2010-11-14

I Wonder

So one of the complaints of the inner-city residents is that suburban residents cost the city more to service than inner-city residents do.

I was wondering today: if one includes the unpaid, implied infrastructure deficit (the impending costs which will be required to replace, revitalize, or overhaul the in-place infrastructure) -- is that still true?

I find this all interesting, because I seem to recall that one of the main reasons FOR the amalgamated city was the fact that the suburbs was filled with a large, happy tax-base which went to work every day in downtown Ottawa, requiring Ottawa to build infrastructure that the freeloading suburbites never paid for. This was why Orleans and Nepean had balanced budgets or surpluses all those years while Ottawa had comparatively harder budget choices to make.