POLITICAL NUMBERS: The Cities Turn a Corner
Rappeport, Michael
POLITICAL NUMBERS: The Cities Turn a Corner by Michael Rappeport Nothing is gloomier these days than a conference of futurists, projecting exponential growth in social problems and...
...Businesses, which move away from population centers largely because of tax costs, would find less advantage in moving if statewide tax systems were adopted in place of local property taxes...
...A good part of the upsurge Michael Rappeport is Director of Statistical Services at Opinion Research Corporation in Princeton, N. J. This article uses ORC research...
...More than 40 per cent of the increase in teacher costs in the ’60s was caused by jumps in enrollment and drops in the pupil/teacher ratio...
...The 1975 numbers are highly accurate, of course, because virtually everyone who will be in school by 1975 was included in the 1970 census...
...Since more than half of all arrested persons are under 21, the stabilizing of that portion of the population should ease crime rates...
...As Table I1 shows, the absolute number of blacks outside the metropolitan areas diminished only slightly in the last 10 years...
...The leveling off of these factors may now point toward even lower costs...
...These reversals in trend will hardly bring an urban millenium, but they may well bring considerably greater promise to the future of the cities...
...With the major portion of teachers’ relative advancement almost completed (public salaries in many places are now higher than comparable private salaries), another large burden on city budgets should be lessened...
...The leveling off in population, with a consequent decrease in the percentage of young people, should help city finances in areas other than education...
...Some recent demographic facts about American cities, however, point to a significant easing of pressure on urban governments...
...This shift is vitally important for city finances, because about 42 per cent of all state and local government spending goes for education...
...This reduced migration, when coupled with declining birth rates for both blacks and whites in the cities, should reduce the pressure for the spread of ghettos...
...With almost 60 per cent of all blacks now living in the central cities, one of America’s historic migrations is coming to an end, at least relatively, and quite possibly in absolute numbers...
...In addition, this stabilization is taking place just as teacher salaries appear finally to have “caught up” with the general level of wages...
...And as suburban tax rates are increased, there will be a reduced incentive for both people and industry to leave the city...
...The costs of city dwellings would also drop compared to the same dwellings in the suburbs, due to the changed tax structure...
...The need for rapid growth in school expenditures will slacken somewhat now that the school population no longer bulges upward every year as it did in the 1960s...
...The statistics in Table I represent Census Bureau figures projected through 1975...
...In fact, a confluence of statistics and court decisions indicates that the cities may have turned a historic corner...
...and suburbs would have less reason to offer tax advantages if industrial taxes went to the state instead of to local schools...
...POLITICAL NUMBERS: The Cities Turn a Corner by Michael Rappeport Nothing is gloomier these days than a conference of futurists, projecting exponential growth in social problems and calculating that there is little hope...
...Thus, three major determinants in the problems of cities-the proportion of young people in the population, the immigration of poor people, and the high tax rates relative to the suburb&-are undergoing a period of great change...
...the opinions are solely the author’s...
...in crime (with its many attendant public costs) during the last decade was due to an almost 50 per cent increase in the population of those of high-school age and slightly older...
...Finally, a series of court decisions may complement the relief for the city budgets that seems evident in the demographic statistics...
...In California, Minnesota, Texas, and New Jersey, the courts have mandated essentially that the burdens of education be equalized throughout a state...
...The single most important fact is that the absolute number of school children declined between 1969 and 1972, with further decreases certain to occur in the future...
...The lessening of this influx of poor people will reduce the demand on city budgets for public services...
...The 1970 census reveals another major demographic fact: that the potential for migration of poor people (mostly Southern blacks) to the cities has sharply declined...
Vol. 4 • March 1972 • No. 1
