I wouldn't buy a house in the City even if this were approved until a few things happened. 1) It is actually enacted and the cuts are made, 2) The cuts are allowed to remain for some period of time (a few years?) so that I could be sure that this wasn't an experiment that is reversed after I bought a house there, and 3) Other local government issues such as crime, snow removal, garbage collection, etc, etc, are addressed. Having an equal footing with surrounding counties as far as property taxes are one thing, but there are a lot of other issues that will remain that will keep people from returning to the City.

The professor is right, unless we grow the tax base, the other problems such as crime, schools and city services cannot improve. Therefore taxes should be dealt with first, at least to the level competitive to the counties. The point is that city revenues will increase. Note that I don't believe this is the same as the infamous Laffer curve. The point here is competition with surrounding jurisdictions.

Now we see that the policy wonks are talking about it. Which politician is talking about it? It seems to be a topic that politicians actively avoid.

I agree it has to start somewhere, and property taxes are a big incentive for families that want to move to the city. I'm ready to buy in the city, but why would I when I'm saving 7-10% of my take home pay by just living in the county 5 miles south of Baltimore. Housing prices are low and property taxes are half! Without the property tax reduction I really don't think people will just move in to say "hey I live in Baltimore and I want to pay more in property taxes". The professor is correct the city has to be competitive to the surrounding county if it wants to remain a viable city, if not I think the downward spiral will continue and we will just keeping hearing more of the same stories.

Maybe the city could afford to drop the tax rate if they were more aggressive in collecting the nearly $57 million that property owners in the city owe in back taxes from nearly 39,000 properties. That's over 16% of the properties in the city that owe back taxes. If we excluded those exempt from taxes I'm sure that percentage would be greater.

By lowering the tax RATE the City forms a partnership with every property owner to bet on appreciation of their values; an actual win:win.

It's a great first step toward progressive governing.

Dr. Walters is so right it makes me giddy.

I'm proud to say I'm a graduate of where this man works. It doesn't matter if you're liberal or conservative, if you live in the suburbs or city, this proposal matters.

Let's get city officials to do what their doing in this mass. town. From AP:

"WEBSTER, Mass. — The health board in a Massachusetts town has approved a plan to shame owners of rundown buildings into fixing and securing their properties.

The plan approved Monday by the Webster board allows the town to place 4-by-8-foot signs on the sides of dilapidated buildings with the owner's names, address and telephone number.

Selectman Mark Dowgiewicz says it costs up to $9,000 per year for police responses and other expenses to deal with squatters, vandals and other problems.

Building Inspector Theodore Tetreault tells The Telegram & Gazette of Worcester (WUH'-stur) that building owners have ignored requests from the town to secure vacant properties.

Webster is a town of about 16,000 nearly 60 miles southwest of Boston."