Anyways, I find the idea presented in the article really interesting, and I honestly can see this system being used in cities that are "Degrowing" to provide similar services on a slimmer budget, while providing job opportunities for locals, and a new industry for a city to increase income flow.
Cities have done that for thousands of years. It's a symbiotic relationship. The businesses pay taxes which pay for services to make the businesses more viable.
sounds like an interesting experiment that these investors want to foot the bill for, so why not? Perhaps ideas could be fruitful for other cities if proven to work.
That's how I understood it as well. This idea seems to be gaining popularity in a lot of places. I wonder how much this is going to cost their local economy in the long-term.
I'd be extremely surprised if that were true. Cities like to do this sort of thing because it expands headcount but I doubt it makes sense financially if you account for all costs.
Yes, they're there to solve a problem not related to government revenue. Some cities use them as a revenue generator and they're examples of the effects of perverse incentives.
There's an obvious outcome from that: the companies will pay a tax/fee to municipalities for the right to do that. There's no scenario where that doesn't occur universally in the future. Cities love to regulate anything and everything they can within their jurisdiction. If they charge a reasonable fee for it, it's net beneficial. There will be a lot more rules sketched out over time for this type of product.
For tourist location it work. Government gets the money back in sales and other taxes. But in other cities it will be money pit with no possible way to recoup the cost. It can never work in rural areas because there isn't a dense enough population.
To add to your comment, many if not most municipalities tax industrial buildings at a higher rate than they do commercial buildings. This could indeed be a nice tax saving strategy for the business.
Yeah, not much difference to the end user but I think the council are trying to attract businesses. That could be the good mix up the economy needs. The future will tell whether it works or not.
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