FIRST RING SUBURBS
The relatively inflexible nature of a city’s buildings and infrastructure has left growth through annexation for new revenue a common expedient for all but isolated, “first ring” suburbs, but this new money has not always been adequate to meet increasing expense over time, which has stimulated more annexation referred to as “sprawl” that will appear like a Ponzi scheme over time.
A first ring suburb may be a blessing in disguise, since it
must learn to adapt to change without increasing the consumption of agriculture
and its source of life, the Natural Domain in a guessing game of growth without
an adaptive solution to the planet’s unwritten Law of Limits.
The shared value of land becomes obvious in a first ring
suburb because it cannot annex more land to adjust the allocation of activity
and intensity producing its revenue. Annexation is prompted when the average
revenue produced per taxable acre by a city’s past allocation of activity and
intensity is less than its current and projected total operating, maintenance,
improvement, and debt service expense per taxable acre. This stimulates budget
reductions and intense debate over “essential” services, income tax increases,
and layoffs when annexation is not an available expedient. At this point, the
politically charged terms rezoning, redevelopment, and eminent domain enter the
picture.
Unfortunately, a city may lack the data science, shelter
capacity evaluation, activity allocation, and performance monitoring needed to
assess the existing and potential revenue productivity of every taxable parcel
within its boundaries. This makes comparison of revenue per acre with its
expense per acre a guessing game. It will always be an uncertain prediction,
but its accuracy can be significantly improved with the knowledge we have but
have not correlated.
Correlation will require public data cooperation and the
evaluation of shelter capacity, intensity, and activity allocation throughout a
city. This correlation can reveal the revenue performance of a city’s land area
per acre with its average annual expense per acre as a prelude to an on-going economic
development strategy. This strategy will also need monitoring that only data
science and geographic information systems can provide when correlated with
shelter capacity evaluation and urban design leadership direction.
I have written about the mathematics of shelter capacity
evaluation and the leadership potential of urban design equations, data
science, and geographic systems on many occasions. First ring suburbs simply
represent a unique opportunity to study the correlation and leadership
decisions required to shelter the activities of increasing populations within self-sustaining,
limited geographic areas that do not sprawl to consume their source of life -- while
ensuring their quality of life with shelter capacity, intensity, and context leadership
decisions we have yet to define with a correlated urban design leadership
language.
GROWTH CORRIDORS
I would like to make one final comment. After seeing decline
in first ring suburbs, I believed that a city had no option but to ensure
access to unincorporated land that it could annex for new revenue as its
expenses increased. I didn’t realize at the time that the revenue yield from
the annexation could become inadequate as the expense of aging infrastructure increased;
that a city had difficulty comparing its annual revenue per parcel of block
with its total annual expense per taxable acre; or that annexation represented
a Ponzi scheme that could exhaust limited resources.
In other words, performance evaluation was a broad-brush
exercise in hindsight at the end of the budget year. This problem became
increasingly obvious in first ring bedroom suburbs that exported their income
tax revenue to surrounding employment centers and shared their real estate tax
revenue with other local institutions. It appeared to be a recipe for decline.
Cities needed a better method of predicting and monitoring the
revenue potential of the land within their boundaries. This may be a relatively
new argument because the value of land has been related to its profitability,
but both are essential considerations. Revenue prediction and evaluation cannot
proceed in my opinion, however, without a mathematical model of shelter
capacity, intensity, activity, location, condition and revenue performance at
the parcel or block level of a city’s anatomy. It is a way to begin
understanding the performance of an anatomy that must not sprawl to consume its
limited source of life. In the words of Benjamin Franklin, this seems to be a
self-evident truth, but to some it will merely represent an opinion.
I won’t go on to avoid repetition. I’ll simply refer
interested readers to my blog at http://www.wmhosack.blogspot.com
and my book, “The Equations of Urban Design” available at the following link:
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001IR3ODO?ref_=pe_584750_33951330
Walter M. Hosack, September 2026
