairs. These procedural boundaries differ somewhat from state-to-state but there is almost no such thing as a truly strong mayor anywhere in the United States who lords over the parks, waterworks, airports, etc.

Most major cities maintain the water and sewage systems and the school systems. It was once common for cities to own and operate their transit systems too, but it became common in the postwar era for state governments to operate the transit agencies.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Most major cities maintain the water and sewage systems and the school systems. It was once common for cities to own and operate their transit systems too, but it became common in the postwar era for state governments to operate the transit agencies.

Hell, I grew up in New England, where the cities/towns mostly controlled the schools directly (the idea of elected school boards was completely alien to me when I moved elsewhere, as was the idea of county government).

Or look at Virginia, where cities cannot be inside counties, and the powers of a city and county are identical.

Point being, you can't really generalize about what cities can/cannot do.