Originally Posted by romano

I really don't get this argument. The infrastructure is already there to support 2 million residents. It may be aging, but it's still a whole lot cheaper than creating new infrastructure from scratch. So you either make use of what you have and maintain it or have massive abandonment, which you seem to be advocating. If you look at where things stand right now, we have about 25% of the population living at or below poverty. Those people require services that their tax money can't support. So you either raise taxes on the rest of the dwindling middle-class population (like what happened in the 70s) or you attract more new people (and jobs) to re-build the tax base and gradually lower taxes....i.e. hopefully our current path.

That surplus the city has been enjoying the last couple years was fueled primarily by the real estate transfer tax. That's new people right there. Once we start seeing the abatements expire, that'll be another revenue bump for the city. Another bonus (if you can call it that) is that many of the new residents aren't sending their kids to schools either because they're boomers, in their 20s or well off enough to send their kids to private schools.