The Collapse
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I think the writer is a bit too dramatic, but some hard choices will have to be made...And some easy ones, too. For example, I don't think to many multi-million dollar high school football stadiums will be built in Texas for the next few years...
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The far more difficult situation will be for the cities and small towns. They don't typically have much fluff in their budgets, especially the small cities. The small ones are pretty much focused on the basics of public safety and public health, such as water, wastewater, streets, building permits, zoning reviews, park maintenance, public building maintenance, police, fire, ambulance, etc.
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I say a good thing possibly because of what I saw when Kasich took over as Ohio governor. He cut revenue sharing by 25% the first year and then again the second. Tiny municipalities were screaming that they could not maintain without those funds and would cease to exist. Reading between the lines that meant they existed on Other People's Money. You want local control? Fine. Pay for it locally. It shouldn't come out of my taxes.
The whole country has gotten used to state and federal grants - OPM. We can get things we don't pay for.
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Not sure how your state manages funding tax rates.
Here, the places with significant commercial and industrial properties can artificially hold down residential tax rates. That's a case of spending OPM.
Smaller cities typically have much less C/I property to reduce residential taxes. That's a big reason why they can't afford to offer the same degree of amenities, not even the lower tier amenities. Some are fortunate just to have a small library, which would hardly make the list of luxuries that C/I properties fund in larger cities.
There are inherent synergies for businesses to locate in the larger cities, and the economies of existence create barriers for smaller cities to match that. Small cities will surely face challenges as residents struggle to pay property taxes. The interesting situation may come if C/I properties see a higher default rate for their taxes. The larger cities' dependence on C/I property taxes means this may impact the larger cities more than the small, and the responses of the larger cities will be interesting. How much will they cut their fluff? They have more to cut than the small cities, but how far will they go?
