Why American cities can’t keep up with infrastructure maintenance (2017)
> The way this happened is pretty simple. At Strong Towns, we call it the Growth Ponzi Scheme. Through a combination of federal incentives, state programs and private capital, cities were able to rapidly grow by expanding horizontally. This provided the local government with the immediate revenues that come from new growth -- permit fees, utility fees, property tax increases, sales tax -- and, in exchange, the city takes on the long term responsibility of servicing and maintaining all the new infrastructure. The money comes in handy in the present while the future obligation is, well....a long time in the future.This is the lens through which Strong Towns views the country's cities. It's a useful model that explains a great deal. It's also falsifiable.The growth Ponzi scheme hypothesis says that the source of America's infrastructure problems is subsidies from higher levels of governments (e.g., federal) to lower levels (e.g., cities) for infrastructure. The outcome is always the same: infrastructure that can't be maintained because its costs were never accounted for.The Strong Towns website is chock full of examples, and Lafayette LA is just one. At this point if you live in any US city it seems pretty likely that you'll find a Growth Ponzi at work.Also, that 3D map should scare the liver out of local politicians.