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In the absence of a flair system on lemmy yet, let’s try to make it easier to scan through posts by type in here by using tags:
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/07/20/opinion-broadway-upzoning-parking-chicago/
"If the city becomes more dense, where will people put their car?!!" he asks.
Spoken like a true city planner, LOL. I love how even when you folks are trying to give the "cold facts" you still end up being gentle and diplomatic about it. 🥰
Here's my bottom-line conclusion to the above comment, from someone who doesn't work in municipal development and thus hasn't been required to develop that 'public official' speaking habit:
In order to get the government to pay to build transit, it has to be made painful to drive first. That means you have to build the density first even when you don't have transit to support it yet.
I know a lot of you folks even in this community don't want to hear it, but as an activist who's been on the other side of conversations with municipal development people for decades, that really is how it works.
I think it's worth noting that, while infrastructure is often initially built by developers, subsequent maintenance usually falls back on the government. That means, from a municipal development perspective, that it's super-important to go back and retrofit density to build up the tax base, before the extreme maintenance costs of building entire streets just to serve single-family houses on large lots bankrupts the city. For a long time, cities have been getting by funding maintenance of existing infrastructure using those developer impact fees in what amounts to a gigantic Ponzi scheme, but that quits working once the frontier of green-field development moves beyond the jurisdictional limits. After that, densifying becomes a financial imperative, whether the NIMBYs like it or not.
The way public infrastructure expansion works isn't a ponzi scheme.
We typically require a maintenance contract from the developer for the first few years and a special tax for the owners of the developed land that lasts between 10 and 30 years, depending on the specifics of the agreement. That tax is put into escrow, and by the time the infrastructure needs to be maintained, there's enough money in the fund to maintain that portion of the infrastructure off of interest.
The mistake many cities make is putting that revenue into the general fund. But if you put it into dedicated funds, it can't be diverted to other city expenses and used by the next Council to cut property taxes while leaving future maintenance unfunded.
That sounds less like "the way public infrastructure expansion works isn’t a ponzi scheme," and more "my city is the exception to the rule that does it right."