[Dr Nevergold]

Thank you, its still fresh and the move isn't over yet, I'm still in Le Buff for another week until moving is complete. Anyway, the point remains that the Rust Belt needs a remake if its to come back, and I don't yet see that happening. Taxes and consolidation of services is a small portion of the story.

I don't think most people on here who aren't from this region or have lived in multiple regions understand the breadth of the problem. If you own a $250,000 property in suburban Buffalo, the taxes are somewhere between $6,000 to $8,000 per year. Part of why property values here are low is because no one can afford the taxes if value went any higher. In other regions you might have people paying $4,000 in property tax, but the values of the homes are much, much higher. The rate of tax is still lower than this region.

The other issue these cities face is infrastructure and upgrades needed. These cities had infrastructure built for populations about double the current size of people, sometimes more in certain cases. When you have a fraction of the population to fund infrastructure redevelopment, it really does take some federal or state intervention to fund projects to equalize the difference. These cities can't take these tasks on their own, they don't have the tax base to do it. You can't exactly decommission a water system for an entire portion of a city when there are still people and property there. You have to invest and make upgrades regardless. Places like Detroit have water systems in areas where pipes are literally a hundred years old and in dire need of replacement.

Its a very, very complicated situation these cities have.