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Contractor’s Responsibility
August 11, 2004
Driving around Holland much of the day gives me great opportunity to watch and analyze much of what goes on around this town. Since my job is construction-related, I often focus on development issues. And, working with city employees and local contractors, I often receive viewpoints quite different from mine.
Most discussions end up at money. Many of the people I work with see the large amounts of construction around town with disgust - not at the problems caused by construction, but at the money spent. They want the city to spend money on them, not beautification projects. Therein lies a typical urban planning debate. The affects of spending public money on beautification or utility improvement projects are rarely seen immediately, or seen at all. Projects like the 8th Street Farmer’s Market Canopy or the Tulip City Airport Tunnel do not result in direct benefits. The Farmer’s Market may attract more people or farmers, resulting in an indirect economic value to all involved, but it’s not a tangible benefit. The Airport’s longer runway will allow planes to fly out with full loads of fuel. Local economists estimate that the runway improvements will add at least $30 to $40 million to the local economy, but most people cannot see how that will directly benefit them, so they dissaprove.
How do you convince people that money spent to improve the area will end up benefiting them in the end? It’s the trickle-down theory of public spending. The trick is convincing enough people that their support will benefit them someday, in some way.
Posted by paul at August 11, 2004 05:02 PM
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Comments
Murph said on August 13, 2004 11:49 AMWhat do you mean by people wanting the city to "spend money on them"? Do they have ideas on how to spend the money?
My own feeling is that facade renovations, "streetscaping", and other aesthetic investments are pretty low priority, though I don't know anything about Holland, so I can't possibly opine on alternate projects. The airport project sounds like a pretty worthwhile one, though--the idea is to enable longer-range flights from (and to) Holland, making it a more desirable business location due to increased accessibility? Makes sense, and if you've got the studies to back it up, it seems like a pretty high-quality investment.
In order to overcome the skepticism, you might try an argument on tax rates--making Holland more attractive to business via relevant infrastructure improvements will increase property tax rolls, thereby allowing either a decrease in property tax rates or an increase in public services.
Paul said on August 14, 2004 11:21 AMYes, that's exactly the reason for supporting the runway extension project. Tax rates are another issue. Recently, one of the larger industrial taxpayers left town, Lifesavers, and a few other large ones have hinted at/threatened leaving. Therefore, increasing new business through airport improvements and general beautification projects to make the city a desirable place to live and work in are worthwhile.