Your point of lack of tax revenues could probably be expanded further. I think the city's maximum population was over 650,000 in either 1967 or 1968, and has been decreasing ever since. So it is attempting to run an infrastructure built for that size population with only a 300,000 to 350,000 person city.
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Originally Posted by ardecila
Yes, I've read that before. But that's not an incentive program - it's not even an RFP. It's just a feasibility study with some nice watercolors. I want to see the city being proactive about development instead of the very, very passive role it's taking now. Especially now, with a great need for more tax revenue, new development is greatly needed all over the city. Cities across the country are having budget problems, but very few of them are attempting to run a 500,000-person city with the tax revenues from a 300,000-person city.
We've got the tools to really bring in new development - a streetcar line bringing rail service to a very under-developed part of downtown, a stadium that's nearly brand-new with all the renovations, two massive hospitals on the way, and the possibility of the ugly Claiborne viaduct coming down. But development will not come unless the city jumps in and gets its hands dirty luring developers and helping them get through approvals.
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