Thursday, January 11, 2007
Know-Nothingism in the Burg
In a plaintive letter to the Post Gazette, a reader argues that Allegheny County owes its ranking as the nation’s 28th largest county in large measure to its overly generous provision of mass transit services. And, the letter writer goes on to predict that if the Port Authority makes the cuts it has announced, Allegheny County will drop in ranking.
This letter represents an appalling level of ignorance about what has happened in recent decades as the Port Authority has been in a greatly expansive mode to offer more and more service that has in turn led to a situation of grave financial crisis as revenues simply cannot keep up with spending.
Here’s the reality: in 1960 Allegheny County, with a population of 1.63 million, was among the top twelve counties in the country in terms of population. By 2004, Allegheny County’s population had fallen to 1.25 million dropping the county to the 29th ranked most populous. A total of 19 counties that were smaller in 1960—many much smaller—now have a bigger population count than Allegheny County. And the trend is not good with many counties that are currently ranked below Allegheny showing strong decade to decade gains. Only the very largest counties from 1960, such as Cook County, Los Angeles County and the borough counties of New York City have maintained a higher ranking than Allegheny County.
Lamenting the needed cuts at the Port Authority has it exactly backward. Allegheny County has been losing people for decades because of high taxes, out of control government spending, empire building by authorities and intrusion into the private sector’s ability to generate market driven growth in the economy. The underutilized Wabash tunnel, the underused South Hills parking garage, the underused West Busway, and the many, many examples of buses running around the County with next to no riders all point to an overly expensive, poorly run system that is symptomatic of the County’s and City’s approach to providing public services. People have moved to get away from the taxes and anti-business climate, weak growth economy.
Many of the counties that have experienced enormous population gains offered relatively little in the way of mass transit during their strong growth phase. Allegheny County, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Wayne County, Michigan and Philadelphia County have long offered substantial transit systems, yet all have experienced huge population losses. Obviously, there is much more to economic and population gains than mass transit. Unfortunately, too many people are so narrowly focused they make silly comments and draw wildly erroneous conclusions about public policy issues.
This letter represents an appalling level of ignorance about what has happened in recent decades as the Port Authority has been in a greatly expansive mode to offer more and more service that has in turn led to a situation of grave financial crisis as revenues simply cannot keep up with spending.
Here’s the reality: in 1960 Allegheny County, with a population of 1.63 million, was among the top twelve counties in the country in terms of population. By 2004, Allegheny County’s population had fallen to 1.25 million dropping the county to the 29th ranked most populous. A total of 19 counties that were smaller in 1960—many much smaller—now have a bigger population count than Allegheny County. And the trend is not good with many counties that are currently ranked below Allegheny showing strong decade to decade gains. Only the very largest counties from 1960, such as Cook County, Los Angeles County and the borough counties of New York City have maintained a higher ranking than Allegheny County.
Lamenting the needed cuts at the Port Authority has it exactly backward. Allegheny County has been losing people for decades because of high taxes, out of control government spending, empire building by authorities and intrusion into the private sector’s ability to generate market driven growth in the economy. The underutilized Wabash tunnel, the underused South Hills parking garage, the underused West Busway, and the many, many examples of buses running around the County with next to no riders all point to an overly expensive, poorly run system that is symptomatic of the County’s and City’s approach to providing public services. People have moved to get away from the taxes and anti-business climate, weak growth economy.
Many of the counties that have experienced enormous population gains offered relatively little in the way of mass transit during their strong growth phase. Allegheny County, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Wayne County, Michigan and Philadelphia County have long offered substantial transit systems, yet all have experienced huge population losses. Obviously, there is much more to economic and population gains than mass transit. Unfortunately, too many people are so narrowly focused they make silly comments and draw wildly erroneous conclusions about public policy issues.
