New Article: Deb Niemeier and Darien Shanske, Subsidizing Sprawl, Segregation, and Regressivity: A Deep Dive into Sublocal Tax Districts, 106 Iowa L. Rev. 2427 (2021). Introduction below:
Much ink has already been spilled demonstrating that our current built environment was—and is—the product of numerous policy decisions. Some of these decisions are accidental (as with the mortgage interest deduction provided by the federal income tax), some can be reasonable at times, but are problematic overall (as with local power over zoning), and some are outright immoral (as with redlining). This Essay will demonstrate yet another policy tool that has contributed to the current structuralization of the built landscape: the sublocal tax district. These districts are very common, but are also, by virtue of their nature and spatial heterogeneity, very difficult to study.
As we will demonstrate with a deep dive into their use in Sacramento, California, such taxing districts, by design, primarily enable low-density, urban fringe development. This low-density urban expansion then motivates further investments in schools and other services to meet the needs of the spatially expanding population. County and local governments then create new service-aimed and school sublocal tax districts to meet these needs. Our goal is not to demonize these districts or blame them for the many problems that are characteristic of the current built environment. Rather, our primary goal is instead to demonstrate that these districts represent a significant subsidy for a problematic development pattern that is already encouraged in numerous other ways. Aided by this demonstration, we will then outline some of the many reforms that could improve these districts.