No, I did not make a typo in my headline; the Pioneer Institute has just released a study that notes that most of Massachusetts’ urban areas are struggling.
This mirrors what the left-leaning MassInc has been saying for years. Although the two organizations may choose to emphasize different reasons for the issue (Pioneer stresses the loss of manufacturing jobs; MassInc also emphasizes laws such as Proposition 2.5 which has widened the gap between rich and poor communities), both groups seem to agree that this should be a concern for the state.
There are some really interesting facts presented in the Pioneer report which may surprise people. For example:
- Did you know that there are six cities in which the per-capita income is less than half of the state average? (Lawrence, Springfield, Holyoke, Fall River, New Bedford, and Fitchburg)
- Did you know that of the 15 “Middle Cities” listed in the Pioneer report, in 1979 they had per-capita income level of about 82% of the state average; in 2009, they had per-capita incomes of about 55% of the state average? That is a tremendous decline.
- Did you know that from 1992 to 2012, the state’s equalized property value grew at a rate of 7.92%, while the Middle Cities EQV grew at a rate of 2.66%, and that Springfield and Holyoke’s EQV grew a paltry 1.55% and 1.73% respectively?
Pioneer’s paper does accurately portray the challenges facing these cities (including issues with schools and crime); it does not, however, move beyond that to propose any solutions.
Now that we have both a right-leaning and a left-leaning organization making the same exact point. What is stopping the state from focusing some more attention here?
So is Pioneer advocating for a graduated MA income tax?
I really want to pick your brain about Western MA issues, particularly around the MGM deal and many of the negative feedback loops of higher property cuts and fewer services that these cities tend to aggregate. I would love to chat over the phone or via email, jconway@unitedindependent.org. If anonymity is hyper important I don’t need your name and we can stick to email. Keep me posted.
Let me eat my crow and say that this report hits the nail right on the head , and it should be a priority for the state to improve these below-the-line towns.
This might be a bit more difficult than it sounds. To wit, there are two possible approaches:
a – The State Solution: make the income tax progressive; replace the sales tax with a VAT that taxes high income goods at a different rate; let MA direct investments in infrastructure in these cities/towns; provide aggressive local aid targeted to these municipalities
b – The Local Solution: give these towns the tools to bootstrap themselves (but leave them more or less to their own wits to do it).
Certainly, neither ‘a’ nor ‘b’ have been tried for a long time – so either is better than nothing. But the answer has to be, in part at least, ‘a’.
MassInc has an interesting article describing how things like the CPA have made wealthy towns even more desirable. It also describes how Proposition 2.5 overrides improve services in towns and makes people want to live there.
That should the state goal; to make these cities desirable for middle class residents again. That will solve many, many problems. The only downside is that there is a significant number of poor people in the cities, and they will need to go somewhere if the middle class comes back. That is always a big knock against “gentrification”, but if you want to break up concentrated poverty that is going to need to occur.
The Commonwealth: The downsides of Prop. 2½ and Community Preservation Act, by Lawrence S. DiCara and Michael Nicholson (Dec 17, 2015)
That’s the article speaking about the unwitting effects of Prop 2.5 on inequality among tows. I’ve forwarded it to our local Town Meeting list back when I read it, and it caused quite a conversation.
Let’s leave aside the CPA for a moment, and focus on Prop 2.5, because the effect there is bigger. Here are the key observations:
– Wealthy towns can afford tax overrides; other towns can’t.
– This means wealthy towns are able to fund schools and services at higher level; which means they provide better schools and services; which attracts rich newcomers moving in; who in turn can afford to vote the next tax override
– The incentive thus is created for wealthy people to move to wealthy towns, and working class people to working class towns.
Some other things to keep in mind:
– When Prop 2.5 was voted in, America was in an era of higher inflation. We now live in a long term deflationary cycle, which may not end any time soon. Thus, the built in 2.5% local property tax levy limit is higher than the rate of inflation. And tax overrides come on top of that.
– The reason for debt exclusion votes, typically, is high construction costs. Towns have no choice, they need to rebuild or renovate police, fire stations, schools, etc. But the rules governing construction are set by the state. Inflation in construction costs is much higher than the 2.5% – in Lexington, for example, it’s been 8.85% per annum since 2000. Thus, the need for ever higher debt exclusion overrides.
– The reason for operating budget overrides, typically, is to cover unsustainable increases in school operating costs – special education, salaries – and health care costs, which are also the kind of things that can’t be controlled by towns, because they either come to unfunded state or federal mandates, or runaway state health care insurance costs, or union contract negotiations.
can afford Prop 2.5 overrides, not everyone living in those towns can afford to pay the ever higher property tax bills that result. So even people living in wealthier towns, who don’t happen to be wealthy, are being priced out, ultimately turning those towns into enclaves of the very rich. This kind of thing certainly factors into the overall presidential debate on income inequality.
That was Grover Nordquist’s original theory about Proposition 2.5 – that it would result in people “sorting” themselves into communities based on how much tax they would be willing to pay.
I don’t hear many anecdotes about people moving from a high-tax community to a lower-tax community because the taxes became too high. Sure, I hear a lot of people griping about those high taxes, does anyone actually know someone who has moved out of one community because their taxes have increased and they have just had enough?
The high-tax communities are the desirable communities, at least in Western MA.
and 2014 was a factor in our decision to sell our house last year. We’re still in town, but renting. I don’t think we’re the only ones in town who have felt that tax bite. When the average tax bill in a town like Harvard rises from $5,000 to $9,000 in a decade, it’s probably going to affect some existing residents.
Many families move in when the oldest kid is in Kindergarten, and move out when the youngest clears 12th grade. That way, they pay in tax a fraction of the cost of their children’s education in a great school system – and don’t have to contribute a dime to the next generation of kids. This only works if you have capital to buy an expensive house for 12-15 years.
The other major component of school funding is the fiscal structure of the Education Reform Act of 1993, the foundation budget, and the corresponding system of Chapter 70 state aid for cities and towns.
It all worked until 2000, when Governor Paul Cellucci was promoting an income tax cut ballot question, saying the state really didn’t need the money. At about the same time, the state began tinkering with the foundation budget, underinflating the costs of providing an adequate education.
The funding formula is based on the following scheme:
1. Determine the cost of providing an adequate education
2. Determine how much a municipality can pay
3. The gap between 1 and 2 is filled in with state aid (Chapter 70 funds)
Thus, if the state systemically underestimates the cost of providing the adequate education, the municipality will still need to meet its local obligation, but the difference between the stated cost and the municipal contribution is reduced. The true cost of providing an education is still the true cost, and the withdrawal of state funding was filled in with a plethora of overrides, user fees, and budget cuts.
This year, Governor Baker’s budget is an absolute outrage, as his foundation budget contained a minus 0.22% DEFLATION rate, increased minimum local contributions statewide are far in excess of 2.5%
Using Arlington as an example:
Arlington’s enrolment: +1.58%
Arlington’s Foundation Budget: +1.72%
Arlington’s Required District Contribution: +5.52%
Arlington’s Chapter 70 Aid: +1.01%
Required Net School Spending: +4.56%
A steady increase in student enrollment is the primary driver of increased costs in Arlington. I contend that if the state maintained its obligations to calculate a reasonable and accurate foundation budget, and fully funded its Chapter 70 aid obligations, we wouldn’t need overrides and user fees to sustain our level of service in our schools.
One measure which I think should be a telling sign of how badly the foundation budget is underestimated is to look at how many communities spend well over their foundation budgets.
The median amount of spending in the state is 134% of foundation budget, and the mean is 142%. Meanwhile Lawrence, Springfield, Everett, Attleboro, and Brockton are at 100% or below.
The foundation budget computes the cost of a “high needs” student as being 50% higher than a student from a healthy, wealthy family. Translated into class sizes, that roughly means that a class of 25 students in a wealthy community would be expected to need the same education funding as a class of 17 in a poor community.
However, I am coming to the realization that funding alone will not help education, especially when we are viewing it as test scores. It can help on the margins, but the only true way to improve Springfield schools is to get better students into them. It is damn near impossible to teach classrooms full of students who are homeless, transient, with huge special needs, incredible social deficiencies, in the foster system, or who have parents who are in prison. I have relatives who are teachers, and the horror stories I hear are astonishing.
who teaches at Kennedy Middle School. Most of the teachers I talk who used to teach in Springfield left for reasons other than their students. Even without the school being taken over, he says the place is a disaster, that the kids are awful and out of control.
The kids are:
Poor
Have parents that don’t care/incomplete set of parents
Don’t have a home environment conducive to homework
Don’t have a home environment conducive to good attendance
Speak Spanish at home
Are recent immigrants from places with worse schools
Have poor dietary habits
Have poor sleep habits
Have undiagnosed special needs
Might be pulled out in the middle of the year for a few months for travel
You could throw money at these problems all day without overcoming them. It’s one reason why extraordinary measures are necessary to move the gauge even a little.
I have a few comments about this list of things people say:
– Divorce and broken families happen in well-to-do neighborhoods as well.
– Is Spanish somehow worse than than Hebrew, Russian, Greek, Latvian, Italian, Portugese, German, Haitian, Japanese, or any of the other languages spoken at home in a multicultural society? Sounds like a stereotype to me.
– Families pay top dollar for homes in towns like Acton, Brookline, Carlisle, Chelmsford and Concord because their schools are better. Do we level the same criticisms at those families who move to those towns from “places with worse schools”?
– Children in well-to-do homes also suffer from eating disorders and sleep disorders. Do we also abandon those children?
– Wealthy people routinely travel throughout the year. Somehow school officials find ways to treat those absences as “educational opportunities” for the children. It appears to me that the extent and direction of the wealth difference between the parents and the school officials is the most important distinction here — is there some other factor?
People say all kinds of things.
Perhaps some privileged whites say that programs addressing these problems only “throw money at these problems all day without overcoming them”. I hope you’ll admit that many of those in the midst of these neighborhoods say that the same programs are lifesavers for at least some of their recipients.
Perhaps you’ll also admit that the cold-hearted and racist responses advocated by the GOP result in disasters like Flint, riot-torn combat zones like Fergusen, and entire cities like Springfield left desolate.
Maybe to some it’s acceptable for privileged whites in towns like Carlisle, Dover, and North Andover to turn their backs and wash their hands of these issues — refusing to admit the role that each of us who is more fortunate plays in perpetuating these crushing burdens.
I have been unemployed, and I have experienced first-hand both the crushing despair that accompanies that and also the breathing room that unemployment compensation offers. I have also experienced first-hand the insulting presumption that I am lazy and shiftless, a presumption of people who have never met me and who know absolutely nothing about the lifetime of labor and sacrifice I’ve given my career. I have swallowed my pride and jumped through the silly and juvenile hoops imposed by such people, and wondered how any of them would react if the same restraints were applied to them.
There are still people who routinely leave tips of ten percent when they dine out. That fact doesn’t make the behavior any more acceptable.
My own view is that I am thankful for the prosperity I enjoy, and I happily accept the increased obligation to help those less fortunate that accompanies that prosperity. We in Massachusetts are among the wealthiest states of the wealthiest nation in the history of humankind.
I am not receptive to suggestions that we have been “throwing money at these problems all day”. I am rather more open to wondering what might happen to our least fortunate residents if our wealthiest residents had only five or ten times what they need, rather hundreds or thousands.
What makes you say that?
Granted, I do not believe the voters intended it.
No doubt more Charter Schools will be the miracle solution, along with more tax breaks for GE, etc.
Down here on the South Coast, most of us do not think that Charters will save us.
We in the forgotten corner of MA would be best served if the state re-committed to a wind-turbine industry for both domestic (Cape Wind or Block Island) and foreign (why the fuck do we spend hundreds of millions to buy weapons in eastern Europe instead of just giving them our renewable tech???)
n/t
I hope we really take this seriously, and there’s a lot we could discuss about this, with BMG’s ragtag group of knowledgeable people.
The issue is how to reverse the trend in these middle cities. Specifically, how much of this situation is a result of bad incentives created by how local taxes work?
How would you correct the mechanisms of Prop 2.5 to keep the local control needed to keep government efficient and responsive – while at the same time equalizing the revenue with other cities and towns who can’t afford Prop 2.5 overrides?
…and establish required baselines below which no community can fall in terms of service, with the state making up the difference between that and what the community can afford.
So the state would set the local property tax levy? I must not be understanding this right.
I believe NH was essentially forced to do that by it’s Supreme Court several years ago. I was actually thinking along the lines of not limiting local tax increases or requiring voter approval. Granted, that may if anything exacerbate the inequalities if not paired with the state making up differences. For me, Prop. 2.5 has always been, as a certain presidential candidate might put it, “a disaster”. It has constrained communities for paying for what they need, and growing up in the 1980s and 90s I felt its effects pretty hard.
This explains how property taxes work in New Hampshire:
http://www.lfda.org/issues/property-taxes-should-nh-remain-free-sales-and-income-taxes
These are actual tax rates:
http://revenue.nh.gov/mun-prop/municipal/documents/15-final-tax-rates.pdf
Interesting that they have a county tax, and a state tax rate for the property tax.
We should give cities and towns substantially more state aid through an equalizing formula.
That was the Commonwealth’s response for the first decade of Prop 2-12 and it worked.
That is why I uprated his/her post
I gave you a downvote because of your flippant attitude towards a problem that I think should be seriously discussed. Instead, you dismissed it, implying “nothing we can do about it”.
This is supposed to be a liberal blog. Liberals are supposed to be concerned with poverty, and I think that poverty doesn’t even begin to describe some of the facts laid out in this study done by a conservative organization. How can you reconcile a city of 152,000 people with an average per-capita income that is less than half of the average of the state’s average per-capita income. That’s not just a handful of poor people – that is the 3rd largest city in the Commonwealth.
Too many baystaters don’t realize how large Springfield is or the host of problems it has had to deal with largely in the shadows of Boston and its environs. I completely agree, and that’s part of the reason why I hope to organize it so it can get leadership that moves it forward and to have allies connected across the state addressing these issues.
In my view, Springfield and its immediately surrounding neighbors is Exhibit A in the case for why we desperately need to increase taxes on the wealthy, so that we can end our reliance on regressive property taxes.
We should double the state’s personal income tax rate, return the state’s “unearned income tax” rate to double the earned tax rate, and we should increase exemptions and thresholds so that these increases apply only to only our wealthiest households. None of these requires any change to the state constitution.
The state should use the resulting increase in general funds as follows:
1. Remove the Big Dig debt burden from the MBTA and restructure MBTA finances as needed to return its funding to a sustainable level.
2. Distribute the remainder to distressed cities and towns like Springfield, easing or removing their dependence on the property tax
3. Impose a constraint on gaming revenue (lottery and casino) so that those revenues are distributed to cities and towns in proportion to the share, by cities and towns, of where the revenue is collected. Lottery revenues collected in Lynn, Everett or Springfield should not be distributed as local aid to towns like Carlisle and Dover.
I would also like to see significant investment made in regional public rail transportation for Western MA, and that deserves its own thread.
The overarching goal should be that the state should help Springfield fund things that will attract more middle class residents – people with higher incomes. I’m not sure exactly what that would be – maybe more police on the streets to assuage people’s fears; maybe fixing the sidewalks and roads; maybe amenities like bicycle paths or parks. The city government has had it backwards for years – they put money into “economic development” and try and lure businesses, but they should really be trying to lure residents – and businesses will follow.
Springfield could use state help on the neighborhood level. A huge problem we have, one which is only evident if you look across a long period of time, is that our neighborhoods are basically rotting. People can’t afford the houses they own (and investors generally only do what is demanded of them), so the houses are in disrepair. There is no good solution to this problem except to raise the incomes of the people living in the houses, however a temporary gap would be to provide some kind of funding to allow the city to redevelop the worst properties – those in foreclosure or receivership.
The main issue is that the properties are worth less on the market than the cost to renovate them. When a property needs $100k worth of work but is only worth $75k, people do not put money into that property. They simply try to keep it from being condemned (and often aren’t successful at that). Most contractors price themselves out at the regional level, so a $75k job in a $400k house makes much more sense.
Our mayor has been touting all the demolitions he has been performing lately, without realizing that he is hollowing out the neighborhoods. The demolished properties remain as empty lots because any new house costs way more than it would sell for. We are slowly dying as a city. I think he may be putting stock in the Edward Glaeser philosophy that Springfield is too big, and that a reduction in the amount of housing will make property values higher. That is a foolish path though, because you can’t just save money by eliminating parts of your city – eliminating housing is done piecemeal, so you lose a little tax base all across the city, meaning your costs stay the same but your revenue drops.
A better vision for Springfield would be to help redevelop its housing stock, which would then take development pressure off of neighboring communities where fields and farms are becoming subdivisions.
In the sense of being supported by voters. I had a neighbor once who described to me moving from a different state in the mid-70s, and finding that the RE taxes on s similarly valued home in a similar community was double.
That suggests that, prior to 1980, Mass towns and cities relied even more heavily on property taxes than they do now. Absent the restriction, wouldn’t the same sorting phenomenon happen, just because wealthier communities can raise a lot more property taxes? They would just need an alderman vote, or whatever, and not an override election.
I guess the question for those with grayer hair than I, what was so much better about the pre-1980 property tax world, and what were the abuses–perceived or otherwise– that caused a tax revolt to be focused on property taxes?
It was because of inflation – property values kept going up and up, and people never seem to understand all components of the taxes they pay, that it is rate plus valuation. There is always a hard-core group of people who nit-pick over valuation. And yes, taxes were going up more than salaries.
I was going through the archives and I found how governor Ed King was selling this – taxes would go down, but no layoffs would occur, cities and towns would “gain efficiencies” (his words).
Springfield’s mayor Dimauro said this: “You had something in Proposition 2.5 for everybody. those who wanted an end to fiscal autonomy for schools, people on fixed income, renters. It was skillfully drawn to attract voters, but not toward answering all the questions of what would happen”.
I think that “end to fiscal autonomy” implies that it was promised that the state would pick up more of the tab for schools, equalizing communities.
Dimauro described cuts that would be made: Reducing the Office of Cultural and Community Affairs from $150k to just the amount of the salary for the cultural affairs officer. Cut the $25k subsidy to the Springfield Symphony Orchestra, cut membership fees to many organizations, contributions to the visitors and convention bureau, all evening adult education, high school athletics, and all school bus monitors. Ambulance service, costing $450k per year, would no longer be free.
One side effect of this law was that the state occasionally cuts aid to cities and towns. This never happened with a property-tax based budget. So, from time to time, Springfield has had massive layoffs (i.e. hundreds of people) when state revenues declined.
> I think that “end to fiscal autonomy” implies that it was promised that the state would pick up more of the tab for schools, equalizing communities.
Slightly different explanation (I think): prop 2.5 gave Town Meetings up or down vote over the school operating budget. Apparently, before Prop 2.5, school budgets were somehow autonomous.
Now that you remind me, yes … I don’t remember the specifics, but I do remember that town meeting had little or no ability to constrain the school budget. Cities and towns were pretty much required to fund whatever the school committee demanded.
By the time I was active in local government, Prop 2 1/2 was already in place and we had no choice but to deal with it.
Pre 2-1/2, Town Meeting would appropriate a budget for the Town side and the School Committee wold appropriate a budget for the schools, neither subject to any limitation other than their own respective appetite for spending.
Then the tax rate would be set by dividing the budget by total valuations.
could set the budget, I believe. Town meeting could vote it up or down. Property taxes were high in those days.
People don’t like paying taxes; just ask Parliament. Unfortunately, many don’t put much stock in the difference between taxation with and without representation.
Proposition 2 1/2 was a knee-jerk reaction by Massachusetts right-wingers to the perceived success of California’s Proposition 13. I say “knee-jerk” because it was an emotional response accompanied by a whole lot of simple deceit on the part of its proponents.
Government officials attempted to convey what it would mean for Massachusetts (much of which has come to pass) and Massachusetts voters, enamored of the then-new upsurge in Reagan-style 1980s “Family ties” nonsense, clamored to make it pass.
Massachusetts voters do not like to hear the facts about what it costs to run a civilized society like Massachusetts. They prefer to hear lies and distortions, dollied up as “policy” and “economics” from right-wing politicians and think tanks.
Proposition 2 1/2 was popular in Massachusetts because Proposition 13 was getting lots of favorable attention by a media that was fawning over Ronald Reagan.
but frustrated voters.
People voted yes because property taxes really were very high. When the Commonwealth stepped in with local aid, the result was in many ways better and more progressive than what it replaced.
I am well aware of why there was a tax revolt in 1980– because by then the “Great Society” style big government programs were widely believed to be an expansive failure.
I do know that prior to the law Massachusetts had among the highest property taxes in the country measured by value. Hence my neighbor who sold a $50k house in NYState and moved to A $50k house in Mass, and more than doubled his re taxes. That is where the name “taxachusetts” came from, and the reason the name is no longer applicable is because we aren’t burdened by such steep re taxes.
What I don’t understand is why that circumstance is anything other than terrible– if we relied ever more heavily on re taxes. It would b just super if Wellesley could increase its spending per student by an order of magnitude while Springfield gets to make a 50% cut and put an extra 27 kids in every classroom.
You guys say how bad it is that wealthy towns can do an override- but do you really think that, say, tripling the property taxes in Springfield would make people want to buy property there?
So rather than relitigating Reagan and Ed King, I am just wondering why shifting more of the tax burden on property is anything other than a regressive mess.
To me the issue with 2.5 isn’t so much that it restricts RE taxation, but rather that it doesn’t offer any revenue alternative to local government. Springfield or Framingham could have a small bump on the sales tax, or something, and then the burden of local govt would not be on those struggling to keep their property out of condemnation.
This is why Proposition 2 1/2 was so bad, and so destructive.
Rather than replace tax revenue from a regressive and too-high property tax, it simply slashed the taxes — classic right-wing starve-the-beast dogma. It didn’t work for Reagan, it didn’t work in CA, and it didn’t work in MA.
What we needed to do then and still need to do now is REPLACE the revenue raised by regressive taxes (like the property tax, the sales tax, the lottery, and casino gambling) with revenue raised by progressive taxes (like the income tax and capital gains taxes, each at much higher rates and with correspondingly higher exemptions and thresholds).
We must either offer a non-regressive revenue alternative to local government, increase local aid from state government (also from non-regressive sources) or both.
The key word there is “replace”. Proposition 2.5 was supposed to do this, but it allowed towns to still rely on the property tax. When the state cut aid (or didn’t keep it up enough), the wealthier communities did overrides while the poor communities were just stuck. Not everyone is able to play by the same rules here, and the state has not been a fair partner.
No, tripling the property taxes in the Middle Cities won’t help now because, as I’ve shown above, their per-capita income is 55% of the state average, whereas in 1979 it was 82% of the state average. However Proposition 2.5 caused that – it caused people to flee from the cities that were forced to make cuts, and it pushed other towns into a housing situation whereby they only allow high-end housing. It prevented these cities from raising revenues when they needed to, to react to problems that cropped up.
Proposition 2.5 was the catalyst for the economic segregation that we now see.
The Middle Cities are not sustainable with per-capita incomes of 55% of the state average. That is too much disparity. People living in these cities cannot afford the basic cost of living. They can’t afford to own a house, or if they do own one, they can’t afford to keep it up.
They can’t afford to purchase normal goods and services, that is why the business climate in those communities is horrendous – no opportunities despite tens of thousands of people. There are neighborhoods in Springfield with 40,000 people within a half-mile radius but no full-service grocery store. Meanwhile go to Wilbraham, a town of 15,000 people, and they have a luxurious grocery store with cheaper prices.
This is the problem that we need to address – the inequality is constraining us, it is hurting people, it is bringing people down. We have cities with built-up infrastructure that is underused, so we are duplicating this infrastructure in other towns at great expense.
One other thing that struck me about the Pioneer study was this sentence, buried in the endnotes:
I am imminently grateful for MassInc for coming up with the “Gateway City” grouping – before that, we were all just swinging in the wind. However Pioneer understands that these cities need a functional purpose beyond just being the place in the state where immigrants enter.
As a resident of one of these cities, I would like to see my city be a “regional hub” – for culture, commerce, industry, etc. That should be the ultimate goal.
Since it is not – and those things are distributed in the region – the region is weaker. Springfield is the hub of a region that spans, arguably, 15 or so cities and towns – Hampshire County. It is the least well-off city in the region (rivaled by Holyoke). Because of that – because people are all spread out across the region, we lose incredible synergies.
For example, although Hampden County has 467,000 people, we have no high end grocers such as Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods. We have one professional sports franchise (hockey), barely hanging on. Our local mall (in Holyoke) has downscaled lately and the mall in Springfield (not near a highway) is on the verge of closing. We have a dearth of restaurants in the region because they are scattered across the region, so someone from Wilbraham isn’t often going to a restaurant in West Springfield.
That should be the model we are going for – a strong regional hub city with surrounding communities that offer various alternatives, rather than a weak hub city with surrounding communities offering escape.
I haven’t been for a couple of years myself but I looked it up and it’s still there. It is worth the ride from central mass, even from Boston. I would especially recommend going in Feb. If you do get out that way don’t miss it.
The Student Prince – in business for something like 85 years – very nearly closed last year because the perception of poverty-sticken Springfield is now “you don’t want to be caught dead there because you might be found dead there”. The reality is nowhere near the perception, but because Springfield is poor and 2/3 minority, it receives nearly 100% of the scorn and vitriol of the region. The newspaper, under a new “sensational hot news” model, doesn’t help, with stories such as “Springfield’s decade in murder, 2000-2009” – which makes it seem like things have gotten out of control, but in reality are consistent with the prior 2 decades when people didn’t think things were so bad.
First place I ever had alligator and bison.
Here’s the thing, if we’re going to do anything it has to be done grass-roots and with as little control from Boston as possible. You know what you need.
Need a grocery? Find a neighborhood with as high an ownership rate as possible. Get some seed money (even I will say govt is needed here), get local input. Create a co-op where locals will gain a percentage of ownership through the hours they put in. (A commercial habitat for humanity). Hire local and pride of ownership will take over. Community policing will create an oasis of safety. Find a local credit union to open a branch in the store.
You have to realize that when you have a city of 150,000 primarily poor people, those people are not poor by happenstance. They are poor because they don’t have the background, they don’t have the energy, they don’t have the skill to not be poor.
It is not likely that a few poor people sitting around are going to sit up and say “hey, why don’t we start a grocery co-op!”. Not going to happen. And even if they did, it would be substantially *harder* to run such a co-op in a community with a per-capita income of $12,000. Especially when a year’s rent runs you $8,000 to $12,000. Not much extra income there to grab ahold of.
Business is lacking because of the population. Improve the population and the businesses will follow.
I guess it’s chicken vs egg for me. I don’t think anyone is so lethargic they wouldn’t paint and clean if they were told they would be 1/200th owner of a place they could buy their groceries. Might have to get some technical help for a start, (what a great way the UIP could get some publicity). They have to be buying bread and milk now, where do they go?
Read about Taharka Bros Ice Cream in Baltimore. They might even help out with their business model.
Too many people in inner cities (down my South Coast way too), buy overpriced over-processed food at minimarts, expensive and unhealthy. It is known as a “food desert.”
the result of good intentions, but one thing it did was help shift the source of revenue from property taxes to state taxes.
Other than that’s the way it is, there is no good reason for education to be funded by cities and towns. It is a recipe for inequity as the state sets the regulations and property values determine a large part of the expenditures.
Living in a small, lower-middle class town and trying to pay its bills as a town official, I’ve come to appreciate the fact that municipalities are accidental geographies, the product of history, not good sense. My town of Granby separated from South Hadley in the 1760s in a dispute over the siting of a new church. Granby had no natural advantages and never developed any industry. Now we’re stuck with a residential tax base that can’t afford an entire town.
A more equitable situation would be a state that took more responsibility for what happens in municipalities.
We stopped doing it in the 90s and it’s been a mess.
Sort of like how we stopped applying basic Keynsian economics at the national level. It works, but we won’t do it.
Either disputes over church location or simply wanting an additional church to accommodate those who were farther from the center in a time when colonial law required a church were pretty much THE impetus for new towns at that time.
The problem with how we implemented Proposition 2.5 is that we didn’t really break the funding from the local sources, and the state funding ignored what was happening on a local level.
A level playing field would say “all education funding comes from the state; no augmenting from local revenue sources, period”. That way a town like Wellesley *can’t* jack up their tax rates and fund their schools at one of the highest rates in the state.
That, of course, would never fly; so another approach would be to link the state aid to the behavior of the local communities – and also keep trying to line it up with the students’ need instead of the community’s desire. So if the top 10 communities are raising their school spending by 10% per year, then raise everyone’s school spending per year too, and pay for it with a progressive income tax. Don’t let some – or as is currently, most – communities leave everyone else behind with their local dollars.
There needs to be a floor, even a pretty high one, below which no community should be allowed to fall. However, if a particular community wants to go above and beyond through taxes, fundraisers, or the like to enhance the educational experience in that town, we should never discourage it.