I’ve long thought that maybe the most interesting—and most American—paradox in the political world is how we expect top-notch services at all levels of government, but we are almost always opposed to funding those top-notch services. We expect the mail to be delivered on time, but we howl when there’s an increase on the price of a stamp. We demand that our schools educate and prepare our children for the economic realities of the 21st century, but we insist that they do that job with 20th century funding. We really like the idea of public parks, but we’d rather see that sort of thing happen without it costing us anything.
And if we’re lucky enough to live in the urbanized area of a city without living inside that city’s borders, we’ll take it as our God-given, unalienable right to partake of that city’s services without paying for them. That’s the mentality city leaders in Spartanburg are having to deal with as they prepare to move forward with plans to annex about 880 properties on the west side, and another 103 on the east side.
South Carolina has arguably the most restrictive annexation laws in the country. 75% of the property owners representing at least 75% of the assessed value of an area must have agreements with a municipality in order for that municipality to annex the properties in that area. By contrast, our neighbor North Carolina’s annexation laws are based on population density and land usage so that when an area becomes sufficiently urbanized it is either annexed into an adjacent municipality or it must incorporate as a municipality itself. The result is that while South Carolina cities struggle with providing services for an urbanized area often far larger that the actual city boundary, North Carolina cities have fewer problems as their borders are far more representative of the actual size of the city.
According to the 2000 census, the city of Spartanburg had a population of 39,673. According to that same census though, the urbanized area of the city was closer to 150,000. That means that Spartanburg has many of the costs associated with a city more than triple it’s size without the tax base to pay for those services.
The planned annexation of the properties on the east and west sides is a small but necessary step if Spartanburg is to be able properly fund city projects and services. According to an article in the Spartanburg Herald-Journal, the tax increase for a family with a home valued at $150,000 and two cars valued at $10,000 each would be $340. Though that tax increase amounts to less than $1 per day and though the newly annexed properties would receive city trash and recycling pickup as well as city police and fire department protection, the residents of those areas have been vocal in their hostility towards being annexed.
I have a short piece of advice to those residents concerned about paying for their new status as city residents: get over it!
By every reasonable measurement, the people living in those areas are already de facto city residents. They live a in an obviously urbanized area adjacent to the city. They enjoy easy access to the urban core that they’re adjacent to using city streets and traffic signals with city police patrolling those streets. They live a short distance from city parks, and green spaces without paying anything for their upkeep. They live minutes away from city-sponsored festivals and events like Spring Fling, Music on Main, Creative Tastes, Red, White, and Boom, and others without paying a dime in city property taxes to make those festivals and events happen.
Presumably one of the reasons they chose to live in these areas was because of the convenience of living next to the city. Living in an urban area with lots of amenities is very convenient, but one trade-off of that convenience is paying municipal taxes to fund the infrastructure that allows an urban area to function. It’s as simple as that.
What the residents on the east and west side are truly angry about is that their free ride is over. Up until now, they’ve enjoyed city living at county tax rates and now that that’s about to change they’re crying foul. Perhaps no one’s bothered telling them this so far, but the fact is it’s unreasonable to expect to be able to live ten minutes from downtown but somehow believe you should have the same tax rate as someone living in Enoree. It’s unfair to expect the 39,000 people living in the city to pay for infrastructure used by 150,000, and bringing these new properties into the city’s tax base is a small but much needed step in the right direction.
Eventually, the state will have to address our wildly out of date annexation laws. As municipalities struggle to widen their borders while simultaneously watching their urban areas expand, city services will suffer to keep up. It’s simply impossible to do proper urban planning without being able to reasonably establish the size of the urban area and tax it to fund that planning.
No one enjoys paying municipal taxes, but they are absolutely necessary if we expect to have a city worth living in, working in, or spending our leisure time in. It’s not unreasonable to expect that people would pay for those things, and if they don’t want to pay for them that’s fine; there is no shortage of rural and semi-rural areas in Spartanburg where they will never have to worry about being bothered by those ugly old municipal taxes. No one though, should be able to have it both ways. Spartanburg needs to annex its free-riders, and welcome them to the city that the rest of us have been paying for already.
Christopher George
Another Good piece and a sound argument for annexation Chris. One other thing that will be to their credit upon annexation is that they will see a reduction in water rates. If I remember correctly ,from finding info so daughter could get water for her place, out of city residents pay a small percentage more for water and sewer then in city residents.
To get trash AND recycling pick-up AND things like leaves and cut up brush is a very nice service to have as well. Most private trash haulers in the county don’t offer that inclusive kind of service, so many of us do it ourselves. It is an inconvienence.
Eventually the Whitney district, where I live, will just get annexed as well. But I suspect not in the near future. We just aren’t developed enough yet.
Hear! Hear! And while you’re at it, accept that zoning PROTECTS your property!
I’m right on board with you that suburban residents get a free ride that they have a responsibility to fund. I have to say, though, I do question whether annexation is the best solution to increasing the city’s tax base.
My main qualm with annexation is that it increases the city’s population of people who aren’t tuned in to urban issues that primarily affect the downtown area. People living in fringe suburbs are less likely to care about tax incentives for downtown businesses, pedestrian issues, and any downtown-specific tax expenditure.
My ideal vision for a city like Spartanburg is to be geographically small but dense. We need to be convincing people that the city is a good place to be. Annexation of areas that don’t want in seems like a stop-gap measure that concedes that living in the city core is undesirable.
I’ve got a lot of competing thoughts on this and I’m not sure how to balance them all. In the end, it may simply be that in order to make the city a more desireable place, we need a wider tax base. I would hope that it could be part of a larger plan: increase tax base by annexation, invest new funds in making the downtown core a more desirable place to live/work/own, use funds from larger downtown tax base to make city services better and more desirable, and grow the dense urban core. If successful, that could make future annexation less necessary and also perhaps limit suburban sprawl. In short, it’s a sustainable tax base solution.
I hope the next mayor is listening!
“Spartanburg needs to annex its free-riders, and welcome them to the city that the rest of us have been paying for already.”
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The rest of us? All 32000 of you?
Traffic signals hardly constitute amenities. Especially the new and improved variety encountered “downtown”.
The City doesn’t even have a traffic engineer.
Next!
The forced annexation you speak of is nothing more than legal nitpicking to finagle extra money from the feds.
There is a reason our state has the most restrictive annexation laws in the country.
People in South Carolina do not want to pay for social experiments.
Look at the huge amount of money the city extorts from Duke, Charter, and the local insurance companies! Absurd.
The city government should be dissolved and absorbed by the county.
Correct, traffic signals do not count as amenities. They are infrastructure, and should be paid for by the people using them most often, meaning people living in the urbanized area of the city.
Obviously, one reason for the annexation plan is that it’s a way of getting more money from the Federal Government. That sort of thing is based largely on population and right now Spartanburg has an official population much smaller than it would if it were in practically any other state.
“People in South Carolina do not want to pay for social experiments.”
This just in from the reactionary right: cities are now leftist “social experiments”. Nobody tell the Mesopotamians, I think they’re under the impression that cities are a natural part of human social evolution. Then again, what the hell do those Fertile Crescent-dwelling idiots know?
“Look at the huge amount of money the city extorts from Duke, Charter, and the local insurance companies! Absurd.”
Duke and Charter pay the city for the privilege of a legalized monopoly on their particular service in the city. Expecting unfettered access to city customers means chipping into the public kitty. I don’t like all aspects of this–especially Duke, because I don’t believe in for-profit utility companies–but they should at least have to pay something.
“The city government should be dissolved and absorbed by the county.”
I always love when I read or hear something like this. It reminds me that even though our state is one of the most insanely conservative in the entire country, it could be far, far worse.
When the city mangles a state highway (29) there is no wonder the urbanized or intra-state travelers are subjected to the traffic signals.
Why does the city of Spartanburg have a declining population?
No value. Crime. High rents or taxes. And on. In short, people are leaving and for good reasons.
What goes on in practically every other state has nothing to do with South Carolina. If your room mate wants to listen to Millie Vanilla does that mean you should also?
Duke provides a huge amount of energy to our state. In fact , Santee Cooper (state owned) has just entered into an agreement with Duke to provide energy to it’s customers because it cannot build plants to or provide it. Duke? Hardly a monopoly. More like an efficient system. Do you think Microsoft is a monopoly? Apple has found it’s niche making toys, not providing platforms for 90% of the worlds operating systems.
Yes, I agree our state is one of the most insanely conservative in the entire country. Like all established systems, it is hard to change. That is not entirely bad.
Thank you for your civil response.
“Why does the city of Spartanburg have a declining population?
No value. Crime. High rents or taxes. And on. In short, people are leaving and for good reasons.”
It’s called “white flight”. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. It’s been going on in cities across the nation since the 60′s, especially in the South. You can read up on it if you want. Wikipedia has a pretty good entry on it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight Incidentally, this trend has been reversing in many parts of the country of late, and many of us expect that Spartanburg will see a reversal within the next decade or so.
“Duke? Hardly a monopoly.”
“Do you think Microsoft is a monopoly? Apple has found it’s niche making toys, not providing platforms for 90% of the worlds operating systems.”
No, Microsoft is not a monopoly–a bully that uses its stature to unfairly muscle out competition maybe–but not a monopoly. I have other options for my computer needs. I do not have other options for my electricity, hence Duke is a monopoly. Teaching you Econ 101 is kinda tiring camelmike.
“What goes on in practically every other state has nothing to do with South Carolina. If your room mate wants to listen to Millie Vanilla does that mean you should also?”
Well, I’m not quite sure who “Millie Vanilla” is, but to use your analogy if my roommate was listening to a good band–Wilco we’ll say–I’d be happy to jump all over that and start listening to it myself. In other words, doing what other states do makes sense when those things work. Remind me, because I seem to have forgotten, how do we stack up in a head to head with NC statistically in…well…everything? Seems like our northern neighbor knows a few things. Amazing that with their incredibly liberal annexation laws that cities like Charlotte and areas like the Triangle thrive huh?
“Thank you for your civil response.”
When your ideas orbit somewhere out past Pluto, you shouldn’t expect them to be treated seriously. My left-to-right slide doesn’t go quite that far starboard I’m afraid.
Millie Vanilli was this duo back a few years ago who were caught lip-syncing their performances. Not that is was un-common for performers to do, but they were the first to be caught in the act…if I remember correctly.
People may have been leaving downtown districts, but the suburbs just outside the city limits have blossomed in the past few decades. People haven’t really left the city per say, they just have moved to just outside the city limits
People still work in the city, go into the city to visit public offices, go into the city to dine or to cultural events, most of which are within city limits. To consider cities as a “diminishing entity” is not exactly correct, but instead cities are being reshaped and redefined, and still vital parts of our communities.
Oh yeah, and thanks for taking the time to write about a serious problem.
I am not sure what the solution is but I find it hard to defend a diminishing entity.
Didn’t that trend actually reverse itself last year? I seem to recall a story about marginal population growth in Spartanburg in 2008-2009.
http://www.goupstate.com/article/99999999/DATA/457113516/1051/NEWS?Title=2007-Census-Estimates-Sub-county-breakdowns
It looks like the depopulation trend began reversing in late 2005. Interestingly, that is when Morgan Square was remodeled and Hub-Bub was getting its start.
Brad: Thanks for the link. You have to look for the Spartanburg City data, but the results are worth it …
Census 2000 Population: 39,870
Percent Change, 2006 – 2007: 0.9%
Percent Change, 2000 – 2007: -2.6%
That’s not a huge growth — a few hundred people, really — and it hasn’t been documented for long enough to really call it a trend. But assuming that 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 show similar growth, it would back up the idea that Spartanburg isn’t dying. My hunch is that there’s significant growth within the city limits, and even more in the areas just outside. Boiling Springs, for instance, is practically exploding with development. In any other state, it would have been annexed years ago.
Once the three new colleges open downtown, we should see a decent spike in that number as well. Adding around 1,500 students into the downtown mix will do that, particularly when you consider that they’ll need to be housed, fed, supplied and entertained.
Quick look at recent demographics and projected numbers will show you that the “city” is not a diminishing entity. Quite the contrary. There will be a HUGE shift in people moving toward urban centers. One of the main drivers in this is the fact that currently the two largest generations are Boomers and Gen-Y. Boomers aging, changing their mindset wanting to be near things and downsizing from the suburban 4BR 3BA 3000 sq ft home on 1 acre. Gen-Y growing up and wanting an actual standard of life…culture, entertainment, creative vibe.
It’s happening…although I wouldn’t be surprised if it happened at a slower pace here than anywhere else. What else would be new?