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Winsights No. 31 (July 1999) |
How to Wipe Out Most Taxes in New York City and Improve City Services at the Same Time! by Win Wenger, Ph.D. ![]() Wipe out most taxes in New York City...Sounds too good to be true, doesn't it? Especially when we also throw in, "and substantially reduce city debtat the same time!" Bear with me, and see what you think a few paragraphs from now.
![]() An Unused Asset What would you say is the dollar value of a few hundred thousand square feet, ground-level, in Manhattan? Throw in some of the same unclaimed value in Brooklyn, Queens, and other neighboring boroughs, and we are looking at more than a million square feet of groundspace, municipally owned, which presently are unclaimed and neglectedand which are a source for crime, and a drag on property values, and an even bigger drag on the tax base! Elevated train tracks and road-artery overpasses go on for miles through some of the most expensive real estate in the world...
For many decades we've known how to build spaces and insulate them from external noise, to say nothing of insulating them from showers of sparks from overhead passing trains. For less than 10% higher physical cost of building a facility, these new
shops could be made the quietest locations in Manhattan!turning this unused space into cash, to knock down taxes and debt while paying for improved city services.
![]() Immediate gains
That's the city's immediate income. Special building codes are needed with these areas, to assure insulation from noise and vibration, and for security arrangements to counter present high rates of crime in these neglected areas. And to ensure a quality which will make these areas truly an economic asset to the city for the long haul. And to ensure there is no compromise of traffic on those road arteries and elevated trains.
The city can, by direct leasing of these neglected and wasted empty spaces, realize a huge input to its treasury every year for 10 to 20 years. It will still own these by then richly income-producing spaces thereafterwith a lot of options open to the city for how best to play those continuing assets. ![]() Longer-run gains
Essentially, everyone winning, only petty crime losing.All gains. The only costs are borne by the free market, which wouldn't be making those lease-and-building deals if it wasn't well worth its while. The public treasury for once, wonder of wonders,
faces no cost, only gains. ![]() Action Maybe politics is a disease of the mind, which prevents candidates from seeing solutions, only problems to exploit because unhappy, dissatisfied people are more active than the satisfied. But surely some candidate, somewhere in the political jungles, might see opportunity in this unique win/win/win/win situation and rise to stop the present continuing hemorrhage of losses!
If you live near New York or similar great cities and so have stakes affected, or if you have a friend in the area and so have some human stakes therein, please bring this remarkably obvious solution and brief to the attention of at least two other people.
Thank you. ![]() Email to Win Wenger including its copyright notice. |
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