In my recent “Cost of Sprawl” post I showed how it costs more money to provide infrastructure for fewer people in sprawl-style developments versus dense urban developments. The story was accompanied by 2 Google satellite maps (also shown here). One showing a block in Kenmore, New York and the other showing the same size block in Lancaster, New York.
The Kenmore block shows a densely built 1920ish suburban neighborhood. The houses sell in the low $100,000s, topping out around $125,000. All the houses have driveways and detached garages. The lots are only about 30 feet wide. From this block you can walk to schools, churches and several restaurants and stores. Within a 10 minute walk is the very pleasant Delaware Avenue business district. Within a 25 minute walk is the Buffalo Zoo. From this neighborhood you can drive to the University of Buffalo and its subway station in less than 5 minutes. I believe 3 regular bus lines also run nearby. It is a very pleasant neighborhood composed of young families, singles and retirees. There are 39 houses shown in the picture. It should be noted that there are no convenient highways for commuting downtown but reaching the city center is less than a 30 minute drive.
The Lancaster block is composed of very recently built houses. They are similar in size (perhaps a bit larger) to the Kenmore houses with garages attached to the main house.. They sell for prices in the low $200,000s, topping out around $250,000. The lots are about 2.25 times wider than the Kenmore lots. Each has a driveway about three times wider than their Kenmore counterpart. The road is also about 2 times the width of the Kenmore road. The neighborhood is primarily composed of families with children. You can walk to a few nearby small industrial operations but nothing else. The sidewalks end before you get to the main road where you would walk either on the shoulder or in the weeds along the edge. There are no crosswalks and no safe way for a child to walk to school.
The assumption is that the people in sprawl style developments in popular edge suburbs pay higher taxes than those in the places like Kenmore. In absolute terms this is true. But in more nuanced terms not really. The majority of tax paid in Lancaster is for schools. This is understandable because Lancaster has a higher percentage of families with school age children. This means that a higher percentage of tax payers are also using this service as opposed to in Kenmore where a more diverse population has many more people without children who also participate in the cost of education. Lancaster, being a relatively new place is also paying to expand the school system to add new capacity as the town grows. If you strip out the portion of taxes dedicated to schools you find that the Kenmore resident pays a roughly equal amount of taxes for infrastructure and government services even though the houses are about 50% less expensive and use substantially less infrastructure. Here are the numbers:
Kenmore – non school municipal and county taxes = approximately $2,200 per house per year
Lancaster – non school municipal and county tax = approximately $2,500 per house per year
The Lancaster block pictured in the satellite image produces about $41,000 per year in municipal and county taxes. The Kenmore block produces about $82,000 in municipal and county tax revenue. This is almost 100% more tax revenue from the Kenmore block. When you combine this with the fact that the Kenmore infrastructure is much less costly you can clearly see who is getting the free ride here. Of course this little view of things is an isolated vignette. Maybe it is an anomaly. I am willing to bet that this tax imbalance is the norm. My question is, “Why do the people of Kenmore and other densely built areas in WNY continue to put up with this?