Making the Case for Downtowns: Tax Revenue

In a recent Forbes "BrandVoice" article, Darren Dahl writes of the work of Joe Minicozzi of Urban3, who “travels around the country to encourage municipalities to see that their downtowns, no matter how neglected, often contribute far more value in terms of tax revenue — property and sales tax combined — than even the biggest big-box store.”

Dahl explains the downside of the typically short-sighted considerations of cities when they approve suburban forms of development: “most communities unintentionally subsidize suburban development because they don’t calculate the true cost of expanding infrastructure like water and sewage, and services like police and fire to the fringes of a community’s corporate boundary.”

Urban3’s analysis has already made the case for the tax-generating efficiencies of downtown mixed-use development in cities like Asheville, North Carolina, Glenwood Meadows, Colorado, and Providence, Rhode Island. The Forbes article, however, provides a national stage for Urban3’s appeal for more comprehensive reviews of developments and their impacts on public concerns like infrastructure and tax revenue.