Why Galesburg has no money
It seems like the root problem is that the way property taxes are assessed doesn’t actually line up with how much demand a given development puts on the city for services&#x2F;infrastructure. Property taxes are based on, “how much would someone else pay for this”, which isn’t the relevant metric from the city’s perspective, it should be, “approximately how expensive is this property to service year by year, including eventual replacement of infrastructure?”<p>If you did it that way, low density developments would pay their true costs, and would become more expensive to the ‘end user’ and thus less popular. And if they didn’t, well, they&#x27;re paying their true costs anyway, so problem solved.