In Florida all public school districts are county-based. IMO this has positives and negatives. In Jacksonville, as an example some of the highest-scoring schools are in the "city proper" because they have an academic focus and serve students from both their neighborhoods and from across Duval County.
I have family in Tampa who live in Hyde Park/South Tampa. It's a historic neighborhood that, for whatever reason never experienced white/middle-to-upper class flight. Their neighborhood high school (Plant HS) is ~80% white and very low free/reduced price lunch numbers. I don't know if the county-wide school district was a factor but it's interesting to ponder.
The annexation may have hidden the flight out of the east side, but it also dramatically increased infrastructure costs. Chuck Marohn and Joe Minicozzi (Urban3) discussed this at a local presentation about ten years ago.
All the land north of the river that was annexed required infrastructure investment as the northland's population grew. All that investment was borne by a static population. Look at the water department's maintenance history and its shift from proactive to reactive maintenance in the 1970s as an example of how city government coped with the problems of annexation.
Great comment. I don’t disagree that higher per-capita infrastructure costs are a downside to expanding to capture suburban growth.
At the same time, though, those infrastructure costs are more than offset by the tax revenues Northland households generate. On average Northlanders pay higher property and earnings taxes than we do south of the river while consuming far less in social services (police, fire, etc). And it’s those services, not infrastructure maintenance, that account for the meat of the city budget. Low density Northland neighborhoods are net contributors from a fiscal point of view.
If the city had the choice between attracting infill to the core or annexing lower density construction in the Northland it would have been better from a fiscal standpoint to do the former. But the actual choice it had was to annex the Northland or do nothing, and doing nothing would have given us the problems of cities like St Louis as the core population dropped.
The school district has actually gotten smaller. In 2007, a white state senator led an effort to break off a hunk of KCPS and move it into the Independence school district.
I didn't follow it that closely. I think most of the area was actually within Independence city limits (some unincorporated spots too, I imagine). The old borders are why there's a Kansas City Public Library branch near 23rd and Sterling (KCPL used to be run by KCPS board of education).
In Florida all public school districts are county-based. IMO this has positives and negatives. In Jacksonville, as an example some of the highest-scoring schools are in the "city proper" because they have an academic focus and serve students from both their neighborhoods and from across Duval County.
I have family in Tampa who live in Hyde Park/South Tampa. It's a historic neighborhood that, for whatever reason never experienced white/middle-to-upper class flight. Their neighborhood high school (Plant HS) is ~80% white and very low free/reduced price lunch numbers. I don't know if the county-wide school district was a factor but it's interesting to ponder.
The annexation may have hidden the flight out of the east side, but it also dramatically increased infrastructure costs. Chuck Marohn and Joe Minicozzi (Urban3) discussed this at a local presentation about ten years ago.
All the land north of the river that was annexed required infrastructure investment as the northland's population grew. All that investment was borne by a static population. Look at the water department's maintenance history and its shift from proactive to reactive maintenance in the 1970s as an example of how city government coped with the problems of annexation.
Great comment. I don’t disagree that higher per-capita infrastructure costs are a downside to expanding to capture suburban growth.
At the same time, though, those infrastructure costs are more than offset by the tax revenues Northland households generate. On average Northlanders pay higher property and earnings taxes than we do south of the river while consuming far less in social services (police, fire, etc). And it’s those services, not infrastructure maintenance, that account for the meat of the city budget. Low density Northland neighborhoods are net contributors from a fiscal point of view.
If the city had the choice between attracting infill to the core or annexing lower density construction in the Northland it would have been better from a fiscal standpoint to do the former. But the actual choice it had was to annex the Northland or do nothing, and doing nothing would have given us the problems of cities like St Louis as the core population dropped.
The school district has actually gotten smaller. In 2007, a white state senator led an effort to break off a hunk of KCPS and move it into the Independence school district.
Interesting. What’s your view on that move? Has it helped the city retain residents? Hurt KCPS students?
I didn't follow it that closely. I think most of the area was actually within Independence city limits (some unincorporated spots too, I imagine). The old borders are why there's a Kansas City Public Library branch near 23rd and Sterling (KCPL used to be run by KCPS board of education).