The comment about place vs. people orientated development tangentially raises an interesting question of whether a city has a duty to only its citizens, or if it has a duty to all potential citizens. This question is also a fundamental question concerning questions of development and gentrification in general.

American residents are free to move; if a city improves a neighborhood so that people in the suburbs or other cities move to it a number of groups gain: owners of property in that neighborhood gain from higher values and rents; current residents gain if their neighborhood improves; new residents gain (otherwise why would they move?); nonresidents gain from increased housing, cultural attractions (but lose from payments for development); and present renters gain from improvements in the neighborhood, but more likely lose overall because without rent-controls the value of improvements in the neighborhood will be largely captured by property owners.

What welfare maximization formula should a City pursue?

(I would question distinguishing between benefits to neighborhood residents and non-residents. A city either has a duty to the city, or the State, or the Nation, or all humans, not a neighborhood.)

I would also comment that while stadiums and such seem to not create an economic boom worth their cost, there are clearly network effects, or positive externalities, to concentrated retail or commercial activity. Cities themselves are a living testiment to this.

The writer you linked to makes a comment about Cities seeking higher tax revenue from a downtown. Taxes on high prices properties and commercial properties are higher than residences. If the downtown development creates a greater increase in tax revenue (or halts a decline) than other projects, there may be no (or a smaller) real cost than the dollar figure reported in the City budget.

I do feel a there is a certain pride that can be generated from a lively city. However, it seems that pride could be derived from interesting, vibrant neighborhoods as well. San Francisco's Height or Casto creates more city identity and pride than I expect downtown ever will (to the extent the Tenderloin does... we'ed rather not think about it).

As for Oakland, we have been spending a lot of money to develop north downtown, such as the mixed-use project on Grand. And there are extra benefits to start a business in certain neighborhoods. My lady's is outside the zone, unfortunately.

I suggest cities consider a more punitive avenue: failure to build interesting projects on empty lots or failing to rent to operating businesses will result in higher taxes. If you don't use it; you pay! That will lower rents.

As a cover my ass measure: I really don't know enought to comment on any of this.

Interesting notions. Tell me, what was the name the law by which settlers could take over some else's land provided they weren't using it? Would you advocate something like that in urban settings? It could be a novel way to deal with empty lots and involve neighborhoods.

For one, downtowns are where the land value is the highest, and usually where the return is greatest from public investment.

I also wonder if the writer really understands the process of engendering subsequent investment. Reading something like _Building Neighborhood Confidence_ by Goetze might help him learn.

Strategic public investments generate signficant private investment. One perfect example is properly routed fixed rail transit. One infill station in DC (New York Avenue) has had a minimum impact of $4 billion in new development or increased property values since construction was announced in 2001 (the station opened in 2004).

I'll have to read his blog, but it might not meet my quality level for including a link to it... Yours on the other hand always has interesting stuff and it's one of the few that I check in to regularly (although re podcasts note that it's faster to read than to listen...).

I will say that his argument in some respects parallels some of the discussion in Logan and Molotch's _Urban Fortunes_ about historic preservation.

I think the point that they missed is the necessity of stabilizing urban neighborhoods, including downtown, vis-a-vis the suburbs. You have to have viable neighborhoods (which requires "place-based" investments) in order to retain residents, residents paying property, sales, and income tax (if the jurisdiction assesses it). Retaining low income residents isn't great for either the revenue or expenses side of the city government financial statement...

The more people you retain in the city that are middle and upper income the better, because you need the revenue, badly.

Detroit has such a tremendous infrastructure left over from its days as a 2MM resident city that its property taxes are sky high. A house assessed for $200,000 pays $8,000/year in property taxes. That's 3x higher than DC! And it's not like the city is full of amenities.

Oh and for the other person, you're talking about the principal of "adverse possession." Pre-Katrina, this was actively promoted by the Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans.

Rather than adverse possession, I prefer receivership statutes, such as in the State of Ohio, which allow nonprofits to take over properties. I'm not a big fan of giving this authority to municipal governments because they tend to abuse it, and they usually are terrible managers and maintainers of property.

Center cities only having "neighborhoods of and for people who have no other choices" well, it's not a competitive advantage.

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