Compared to center-cities, Infrastructure needs and efforts to enhance public safety topped the list of issues needing immediate attention for all cities. Big cities spend much larger shares on social services, including: ■public welfare ☐ housing development · health and hospitals The movement of jobs from center cities to the suburban portion of metropolitan areas has continued unabated for 50 years and has been significant. In 1970, 70% of metropolitan area jobs were in center cities. Now, that proportion is under 50%. The population has also moved. Two-thirds of the metro population now live in the suburban counties of metropolitan areas and many center-city and inner-ring suburban populations have actually fallen. While two-thirds of the total population has moved to the suburban areas, the proportion of the total black population in the suburbs is only one-third. As a result, the proportion of black people in the center-cities has substantially increased over the last several decades. Although urbanization brings job growth and economic prosperity for many, the benefits of urbanization have not been equally distributed. New suburbs, which are generally incorporated and taxed independently of their metro-area center cities, have in many cases siphoned the tax-base from center-city areas. This has encouraged a process of decay in older, inner-ring suburbs and center-cities. Within-metro geographic income distributions have also tended to polarize. This has left a large proportion of the poorer populations, with their demands on government support systems, in city centers and inner-ring suburbs. Metropolitan Area Spending Recent studies report that infrastructure needs and efforts to enhance public safety topped the list of issues needing immediate attention for all cities. About one-third of cities reported an increase in the need for survival services, including food, shelter, and healthcare, and most expect this trend to intensify as the reformed welfare systems begin to force some recipients off public assistance. For larger cities, · intergovernmental pressure points were cited, such as environmental mandates and reductions in state transfers. For smaller cities with populations under 50,000, the rising cost of employee health benefits were issues of great concern. Small cities and large counties that make up the inner-ring suburbs of large cities spend disproportionately less on social services than do large cities. As a result, they have much weaker infrastructures in place to withstand the increasing demands on social services that would come with economic stress. The table below summarizes government expenditures in 1992 for counties with populations exceeding 500,000 and for cities with populations 300,000 and above. These counties in many cases comprise the inner-ring suburbs around big cities, while the figures for cities represent the aggregate of center cities from small to large. The share of total expenditure used for public safety, education, and highways was about the same in aggregate for cities and these large counties, between 31% and 34%. Expenditures on public welfare and health and hospitals took a much larger share in large counties, 32% of total expenditure. Shares of expenditures in cities vary significantly by size. Big cities spend much lower shares of funds on services like police and fire protection, and on infrastructure, such as sewer and sanitation services and highways, as compared with smaller cities. On the other hand, they spend significantly larger shares on social services, including spending on public welfare, housing and community development, and health and hospitals. GLOBAL WARMING: THE HIGH COST OF THE KYOTO PROTOCOL Metropolitan Area Sources of Funds: On Average 33% of Funding Comes from Intergovernmental Sources While there has been a call for a more comprehensive local approach to sharing the burden of infrastructure and social services across all of the businesses and consumers that benefit from urbanization, the concept is still under development. Current funding of metropolitan areas still relies heavily on transfers from federal and state funding sources. The table below shows the extent of fiscal dependence of counties with populations above 500,000 and cities with populations above 300,000 on intergovernmental revenues. About 37% of total revenues of these large counties came from intergovernmental transfers, with about one-third of all revenue coming from state government sources. About 60% of revenues in both large counties and cities with more than 300,000 population was self-funded. The cities were also very dependent on state and federal government funds; intergovernmental transfers to cities accounted for 28% of funding. SUMMARY Metropolitan areas have complex inter-relationships among the various communities and with state and federal government. All metropolitan areas rely on federal and state funds: ■ for many smaller areas, the funding may represent 25% of their budget ■for larger areas, the funding may exceed 40%. The projected reduction in state and federal tax revenues, $93.1 billion and $94 billion (925) respectively, would have a devastating impact on metro areas ability to meet the demand for social services. GLOBAL WARMING: THE HIGH COST OF THE KYOTO PROTOCOL IMPACT ON METROPOLIDAN COLARITES CONCLUSIONS After 2000, real GDP per Metropolitan areas face extraordinary pressures to meet the demands of their populations today. Those pressures are projected to increase, as the baseline economic expansion is slower on a per capita basis than earlier expansions. The US is one of the few developed economies that is projected to have a significant increase in population, about 0.8% per annum. By 2010, the population in the US will be 10.3% greater than today. Metropolitan areas, which are attracting an increasing proportion of the population, will be called upon to provide services to more people. Further, the baseline projection of economic growth calls for a slowdown in economic performance per person. As a result, there will be greater pressure on those workers with fewer skills, and skilled workers will be experiencing very slow improvement in their economic prosperity. Ratifying and implementing the Kyoto Protocol would seriously harm metropolitan> areas. The impacts would be far-reaching with both economic and social implications. Metropolitan areas' vulnerability stems from two areas: First, most small metros and large counties immediately surrounding large cities have shared less than proportionately in the economic growth of the nation since the recession in the early 1990s. As the analysis shows, ■metropolitan areas would suffer output and job losses that would meet or exceed percentage loss of jobs in their state ■ the loss of output and jobs would reduce metropolitan areas own sources of funds. Second, metropolitan areas rely upon state and federal transfers to meet the needs of their constituencies. On average, metropolitan areas receive one-third of their revenues through inter-governmental transfer. WEFA's analysis shows that federal tax revenues would be 5.5% lower than projected in the baseline for 2010, and state revenues would decline between 5.3% and 10.9% below baseline projections by 2010. All states suffered revenue losses. Metro area GLOBAL WARMING: THE HIGH COST OF THE KYOTO PROTOCOL pleas for increased funds from state coffers could not be answered if the Kyoto Protocol is ratified. The table below summarizes the projected declines in the selected metropolitan area output and employment projections which indicate the increasing demand for services and the reduction in tax revenue that metro areas would experience. Further, state tax revenue losses and federal tax revenue losses are reported as indicators of the funding reduction that would occur under the Kyoto Protocol. IMPACT OF THE IMPLEMENTING THE KYOTO PROTOCOL ON SELECTED |