Quote:
Originally Posted by Winnipeg Grump
I actually think this is backward. If you look at how much revenue cities generate from their central business districts vs. the suburbs on a per acre basis, you'd end up with a situation where the newer suburbs wouldn't have enough revenue to pay for the maintenance on their infrastructure. There's all kinds of good analysis on the issue at places like Strong Towns.
A standard suburban development doesn't generate anywhere near the kind of money as an old school retail strip like you see along any street in the older parts of the city.
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It's really a dynamic problem and it depends on what year we are talking about. Yes, revenue per acre is higher in denser, inner-city and downtown neighborhoods in Winnipeg. But the fact is that infrastructure replacement costs are also higher. The combined sewer system in our inner city is really expensive and intrusive to fix, and is a barrier to growth in some neighborhoods. Newer neighborhoods with newer infrastructure that has longer lifespans and better materials won't require maintenance for quite some time, so their "revenue to expenditure ratio" isn't as bad as everyone makes it out to be.
Do suburbs like Bridgwater have a very high "roads to taxpayer" ratio compared to inner-city neighborhoods? Absolutely. But the problem is those roads have 40 to 80 year lifespans before replacement, and lifecycle maintenance won't begin for 20 to 30 years, so those costs don't hit the city budget until several decades from now - assuming we actually repair the roads at the rate required to keep them in good condition.
We hear a lot about "suburbs being more expensive", but what we don't hear is how elected officials have swung the math in suburban development's favor by under-investing in infrastructure required for subdivisions. If we built and maintained infrastructure like Calgary, Edmonton, or Mississauga then yes, all those subdivisions would be a net negative with tax revenue being less than their long-term maintenance costs. BUT politicians can get around this with one simple trick that engineers hate: just don't do the maintenance, or build adequate infrastructure.
Bridgwater, Sage Creek, Island Lakes, River Park South, Amber Trails, and all other similar neighborhoods don't put as much pressure on the city budget as everybody thinks they do because the city simply doesn't invest in the infrastructure required to service them. Bishop Grandin is a mess that would require multiple grade separations to fix, yet they will never happen. If they did, the ROI for suburban development would immediately become negative. Transit service is marginal in those areas, and if were better, again, the ROI would swing negative. Amber Trails likely has a positive ROI, until CPT extension is built. Bridgwater is probably a net positive to the city until the several hundred lane kms of new local roads need to be replaced, or a grade separation is needed at Keneston and Perimeter.
But because we just tack on suburban development without accommodating the growth, tax-payers and elected officials don't feel the financial pinch because they simply aren't spending the money required. Of course, everyone ends up paying one way or another: potholes, congestion, rec centers falling apart, short-staffed programming, unkept parks and trails, the list goes on and on.
But suburban development "works" okay-ish in Winnipeg because we just let levels of service decline and infrastructure become overloaded with insufficient investments to replace it.
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