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When it doubt, the “conservative” party knee-jerks to its favorite, TIF. Instead, he should propose working to end Unigov. TIF just gives centralized government more power; dis-annexation brings actual smaller government.
I’ve thought a lot about this recently. Ultimately, I don’t think that I am for ending Unigov completely. There are benefits to consolidation, and if Marion County hadn’t consolidated, there is a good chance that Central Indiana would’ve ended up like NWI. Gary was never allowed to consolidate with Lake County, and it ended up hurting the entire part of the state.
However, I do recognize the need for more local control. It would – at the very least – get people more involved in local politics, which is a great thing. I think that the best way to do this is to transfer some power back to the townships, while keeping Unigov intact in a more limited capacity.
The biggest business in Gary, steel, requires far fewer people than it did in its heyday. I don’t think it is an apt comparison. Reducing the size of city and state government, now I can get on board with that. Commuters pay property tax through the buildings the commerical buildings they occupy, and at 3% to boot, excpet, they are all TIFfed, bringing me back to my original point.
Eric, I don’t understand the benefit of returning to the pre-Unigov state. How do you not end up with the same number of government employees, just distributed differently?
A TIF is an attempt to find more road funding despite the state of Indiana stealing money from Marion County residents and using it elsewhere in the state of Indiana in the places no one wants to live in. At least Abdul didn’t propose selling off city infrastructure, an equally bad idea.
Eric – Gary and Center Township are nearly the same size in area, but you’re right that their industrial makeups were different: Indianapolis had a lot of manufacturing and corporate office space. Gary had a lot of heavy industry, but also a lot of hospitality. Remember, Gary was a destination for people living in Chicago.
However, the declines of Gary and Center Township followed a very similar curve. They were each fueled by sub-urbanization, white flight, and – more recently – a loss of manufacturing jobs.
->Center Township peaked in 1950 with 337,000 people, only to decline to less than 143,000 people in 2010
->Gary peaked in 1960 with 178,000 people, only to decline to less than 70,000 people in 2020
In the last 13 years, Center Township’s population has started to recover. The same cannot be said about Gary, but its timeline is ~10 years behind.
Now, if you zoom out a little bit, you’ll find that Lake County’s population started to stagnate in the 70s whereas Marion County’s population growth has remained strong into the present. One of the biggest differences between the two counties is Gary was not allowed to consolidate with Lake County whereas Indianapolis was allowed to consolidate with Marion County. Consolidation of city & county in the case of Indianapolis stabilized the city, and thus all of Central Indiana. In contrast, Lake County became very divided, Gary was left to sink, and it likely contributed to the stagnation of the county.
There are other covariates in play as well, but we shouldn’t overlook city-county consolidation.
Infrastructure TIFs sound like a great way to end up in a ton of debt. I’d rather make The State pay us our fair share of gas tax redistribution. Our gas tax money subsidies rural and suburban counties. Meanwhile, we host the state government and many other large, land-owning nonprofit and government entities that pay no property taxes. We also have a disproportionate number of commuters who pay no property taxes.
There is no good way for an Indianapolis mayor to solve this issue, except for testifying to The General Assembly or lobbying the governor. Maybe a political stunt – like refusing to pave the roads leading to the statehouse – would get some attention too.
Try voting out the Indianapolis area Republicans who can’t deliver at the Statehouse. A few senators going home would change attitudes right quick.
Great comments. One of my biggest complaints about Hogsett is that he refuses to even try with the Legislature. Sure, it’s a tough crowd and success is unlikely, but his administration has just given up.