"Break Up the Liberal City"
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  "Break Up the Liberal City"
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publicunofficial
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« on: March 26, 2017, 02:40:25 PM »

Interesting op-ed from Ross Douthat of the NYT.

Following up recent proposals by Rep. Jason Chaffetz and Matthew Yglesias of Vox to move government agencies away from DC and to other communities instead, Douthat takes it a step further:

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General ideas proposed in the column:

-Move various government agencies (Regulatory bodies, various health and science administrations) to cities in need of revitalization like Cleveland, Detroit, or Milwaukee.

-Tax the endowments of large universities heavily, and offer exemptions for schools that open up satellite campuses in areas with below average median incomes (An MIT branch in Flint, a Stanford campus in Buffalo, ect.)

-Non-profits are only given a full tax exemption if they show that they are employing workers from low-income states and cities.

-Tax credits for businesses that open up in struggling areas.

-State and local tax deductions capped, ideally forcing upper class residents to move away from cities and suburbs with high costs of living + high tax rates.

-Change the FTC mandate so that it considers geographical concentration as a form of indication of monopoly.

-Expand PBS's funding for smaller, local public radio stations.

-Create a new Corporation for Local News, dedicated to funding small-town newspapers, and fund it with a surtax on large media corporations based in DC and NYC.

Douthat himself calls his proposal far-fetched and implausible. But I'm honestly not seeing a lot of flaws in this idea. Thoughts?
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #1 on: March 26, 2017, 07:46:10 PM »

I support most of these, yeah.
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DPKdebator
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« Reply #2 on: March 26, 2017, 09:56:20 PM »

I don't really see any of this happening, but I like the idea of spreading out government agencies.
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Storebought
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« Reply #3 on: March 27, 2017, 01:50:28 AM »

I used to believe that DC was too centralized, but now I've come to oppose efforts at decentralization. DC is in fact to small, and far too limited for the role it should take on in federal governance and in the nature of America's consciousness.

And many cities already have urban universities (Buffalo, Houston, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Denver, etc.). With the exception of Pitt, they tend to be commuter campuses not really engaged in either high-profile research (which draws in federal grants that the GOP will cut in any case) or are too strapped (commuters make for a poor alumni donor base) for much community involvement. That can be reversed with increased state funding for public universities, but that doesn't fit Douthat's thesis.

The other proposals sound like even more federal subsidization of sunbelt suburban sprawl.

As for the media being concentrated by a coastal clique, a better idea would be to (re)instate FCC rules to make news agencies report news -- factual events documented by eyewitnesses and credible sources and recounted by impartial journalists -- and suppress editorialization and marketeering by fining offending outlets (to oblivion). That can be done just as well from DC, but that wouldn't support Douthat's intention to make the US even more primitive and decentralized.
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Intell
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« Reply #4 on: March 27, 2017, 03:47:08 AM »

Great Idea!
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DC Al Fine
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« Reply #5 on: March 27, 2017, 05:32:32 AM »

I like the whole series he's been doing on unrealistic proposals to shake things up. I particularly like the idea of taxing endowments. Harvard is practically a hedge fund with a side business running a university these days Tongue
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White Trash
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« Reply #6 on: March 27, 2017, 10:00:14 AM »

-Tax the endowments of large universities heavily, and offer exemptions for schools that open up satellite campuses in areas with below average median incomes (An MIT branch in Flint, a Stanford campus in Buffalo, ect.)
I go to a wealthy college on the South Side of Chicago and yeah that doesn't work.
What's the issue with it?
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World politics is up Schmitt creek
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« Reply #7 on: March 27, 2017, 11:44:12 AM »

The fact that the flower of our youth have been reduced to a desperate scramble to make it into one of a few urban areas in order to have any chance at socioeconomic success is one of the most horrible things about contemporary America, so even though a lot of Douthat's proposals seem unworkable or like bad ideas I'm glad he's at least addressing this.
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Sprouts Farmers Market ✘
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« Reply #8 on: March 27, 2017, 12:19:35 PM »
« Edited: March 27, 2017, 12:27:37 PM by Sprouts Farmers Market ✘ »

-Tax the endowments of large universities heavily, and offer exemptions for schools that open up satellite campuses in areas with below average median incomes (An MIT branch in Flint, a Stanford campus in Buffalo, ect.)
I go to a wealthy college on the South Side of Chicago and yeah that doesn't work.
What's the issue with it?

I was a bit confused by this at first, but I think ultimately SJoyce's point was that there are few, if any, good jobs coming to locals, elite schools with sizable endowments like these are not moving there to begin accepting members of poorer communities en masse and that the high-income individuals brought in for the intellectual positions will not spend any free time in the local community but will locate into an established, wealthy part of the city, commute and leave with very limited benefits for the intended beneficiaries from this policy. I think the benefits of this type of arrangement would be chiefly that students already going there do tend to have some attachment to the local community and take pride in serving it in many ways as time permits, but ultimately, these people are likely taking on debt as is and do not have incomes so there is only so much they could add to the actual economy beyond 'doing good'. So in sum, capital spending will have serious limits for exclusionary reasons and in urban metros, the vast amount of consumption will not take place in the community.

Education has proven to be a solid tool for certain small cities (smaller than Buffalo) and more rural areas where it exists and people spend time in the community, but the education market (especially for graduate professional degrees) seems pretty saturated as is so using this for a non-established brand name obviously has to be done with an abundance of caution and backing - California or maybe even Texas could probably do so successfully if they were willing to provide the resources for a school to be competitive but this is not all that feasible in some places, and I don't know why a closed off private school would want to partake in this. Giving the (dis)incentive for ultimately so few benefits does not seem like a wise strategy.

Since Buffalo was explicitly mentioned, why no focus on actually developing the university that is actually there and turning it into one of those very strong publics as has been intended for so long (and seems to be in progress). What added benefit would a Stanford bring (and who would willingly locate to Stanford at Buffalo) that a state aided effort would not have? Just invest in our public schools already! Ultimately with a school like a better funded Buffalo (in conjunction with a broader reaching public nearby), you actually get people tied into the local community. The opposite proposal attracts people looking for a short-cut.

[Surely that drifted into nothing to do with the article at hand XD hopefully mildly on topic]
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NeverAgain
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« Reply #9 on: March 27, 2017, 01:31:48 PM »

I like the idea, but their rationale is entirely flawed.
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DC Al Fine
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« Reply #10 on: March 27, 2017, 03:45:17 PM »

-Tax the endowments of large universities heavily, and offer exemptions for schools that open up satellite campuses in areas with below average median incomes (An MIT branch in Flint, a Stanford campus in Buffalo, ect.)
I go to a wealthy college on the South Side of Chicago and yeah that doesn't work.
What's the issue with it?

I was a bit confused by this at first, but I think ultimately SJoyce's point was that there are few, if any, good jobs coming to locals, elite schools with sizable endowments like these are not moving there to begin accepting members of poorer communities en masse and that the high-income individuals brought in for the intellectual positions will not spend any free time in the local community but will locate into an established, wealthy part of the city, commute and leave with very limited benefits for the intended beneficiaries from this policy. I think the benefits of this type of arrangement would be chiefly that students already going there do tend to have some attachment to the local community and take pride in serving it in many ways as time permits, but ultimately, these people are likely taking on debt as is and do not have incomes so there is only so much they could add to the actual economy beyond 'doing good'. So in sum, capital spending will have serious limits for exclusionary reasons and in urban metros, the vast amount of consumption will not take place in the community.

Is that a misreading of Douthat's argument? Chicago would be one of those choice metro areas that's racing ahead of the rest. His argument seems to apply more to stagnant mid size metros than poor parts of prosperous cities.

It's a lot harder to not spend your money in Jacksonville or Buffalo than a particular part of a major city.
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Sprouts Farmers Market ✘
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« Reply #11 on: March 27, 2017, 04:12:23 PM »
« Edited: March 29, 2017, 10:04:20 AM by Sprouts Farmers Market ✘ »

Yes, I realized that by the end of my post so I tried to adjust to merely addressing SJoyce's Chicago point on the first paragraph and made it more explicitly clear why exactly privates with billion dollar endowments specifically doing what the author suggests is the issue at the end. It absolutely makes sense as part of a state-guided effort, but no one serious is going to go to Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Flint Campus. Privates branching out would be the change that would turn even reputable higher education organizations into a total scam and really push the student debt crisis to the limit. You get a lot of negatives with none of the gain. That's why I say, build and grow SUNY Buffalo into a flagship and a research center of the northeast. It makes little sense to bring in private industry to do it as their goals are very different. Threatening to tax endowments so people take out gigantic loans for a school with middling prospects is not a solution for a few isolated rural economies. It seems to be an obvious net negative for everyone but the college (which only faces brand risks that some will find a way to sneak around) as private industry swoops in like a robber, both keeping its endowment and reaping tuition, rather than having the intended effect of (ideally affordable) education for the local community and/or economic development.
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Horus
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« Reply #12 on: March 27, 2017, 10:33:34 PM »

I like the idea, but their rationale is entirely flawed.
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #13 on: March 28, 2017, 07:55:49 AM »


Statistically very unlikely.
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