America's Largest Cities Are Practically Broke (actually, most of them are completely wiped out)

Forbes ^ | January 29, 2019 | Mayra Rodriguez Valladares

[Zakeet]

Sixty-three, out of America’s most populous seventy-five, cities do not have enough money to pay all of their bills. Chicago-based municipal finance watchdog, Truth in Accounting (TIA) revealed these stark news in its third annual, Financial State of the Cities.

[Snip]

The cities in the worst fiscal condition are New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Honolulu, and San Francisco. These cities, like many states and cities in the U.S. have large unfunded pension liabilities, which are greatly affected by the volatility of pension assets. ...

New York City remains as number 75, the worst financial condition of the most populated cities, because of its significant and growing liabilities. It only has $58.5 billion in assets to pay $244 billion in liabilities. Growing retiree health costs are a primary reason for this shortfall. NYC has set aside only $4.7 billion to fund the $100.6 billion of promised retiree health care benefits. This significant gap means that every New York City resident has a tax burden of $64,100 ...

[Snip]

Joining New York City with a TIA failing grade is Chicago. According to TIA, “Chicago finances seemingly improved, but the city continues to have the second worst financial condition among the 75 most populous U.S. cities. ... Chicago only has $9.5 billion of assets available to pay its bills of $42 billion. This $32.5 billion gap means that each Chicago taxpayer would have to send $36,000 to the city to help it be current on its bills.

[PapaBear3625]

When you factor in all the pension obligations, all these cities are really bankrupt. This is one big reason why they are rabid about Trump: Trump is not going to go for a bailout.

[1Old Pro]

The pols know they are in deep trouble. They have been feverishly enrolling almost all new hires into basically 401k’s instead of their defined benefit plans. If they can survive the next 20-25 years they will come out OK. It’s just the next couple of decades will be a severe financial strain on cash flow.

[SgtHooper]

The problem there is that, these mentally-challenged idiots metastize to other states to get away from their own stupid results created by their stupid policies, thereby spreading and destroying other locations.

[John O]

Would the poor flock to green leafy suburbs and scare suburban soccer moms and commuters? That depends on whether there are enough entry level jobs in a given suburban neighborhood to lure them. And if the jobs are there, the poor should be able to live reasonably close. The next time you visit a big suburban mall or office park, ask yourself if the sales clerks, clerical employees and maintenance staff can afford to live close enough to get there without a car. There's part of your answer.

This would never work. The "poor" take their bad habits with them and will quickly proceed to crap in their new nest.

We moved to the suburbs to get away from such people and if they come here we will merely move even further away. and the malls etc will end up looking just like the inner city.

The only answer is to reform them where they live. Kill those who commit violent crimes. Cut them off from the government teat so they HAVE to work or starve. (If they steal, kill them). Get them used to working again.

[kearnyirish2]

It is not “on the sly” here in NJ; it is “does your proposed development include the required 10% of units set aside for affordable housing?”

Again, fortunately there isn’t much space to build around here (about a dozen miles west of NYC). They’ve built some along the Meadowlands/swamp, but I don’t think they have much room for children. The impact would be immediate, though; our school taxes would go even higher quickly (which is why they are farming the welfare populations out to begin with - stick healthier suburbs with their bills).

[kearnyirish2]

Our big malls are on bus routes already.

Dispersing the welfare populations just crushes the municipalities that receive them; you basically add more school taxes (already 75% of our highest-in-the-nation property taxes) without additional tax base. Concentrating the welfare class in cities allowed viable suburbs to thrive in the rest of the state; spreading them around will only destroy those areas. If there was a “free market” in housing, none of these people would live in the NYC metro area; it is too expensive for many working people, so there is no reason to artificially inject non-working people into it.