Reverse the Slide, Make Erie Great Again
Time to abandon failed policies of the past decades, adopt pro growth strategies that are tried and true at leading to prosperity.
Erie will be stuck in a downward structural decline until these types of stats start turning around. One thing to note, we have some of the highest taxes in the country, and yet one of the poorest housing markets in the country. This is a huge problem, and it naturally leads to another problem, a terrible tax base to fund civic services and public schools, which in turn makes these metrics even worse.
Our school district is objectively not performing well, coming in well under the bottom quartile of the nation. Anyone looking to move for a job will immediately realize that fact in addition to everything else and either option 1. relocate instead to a growing destination with better commercial access/amenities, lower crime, lower taxes, better schools, and likely better job prospects/opportunities - many places fit those criteria. Or option 2, becoming more and more possible, is to stay put and work remotely.
Crime rates are very high, almost twice the average crime/per 1000 residents in PA, and even more so than the national average. To put that into context, you have a 1 in 185 chance of being on the receiving end of a violent crime. If those odds make you uncomfortable... you have a 1 in 52 chance of being the victim of any crime.
The answer is not more taxes or new shiny branding of past failed ideas; It’s very simple, we need to make this place as business-friendly as possible and cater to the fact that more and more people can work from home, meaning people living in big cities for big city jobs can now live in more laid back places where you can drive or go for a walk. Start with figuring out the math to slash the income tax and drive down real estate taxes - make Erie one of the cheapest places to live in the state and region. We already have a tremendous cost-of-living environment, very low energy costs comparatively, and very cheap. However, all that good is undone by the taxes that yield very little in terms of results. It's clear something isn’t working, so let’s stop what we’ve been doing for decades and try something else, like copying pro-growth strategies implemented in other cities and states that have resulted in big turnarounds/comebacks.
For the life of me, I can't believe that's even an issue to debate. Low taxes work - Texas and Florida are two of the country's hottest real estate markets/general economies. Both have a very different governing philosophy than ours in Erie, PA. The reality is that their strategy has, repeatedly, proven to be the winning strategy for growth and well-being. The stats don't lie. This is true on the national scale as well. But let’s keep it local, as national politics and the various special interests that come with it make a mess of a logical and rational policymaking process. We see what winning states are doing and have in common. It's pretty clear that light regulation and low taxes have a high correlation with economic output, leading to prosperity and quality of life. There is an obvious example of a place governed the way Erie (and, more broadly, Pennsylvania) is. It's seeing massive net migration out of state, failing civic services and infrastructure, terrible credit, rampant homelessness, and high crime. It's also the country's highest-taxed state and happens to be a uni party state, California. I see these states, and I can't unsee some correlations......
I can't believe I'm saying this, but Erie City has a lot of room left to borrow through the municipal market under our laws. I truly think our best shot is to take a big risk (once rates come down), borrow large dollars with very long terms, and use those funds to keep things operating while taxes are dramatically reduced. Use some more of those funds to promote Erie to businesses looking for new locations and market the fact that real estate and energy prices are rock bottom here. The only thing that holds someone back from operating a business here is the taxes because otherwise, it’s hard to beat.
It also means we need to get really tough on crime. Throw the book at violent offenders. Don’t let minor violations slip. I don’t have hard data on the rates, but anecdotally I know a fair number of people or contacts of people I know that have committed some crime and more or less got a slap on the wrist. This doesn’t mean start kicking doors down because some kids are smoking pot, but robbery, violent crime, vandalism, you really have to make the price really high for those actions to drive rates down. Look what New York had to do in the late 80s-early 90s. It was an incredibly dangerous place. It took seriously tough law enforcement, broken window theory, etc., to fix that city up, and (up until recently) it was probably one of the, if not the, safest major metro hubs in the world.
It also means we need to think about how to make this place more attractive, right now many homes have fallen into disrepair with no prospect of improvement because no out-of-city developer sees an opportunity here to buy real estate and rent it - as real estate appreciation in Erie is some of the worst in the country. Additionally, rents are very low, even in the best neighborhoods; most neighborhoods are around $950 or less. This scares away quality developers and attracts not-so-quality developers. How do we address that? Focus more on our aesthetics; a start would be to create and enforce expanded zoning rules and building codes. Many properties have been quickly thrown together with the cheapest materials possible to get a quick fix flip and rent for 900-1000 a month. A lot of city property is not homeowner-occupied; it’s primarily rented.
Don’t allow slum landlord behavior. It does so many bad things to a community, it's unfair to the tenants, it ruins the beauty of a community, and much evidence shows that it leads to higher crime levels. It has to be understood that to invest here and benefit from (our hypothetically) low taxes, cheap land, and energy, you are then expected to do more than put four walls of plywood up and roll some tin over the top. Lower the tax burden, but enforce stricter coding, and the money will flow back into increasing the aesthetic appeal of our community. The school district should also tap the municipal market and make significant investments into long-term cost-saving measures, capex that will drive operating costs down, and give some room to lower taxes on what is a predominantly low-income population, to begin with. I wish I had better ideas, I don’t know how to fix something like a decent size city in one blow, but I think there are things we can undoubtedly chip at.