Here are four problems and some suggestions on how to address them.
Problem #1: Inadequate local services due to lack of revenue
Gateway cities have a lower per-capita revenue than other communities because housing units are more affordable in those cities. This hampers their ability to offer services aimed at the middle class; the middle class moves elsewhere, concentrating poverty in the gateway cities.
My perspective: Springfield cannot raise the revenue for basic services from property taxes because it has among the lowest property values in the state. These low values are not compensation for problems I mentioned above. We have housing units that are valued at $25,000, and with our tax rate these bring in just $425 in annual tax revenue. When other communities are claiming that anything less than a $500k house is a money-loser, then what is a $425 unit? Although Chapter 70 has made some progress in education funding, the large Chapter 70 monies that Springfield receives is often used as an excuse to deny us further relief.
Solution #1: Allow communities to raise revenue based on their strengths, rather than one-size-fits-all, perhaps by adding a cent to the sales tax and giving it to the community in which it is collected. Gateway cities are built for commerce, although it is lagging due to a shrinking middle-class customer base.
Solution #2: Index general government state aid by demographics, in recognition that lower property values translate to higher municipal expenses. The fact of life is that the poor don’t commit crimes against the rich, they commit them against each other, so poor communities need more policing. Older substandard housing is more likely to catch fire, particularly as people use space heaters to heat them. More code enforcement is needed in communities with a low owner-occupied housing rate because investor landlords skimp on maintenance to maximize their profits.
Problem #2: Concentrating poverty via housing policy
Existing housing in gateway cities is being converted to permanent low-income status due to a lack of private demand and due to the availability of low-income tax credits as the only source to fund renovations.
My perspective: There are many substandard housing complexes in Springfield. There are many boarded-up tenements, there are plenty of empty lots that need redevelopment. However, there is no private desire to develop this housing because both rents and sale prices are too low. Local officials accede to low-income tax credit projects because they are a step up from blight, but the long-term effect is that Springfield is setting aside more and more of its housing permanently for the poor.
Solution #1: Shorten the affordable housing requirement when public funds are used for rehabilitation, making the to-market-rate period 5 years instead of 30. This proposal was recommended by Peter Gagliardi of HAP, a non-profit that oversees a portion of the Springfield region’s HUD housing vouchers. 30 years may be appropriate in higher-rent communities, but it is too long in lower-rent communities.
Solution #1a: As part of the tax credit reform process, create incentives to allow affordable housing to retain residents even when they earn more than the affordability guidelines. Why? Because increased amounts of low-income housing becomes an anchor around the city’s neck. If a city has low-income housing stock that is 20% of its overall houising stock, it is guaranteed that 20% of its population will be low income. Even if the city and state work exceptionally hard to retrain those 20%, when that group becomes prosperous the housing remains low-income, and it is filled by more low-income residents from outside the area. Perhaps peg the income level of the housing unit at the income level of its last resident. This would give cities incentives to improve the incomes of residents, it would give cities the ability to benefit from their actions.
Solution #1b: Disallow projects that are 100% low-income, but do so in a way that still encourages redevelopment. It is widely accepted that concentrating low-income residents is bad public policy, yet low-income tax credits still allow 100% low-income development. Why? Because if a rehab job needs a subsidy to become viable, every unit in that complex will benefit a subsidy. In for a penny, in for a pound.
Solution #1c: Set aside redevelopment monies for middle-class housing in poor communities. Buildings are sitting empty because private developers can’t make any money redeveloping them. But those empty buildings are a blight on a community, they drive people out and kick off the downward spiral. These complexes need subsidies to come back online, but the only subsidies are to convert them to low-income housing, concentrating the poverty. Perhaps a dollar-per-dollar matching could be awarded to communities which are over their Chapter 40B threshold which accept more low-income rehab projects — create 100 low-income units and funding for another 100 units will be made available to the community with no income restrictions attached.
Solution #2: Give communities more control over the low-income tax process. Awarding of low-income tax credits to private entities is controlled by a state agency, and local governments have very little say in the matter, the private developers only have to show “public support” as part of their overall application, and this support may come solely from low-income housing advocates. This control should be reserved for communities already doing more than their share to provide affordable housing.
Solution #3: Separate the 40B affordable housing requirement for elderly housing versus family housing. Many communities are rated as having a lot of low-income housing, but most of that housing is for elderly residents. There is considerable difference between a 40B elderly project and a 40B family project. Treating them as having the same impact is ridiculous — no one wants the family projects, so many commnuities meet their goals with the elderly projects.
Problem #3: Concentrating poverty via undesirable schools
Gateway city school systems are not attractive to the middle class. Although there are some exceptions, due to the concentrated poverty most middle-class parents do not participate in urban school systems because those systems resemble failure.
My perspective: I have seen many people move from Springfield because the schools are simply not an option for them. They single out the fact that so many poor kids are in the system, and they don’t see that as a healthy environment in which to expose their kids. They also see dismal MCAS scores and figure that any teacher will be spending most of their time trying to raise the scores of the lower achievers rather than working with their own kids.
Solution #1: I think that a 30-child classroom virtually guarantees failure when most of the 30 kids need significant teaching. 30 kids per class only works in other communities because most of the kids get learning opportunities at home and have parental support. Let’s reduce class size to 10 kids per classroom for the poorest classrooms, and maybe even smaller.
Solution #2: Provide opportunities for parents to segregate themselves by educational goals and values — not by race or class. I think that people use race or class as a proxy for “values”, assuming that the poor or the differently-colored don’t share the same aspirations for their kids. So those who can leave urban systems and segregate themselves into mostly white, mostly wealthy communities. I think many people would welcome both ethnic and class diversity, but only
if they are convinced that their children will interact with children from families equally concerned with education.
Solution #3: Demphasize sending everyone to college. A college education is not necessary for many careers, particularly those in the trades. Pushing college as the solution for everyone results in those not attending as being seen as failures. MCAS requirements are the same for college preparatory and vocational – why? How about vocational MCAS instead, to prevent vocational schools from being the dumping ground for underachieving students?
Problem #4 – Transit and decentralization
I personally think that the future of this country lies in centralization. We have pursued a decentralization strategy since the 1960’s. Although this might have been possible in a world of cheap oil and infinite land, it is becoming a burden on our society. As an already dense state, Massachusetts can lead the way toward encouraging population to concentrate rather than spread out.
Solution: Improve rail transit between cities. Why isn’t there a fast train between Springfield, Worcester, and Boston, one that makes the run in 30-45 minutes? Yes, that one is somewhat of a pipe dream, but if this becomes an important federal priority, we need to jump on it quickly.
Having a strategy to bolster gateway cities will benefit the areas that surround them too — mainly by taking development pressures away from those smaller communities. There will be less desire to turn farmland into housing tracts if demand is restored in urban areas. There will be less desire to build Home Depots in suburban communities if commerce again becomes concentrated in urban areas. The “New England Town” is one of our competetive advantages, but it is being threatened by growth
Plus, consider that Massachusetts, as a whole, is losing ground in population. Yet if you look at the gateway cities, they have had more population in the past. Springfield had 200,000 people in 1970; it now stands at 150,000 people even though thousands of acres of land have been developed since then as single-family housing. Holyoke stands at 40,000 residents whereas it had 50,000 residents in 1970 on less developed land.
There is hope; I have heard that the Brookings Institute has the ear of President-elect Obama. And Obama actually has an urban policy — unlike the last 8 years of Bush. But we must be ready to work in concert with the federal government, in a way that strengthens 11 cities outside of Metro Boston, so that all cylinders of our state’s economy start firing in unison. Imagine how far we can go!
A study released last year by think tanks MassINC and the Brookings Institution showed that since 1970, gateway cities lost 3 percent of their job base, while greater Boston saw a 51 percent bump in new jobs.
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p>Adam
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p>iowa drug rehab
A lot of this, I think, can be done for far less than we’d think, too. For example, just simple changes in zoning and policy could make a world of difference in changing the kinds of developments that are made, truly leading to some ‘smart growth’ without the state having to spend practically anything.
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p>Other aspects are obviously going to cost money, but much of the cost is just up front. Improve the education, transportation and infrastructure and we’ll greatly improve our economy. I also agree that we should seriously invest in our tech schools and stop treating them as if they are anything but schools that should be world-class trade schools. If we had a better infrastructure and improved our tech schools, we’d be well poised to attract a lot of new industries to this state that require highly skilled – but not necessarily college-educated – workers. Heck, just in improving the infrastructure alone we’ll need them.
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p>Both Massachusetts and the Federal Government need to do some serious work programs to not only jump start this economy, but quickly create an infrastructure and technological advancements that will make America an international leader again. We’ve lost our edge and it shows. After we tackle this gas tax increase, which should absolutely include more funding for roads and public transit, we should further think of having a sunsetting tax raise with all the funds going to large transportation projects. We don’t have to wait for the feds to take the lead. Heck, if we get the ball rolling, we may spur on more emphasis toward this nature on the federal level – especially if it leads to success across this state.
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p>The most important development this state can have is to develop all of our smaller urban cities, paving the way for a renaissance of our state’s working and middle class. We need to make sure this entire state prospers in the same way as Greater Boston if we’re all to grow and truly thrive.
but is there a way to get a significant portion of the poor from those gateway cities out of those cities? I’ve wondered for a long time if you could identify a few thousand people who would be willing to move and then “set them up” in smaller towns with affordable housing and jobs. We have 351 cities and towns in MA and I’m sure each town could absorb 100 people each.
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p>The issue of course would be where would they live (figure it out) and what jobs would they get. They could benefit from good schools, a lack of gangs and other stimulants of bad behavior, more role models and jobs. It certainly wouldn’t be perfect but I can’t help but think a family living in the projects of Worcester or Springfield would not do better living in an apartment in suburbia. They certainly would be safer from the violent crime that comes with these urban settings.
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p>The gateway cities are cesspools and imagining the middle class going back there is unrealistic… that’s why we left. Can you tell me WHY anyone would want to go back from suburbia to… Brockton (except to buy some drugs)?
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p>Haven’t thought it out too much but just an idea.
Cities have an advantage for the disadvantaged in that there is (or used to be) a combination of jobs, public transportation and nearby services that could accomodate the less mobile among the population. The particular cities mentioned were historically “gateways” for immigrants to merge into the American society gracefully. Those who were “successful” became mobile and moved to the locations that you advocate. But taking those that are not mobile and moving them to an area that requires mobility seems to be the wrong way to attack the problem.
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p>A better way to reverse the course is to restore the jobs (or maybe encourage the newer jobs) within the cities to provide the opportunities for growth that the population sorely needs. The State and Federal Governments should develop urban policies that encourage and incentivize such a movement.
Non-urban areas have made a hard push for those jobs. Suburban industrial parks are very popular — partly because of lower tax rates (urban areas usually have split rates with commercial rates above $30/1000 whereas suburban locations may be in the $12-15 range), and partly because there is more land to expand in those communities.
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p>In early October there was some attention paid to urban economic development that noted that the concept of “Economic Opportunity Areas” has been bastardized. It was originally a designation given to poverty-stricken urban areas, and companies doing business in them are eligible for tax credits. But somehow the poorer communities were allowed to extend their areas to include other communities; Springfield recently extended its area to East Longmeadow — on the basis that several manufacturing plants there (Lenox, Hasbro, who long-ago moved from Springfield to the suburbs) employ a good number of Springfield residents, so it’s in Springfield’s best interest if those companies are helped.
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p>I can see the rationale why the EOA was extended, but it’s such a slap in the face that companies in relatively wealthy suburban communities are getting aid meant for urban areas. And the story noted that there is just $28 million in the program, and that of the $500 million the state makes available for economic development incentives, less than 5% goes to urban areas.
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p>Regarding placing poor residents across the state, that will never happen. People have moved to suburban locations to escape poverty. Such a scheme would be fought as vigorously as busing. A better plan would be to make cities more attractive to residents. But that can’t be done when revenue is based mostly on property taxes, and when state aid is doled out without respect to need.
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p>It is so obvious to me how much Proposition 2.5 failed cities. Its proponents claimed that residents would “sort themselves”; those who wanted lower property taxes would move to lower-tax communities. But it turns out that although most want lower taxes, most don’t want to trade schools, public safety, or other services for a smaller tax bill. Housing has some perverse incentives — cheaper is usually not better, because the desire to live in a $50k unit is trumped by the desire to live apart from people who can only afford a $50k unit.
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p>I think that there are many people who would be happy living in an urban area. Many young families start out in urban areas due to the lower cost of housing. But the schools are the #1 deterrent for those families. And many seniors would be better served living in an urban setting, close to public transit, commerce, smaller property, etc — but the higher crime is their #1 deterrent. I think that several of my suggestions could solve those problems.
Crime and bad schools are definitely the top two reasons why people avoid living in the cities mentioned. But I disagree that anything you proposed will change that. If you wee able to generate jobs in those cities then people would simply live in suburbia and commute to work (alla Boston).
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p>Being from Boston I will claim guilt of being someone who moved out for exactly reasons #1 and #2. I can also tell you that doing “anything” (jobs, economic development…) without addressing #1 and #2 directly (with measurable results) is DOA for people considering moving back.
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p>Prop 2.5 hasn’t failed anyone since we have the power to override it anytime we want… if we truly want to.
Proposition 2.5 works well in smaller homogeneous communities that have a certain identity. For example, if a community is known for its schools, it’s a lot easier to pass an override devoted to the schools.
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p>Larger communities don’t have the same ease. It is difficult to cobble together a coalition of voters. In a city, when a lot of voters are using private schools, they’re not going to pass an override for the schools. If one neighborhood is experiencing crime, the others aren’t going to care enough to vote for more cops.
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p>I do happen to think that some of my suggestions address crime and schools. More local funding will allow communities the flexibility to hire more cops. More code enforcement inspectors will improve the living conditions of rental property across the city making it less hard to rent to decent tenants. A school option that allows parents to self-segregate by dedication to education, or driving down class sized to ten or even less will encourage people to give the schools a chance.
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p>Even more jobs will have an effect — sure, I don’t doubt that if you generate 100 jobs 70 will live in suburbia, but 30 is nothing to scoff at either, and if the other pieces of the puzzle are in place, those 70 people looking to live in suburbia may just move into the houses of the elderly looking to simplify their lives, or houses that would have previously been bought by a couple that is now taking a chance on an urban school.
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p>The basic concept here is to cure the imbalance of demand that drives overdevelopment of suburban and rural areas, areas that are not tied to the transportation grid, areas dispersed enough so that there isn’t enough aggregate demand in one place to attract certain amenities — what I mean by that latter piece is that there are 600,000 people in the Springfield MSA, but there is no Trader Joe’s store. There is no baseball team. Why? Because the 600,000 people are spread in a 30 mile radius of Springfield, and there aren’t enough people in any one area of the suburbs to attract that kind of commerce — even though in aggregate, there is.
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p>Suburbs have had their growth phase at the expense of cities, but the region is not growing because suburban growth at the expense of urban growth does not grow the pie. It is just reshuffling.
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p>I challenge anyone to figure out how to make Springfield self-sufficient. We have a $550m budget; if most of that was spread over the property tax base we’d have a $50 mil rate. Yet Mitt Romney’s team couldn’t find hundreds of millions in waste – at best, they found $10-20m. So isn’t it a problem if the 3rd largest city in the state isn’t near able to support itself? Isn’t that a sign that we’re doing something wrong?
You cannot concentrate so many poor people, allow an environment of crime and sub-standard education which drives out your tax base and expect it to survive.
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p>I can’t see anything bringing these cities back. I would take them apart and start over again. There are many suburbs that offer jobs and transportation. The Commuter line runs through many.
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p>I don’t have an answer but I know the current “way” is going nowhere but worse.
What does it mean to “take the cities apart”? Put a wall around them? Cut off all funding and let them degrade to “escape from NY” status? Designate them as the “official poverty zones” of the Commonwealth?
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p>I am encouraged by the fact that our governor and president seem to not take the position of previous administrations, which is to simply ignore urban issues.
Look at Lowell (now). (Sorry, couldn’t resist…)
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p>With care and innovative means, the gateways cities can remain affordable, jobs-friendly, and improve their lot in life. Lowell’s crime rate and poverty levels were insane in the 90s, the real estate market was severely depressed as a result and no one wanted to live here. That’s no longer the case.
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p>We’re redeveloping a big parcel of land here with mixed affordable housing, commercial/residential and public land, adjacent to the downtown area, virtually extending the “city” part of the city. A lot of concerns over gentrification have been addressed. These cities can be breeding grounds for cultural and economic revolutions – we have to stop cramming all the economically disadvantaged folk all in one part of town, for starters. Lowell is a mixed bag – there are areas of town that are quite “nice” and almost “suburban-y”. There’s also slum lords, and at the same time “responsible” affordable housing owners.
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p>It can be done but 1) it takes long term planning, something politics can suck at, especially on a local level, and 2) it takes good management of your resources.
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p>I CHOSE to live in Lowell several years ago, because I like the small city atmosphere, the diversity (of both the economic, and cultural) and for the affordable places to live, the access to public transit (a HUGE dealbreaker for us). A decade ago I would never have wanted to live here, for all the reasons people talk about (safety, etc).
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p>It can be done. No one’s saying Lowell has got it down note-perfect, but I’m very optimistic about this gateway city – and that this can be duplicated in others across the Commonwealth, no matter the challenges. In the end, not only do you need political will and planning, but also a degree of optimism and pride. Lowell benefited from a great deal of both of these – thanks to people like Paul Tsongas and others.
Even with our disadvantaged kids, and the large ESL population and the challenges that brings, Lowell’s schools, though always striving to work within limited resources, have quite a good reputation.
I think one of the elephants in the room could be the racial makeup of Springfield vs. Lowell.
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p>According to the 2000 census, Lowell was 70% White, 17% Asian, and 5% Black, with 15% identified as Latino. Springfield’s numbers are 60% White, 23% Black, with 27% identified as Latino. Springfield has seen a Hispanic increase since 2000, probably to the 35-40% level, I’m not sure if Lowell has seen that too.
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p>A lot of the hatred I see posted on online forums, or even called into the local radio stations centers on “minorities”, in particular Hispanics. I think that the perceptions of these groups are heavily associated with crime.
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p>In my life, I have had two experiences which showed me how conditioned I am towards race and crime. Once, when I was in Hamilton ON, I walked through a particular neighborhood. When I told someone where I had been, he said to me “are you crazy? That’s a horrible neighborhood”.
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p>Another time, when in Portsmouth NH, I stopped at a local gas station. Seemed pretty ordinary to me at first, but then the copes entered and jacked some guy up against the wall. Only then did I notice that the crowd was rougher than I had first expected.
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p>In both cases, all the people I encountered were white. I realized I wasn’t on guard when in those places because I had been conditioned to believe that “bad areas” were those where nonwhites were.
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p>Much of the descriptions I have heard of neighborhoods “getting bad” involve their racial/ethnic makeup. People say “look around” when speaking of how dangerous a neighborhood has become.
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p>I’m not sure how we can get past that except a belief that as more generations come through, they will be less sensitized to that conditioning.
One of the factors is that cities are the “gateways” for immigrants who are typically undereducated and lacking many of the skills unique to our culture. However, for the most part they are hard-working and ambitious to improve their lot, if not them directly, then their children. Some cultures are more agressive than others in this regard.
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p>Cities typically offer services that are suited to these individuals, so they become the magnet for the majority of immigrants, immigrants from not only outside the country but from within it. The underclass can survive better in cities.
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p>The problem develops when the upwardly mobile move out of the cities, and the constant in-rush of disadvantaged persons reduces the wealth-generation ability of the populace as a whole to sustain themselves. State aid helps, but it usually cannot keep up with the trend.
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p>There has to be more incentive for the upper class to remain in the cities. As noted earlier, Lowell seems to have some advantage in comparison to other gateway cities, but even there improvement is needed. Maybe its the attractions (Urban National Park and museums, the Spinners minor league baseball, the Civic Auditorium with theater and shows, and the Tsongas Arena for hockey and other events) or maybe its citizens who are more civically engaged, operating things like its folk festival and artists displays that keep a higher percentage of upwardly mobile people within the city.
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p>There is no silver bullet solution, just a lot of hard work by the citizens to keep improving their lots in life.
informative post.
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p>Poverty is the problem facing cities. Middle-class families do not want their kids to go to school with too many poor kids who bring an almost entirely foreigh set of problems with them. Middle-class kids have plenty of problems, but they don’t usually stem from poverty.
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p>When I drive through a Springfield neighborhood like Hill-McKnight, I see beautiful houses that (in another area) people would love to own and renovate. What keeps people from moving in is crime and schools/student bodies that middle-class families don’t want to deal with.
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p>Mark
The revitalization of our Gateway cities would be good for the Commonwealth as a whole, as well as the individual cities.
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p>As for the possible solutions that you offered:
A. Revenue
-S#1, small increase in local sales tax, does not appear attractive, as the cities currently have trouble retaining commercial businesses (jobs for the underemployed) and this change may make things worse.
-S#2, increased State aid to disadvantage communities, I believe this already occurs, although you may be asking for even greater help. But realize, it if the distribution is changed, other communities would suffer, and most of them are already Prop 2&1/2 limited.
B. Housing Policy
-S#1, 30 to 5 year, I don’t know the answer, but I would be afraid that this change would force people out too soon, and not allow the unhoused any opportunity to get housing.
S#1amaybe?S1b,agreeS#1cgood idea!S#2I don’t know?-S#3, elderly vs. family, I think you are advocating separating them, but retaining the requirement for both?
C. Schools
S#1agreeS#2it would be difficult to measure desire, although I agree with the concept.D. Transportation/Centralization
S#1high speed interconnect by train. The curent “spokes” to the Hub run pretty well, but slow primarily due to the frequent stops to maximize passenger traffic. The extension across the State would work if it didn’t require too many stops to be feasible, but it would be a large investment. Maybe tele-commuting would be a more cost-effective way to address this problem.<
p>In any case, you may want to review some material I have previously posted on the subject, with a somewhat different approach to solving the problems. I am happy you brought the subject up, as the Obama Administration may offer substabtive assistance not only through its Urban Policy as you have cited, but possibly as one element of its National Economic Revival plan.
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p>First, what is the problem?
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p>I have felt it would be wise to attack the problem through economic development:
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p>The approach I outlined followed the strategy of improvement through economic development:
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p>And how State and Local Governments could help:
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I’d like to clarify a couple of my suggestions.
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p>First, I envision the 1 cent sales tax increase to be statewide, not in communities that choose to do it. That would elimination competition between communities. It would not put too many communities at competitive disadvantages — most adjacent states have sales taxes higher than 5%. Some communities would cry foul because they wouldn’t benefit from this; all I can say is that those communities are probably doing well with their property tax.
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p>Second, although education aid is progressively awarded based on demographics (using a formula that I don’t think goes far enough), general government aid (Cherry Sheets) is only slightly progressive, skewed slightly based property values. I do not think that skewing is adequate compensation for concentrated poverty. The way communities fight against letting the poor in is evidence enough.
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p>I think the “centers of excellence” idea has merit; it would serve to give communities a focus. It would brand them, sending a signal to the private market.
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p>One area that I often see overlooked, though, is that such plans seem to focus on getting people the right skills. This is more of a national problem, but I think that we have to figure out how to boost the earnings of unskilled labor. I don’t think everyone is capable of achieving an advanced degree, and if we cut those people off from advancement opportunities, we doom them and their descendants to poverty.
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p>My grandfather did not attend college. I don’t even know if he finished high school. He worked in a factory, and he earned enough money to buy a house and to put three kids through college. My grandmother did not have to work. That is the same story that many people have.
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p>That path is gone. Now, someone with no college degree and no skills goes nowhere. They certainly don’t earn enough to buy a house, to be the sole provider in a family, and to send three kids to college. They probably lead a less stable life than my grandfather. And so their kids usually follow that path instead of one of advancement.
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p>One other point to note is the competitive disadvantage that urban areas have regarding jobs. Companies now like to build on many, many acres. They like to build out instead of up. That acreage does not usually exist in urban settings. It does exist in suburban industrial parks. I don’t know how to get around that.
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p>Here in Lawrence I have seen (though granted not often) first generation immigrants(legal) get factory jobs where I am employed. They save and buy homes. They see their children graduate from college. They were able to succeed because of hard work, avoiding debt, raising their children with a respect for authority. IT CAN BE DONE. These people didn’t ask for handouts. They didn’t consider themselves as “victims”. They were thankful for the opportunity this country afforded them and they made the best of it. Some today own their own businesses. These people began as machine operators who did not speak English but worked to assimilate. They have my complete respect.
Thanks for the optimistic and thoroughly constructive post. And the comments were cool, too. It is interesting how concern with these communities ebbs and flows. They are important on a number of levels.
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p>There was a book about many of these places, The Twilight Cities by Harvey Boulay–then of Boston U. It came out in the 1980s and is undoubtedly out of print, but probably in some libraries. He found grounds for optimism, too, but 25 years have passed and we’re still looking for basic socio-economic solutions.