“All politics is local politics.” 

— Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill, who knew a thing or two

 

What makes a city work?  How much tax will the market bear?

 

In a spectacularly delicious irony of juxtaposition, the Boston Globe recently ran, on the same day, two stories of state-capital cities going in opposite directions:

 

Boston: risking driving people away by scrounging for revenue.

Hartford: luring people in by offering incentives.

 

Would you want these people to live in your downtown?

 

Just listen to the point/ counterpoint.  Boston, digging under the sofa cushions for lost change:

 

Boston has quietly begun ramping up fee collections and scouring its tax rolls for new sources of revenue as Mayor Thomas M. Menino struggles to limit property tax increases in an election year.

 

One of these people is looking for new revenue sources ….

 

Limiting property taxes is always so much better policy in an election year:

 

On Christmas Day you can’t get sore

Your fellow man you must adore

There’s time to rob him all the more

The other three hundred and six … ty … four.”

– Tom Lehrer, The Christmas Song

 

Hartford, rolling out the red carpet:

 

”We are a city with typical big-city issues like poverty and crime,” Mayor Eddie A. Perez said. ”But instead of having flight, we need to retain as many people as we can.”

 

Boston, thinking of new soak-the-visitor things to tax:

 

[Mayor Menino] is also once again lobbying Beacon Hill to tax restaurant meals and parking spaces in private garages.

 

“Smoking’s been taxed.  And drinking’s been taxed.  What about … thing-ee?”

 

“Thing-ee?  Oh, thing-ee!  It’d certainly make chartered accountancy more interesting.”

 

Hartford, where 98.5% of the population is visitors who clear out by evening:

 

The people who fill the center by day disappear at night. An estimated 122,000 workers shuttle into the city each weekday, yet its downtown residential population is estimated at 1,500.

 

Boston, promoting good fellowship:

 

One plan under consideration is a hotline, similar to the state’s 1-800-IPAYTAX, that would allow callers to turn in violators anonymously. 

 

Boston, grasping to tax those who can move out:

 

The city has decided to charge mooring fees of $1 per foot for boats owned by residents and $5 per foot for nonresidents.  

 

Like, do you think the boats might, you know, move?

 

 

The tax management consulting group

 

Officials said they do not yet know how much that will generate because they don’t know how many boats are moored in the city.  

 

Very clever to tax non-residents more than residents; I mean, they only take taxis, stay in hotels, eat in restaurants, spend money, and bring in jobs.  Why would we possibly want them to come to our city?

 

Hartford, dangling bait to lure those who can move in:

 

The idea is to use the rejuvenation of downtown as a stimulus for a larger turnaround.  By luring the middle class to the center, government officials hope to draw boutiques, coffee bars, and restaurants to attract larger enterprises and boost tax revenues.

 

And recognizing the public investment must come first, not last:

 

City officials say the tipping point may already have arrived.  While the initial downtown projects were leveraged with public dollars, recent undertakings have been private ventures — a change city officials attribute to the escalation in real estate values.  [Like those perhaps stimulated by a first-time home buyer tax credit? – Ed.]

 

Boston, where the downtown economy may have peaked and be declining:

 

”You have a downtown that is dying, not vibrant or vital,” said [City Councillor Maura Hennigan, running for mayor against Menino].  ”We have a huge office vacancy rate that means declining revenue from office buildings. …”

 

Plenty of affordable office space …

 

Hennigan, continuing: “If there were a visionary plan to revitalize downtown businesses, they would close the gap in revenue.  That’s why he doesn’t have enough money to run the city.”

 

Hartforfd, trying to lure the middle class:

 

It is Perez’s approach to development that represents the most radical departure from past city administrations.  For years, the city invested in building housing for the poor, creating one of the largest stocks of affordable housing in the Northeast.  As a result, Hartford has the second lowest home-ownership rates in the nation, rivaled only by Newark. 

 

The administration has turned that policy on its head by opting to subsidize housing for the middle class and well-to-do rather than the poor.

 

I wince when reading this, since affordable housing is a cornerstone of a healthy mixed-income mixed-use community … but if the income is not mixing, you must add what is needed to restore a balanced ecosystem:

 

”We realized that we couldn’t keep doing the same things and expect the city’s fortunes to rise,” said Matthew Hennessy, the mayor’s chief of staff.

 

Boston, making friends with its effort:

 

Meanwhile, the city learned shortly after sending out bills March 7 that its boat excise tax effort was seriously flawed. Hundreds of boat owners called from across the country saying they received bills, even though they don’t live anywhere near Boston.

 

Just about every member of the Charlesgate Yacht Club in Cambridge received a bill, several members said. Some people who received bills said they don’t own boats.

 

Way to build that brand identity (and I just love this taking-no-responsibility explanation):

 

City tax officials said they relied on a list provided by State Auditor A. Joseph DeNucci of federally documented boats with Boston listed as the hailing port.

 

But boats may list a hailing port that is not where the boat is docked. The city has so far forgiven about 1,025 bills that it said were in error. 

 

Hartford, putting its money where its mouth is:

 

Now Hartford is trying to bring them back. State and city officials have poured a billion dollars in government funds into downtown Hartford over the past five years, with the goal of attracting white-collar professionals [like New London? – Ed.] and middle-class empty-nesters.

 

Although Hartford’s kindling hasn’t yet fully caught fire:

 

”It’s very frustrating,” said Laura Althoff, 34, a psychotherapist who works for Aetna and moved to downtown in July from New York.  ”It’s like a ghost town on weekends. The joke is: Hartford is close to a lot of things, like Boston and New York.”

 

Be careful what you wish for, Hartford, for you will surely get it.

 

Cities are organisms, complex interdependent ecosystems — and they compete with one another.   People move; jobs move faster; money moves fastest of all (billions around the world in a mouse click).  Property, however does not move — its unique distinguishing characteristic — so it can easily be:

 

·         Quarantined (development moratoria)

·         Taken hostage (rent control)

·         Economically bled (excessive real estate taxation)

·         Tithed in cash (linkage) or in kind (inclusionary zoning, UK Section 106, Chapter 40B).

 

“Squeeze ‘til it hurts” may be a good decision rule in some negotiations, but certainly not where the squeeze-er (government) moves so ponderously and the squeeze-ee (markets, jobs, money) moves like lightning.  Either the gorilla fails to catch the gnat, or in catching it, kills it. 

 

Truth be told, from where I sit, four floors above a busy Boston downtown intersection, Boston’s downtown doesn’t look to be dying.  Rather, it has clearly hit a retail air pocket as the demand mixture changes.  Retail is wheezing – the Internet, the UPS truck, and Google collectively are the death knell of the big-box department store and the chic Harvard Square foreign language bookshop alike.  Increasingly, cities need to be places where people live, and live-work (usually in an idea, information or service job), and get from one to the other without using their cars, as Hartford is trying to create:

 

Dick Reinhart, 68, an architect, and his wife Susan, 63, acting director of the Antiquarian & Landmarks Society, made their home in the suburb of Farmington for 40 years.

 

They raised three children there.  Last year, they decided they wanted to be closer to the city’s cultural offerings.  Today they rent, with an option to buy,

 

Notice the importance of a low-risk low-cost tenure option as a means of attracting the mobile customer into the regeneration market!

 

… a loft-style apartment they designed themselves, with wide windows and sweeping city views.

 

He would like it better if Hartford had more foot traffic on weekends, and perhaps brought the downtown population to 5,000.

 

”Like a little Boston,” he said.

 

But not too much like J !

Send post as PDF to