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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   27665 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 13, 2024

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Greg Abbott has a propaganda push about trying to reduce housing prices. Someone immersed in Texas politics- or heavily into the YIMBY scene- would probably be aware of it.

In practice a lot of the actual programs he’d point to are populist signaling, but Austin is the only major city with declining apartment rents while the city grows.

I think Texas has it right with the high property taxes. 2% or whatever it is a year forces average old people who suddenly find themselves with a house worth a few million to sell quickly and downsize, that money typically makes its way in part to children and grandchildren or is just spent, all of which are good.

New Jersey has high property taxes and is still a dump, but that may be just a consequence of proximity to NYC and an uncommonly high (for America) level of corruption rivalled only by Illinois and the Deep South.

Our high property taxes are also correlated with—if not the cause of—our unusually good schools.

Our schools actually spend way less than the national average, in a way that’s not particularly correlated with performance. High property tax revenue is probably not a contributing factor.

Wait, really?

Maybe I’m just making assumptions from my time in the schools here.

Yes. Texas’s schools underspend the national average by a lot and the better districts tend to be on the low side of the average, except for highland-park level eyepoppingly wealthy areas. And even in those cases, the extra money usually goes to athletics.

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