Follow the Money ¥ Michigan Land Use Institute Sponsored by United Cerebral Palsy of Michigan Followthe Money Citizens Pay Heavy Price for State’S Sprawl Subsidies
UNCOVERING AND REFORMING MICHIGAN’S SPRAWL SUBSIDIES Michigan Land Use Institute SMART GROWTH WORKS MICHIGAN LAND USE INSTITUTE • SPECIAL REPORT • JANUARY 2005 JANUARY 2005 • Follow the Money • Michigan Land Use Institute Sponsored by United Cerebral Palsy of Michigan FollowTHE Money Citizens pay heavy price for state’s sprawl subsidies THE MICHIGAN LAND USE INSTITUTE AND UNITED CEREBRAL PALSY OF MICHIGAN BEGAN this project believing that state spending was the most important cause of Michigan’s sprawling patterns of development and its many ugly side effects — urban decay, environmental degradation, poor public transportation services, and increased hardships for people in general and those with disabilities in particular. Our findings, the culmination of a peculiar sort of fiscal archaeology, confirm that conviction. Sifting through dozens of local and state spending accounts, we found that a significant portion of the billion the state spends each year in taxpayer-supported economic development programs — a system of grants, sub- sidies, tax abatements and incentives, loans, bonds, and direct outlays — is giving Michigan one of the nation’s worst cases of sprawl. Follow The Money documents a perva- housing, jobs, the arts, and the civic county region’s residents live. sive pattern of public investments for spirit of Michigan’s second largest city. Meanwhile, the 2.4 million people in roads, jobs, government offices, and • Daimler Chrysler and two Detroit and its inner suburbs cope with business development that encourages Japanese partners are building two substandard streets and public trans- runaway sprawl. In almost every cate- new engine plants, worth $700 mil- portation that limit their mobility and gory of state economic development lion and employing 600 people, in a job prospects.
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