Figure 5. PER CAPITA LOCAL EDUCATIONAL AND NON-EDUCATIONAL problems of their home community, mixed perhaps with some antipathy or even hostility toward the central city and its residents. Unlike other noneducational expenditures, local highway costs do not show any distinct pattern (Table A-14). The level depends on the role of State aid, the extent to which the State has assumed the highway function, and other variables shaped by each State's history. Moreover, detailed studies indicate that some counties also service the central city. Tables A-15 and A-16 point up the relatively high police and fire expenditures that are generally associated with central cities. In no case, except San Antonio (police) and Oakland (fire), are per capita expenditures in the central city for either of these functions less than those for the SMSA as a whole. * Community concern with police and fire services was evidenced by a recent Kraft poll in Houston. As described in the Commission's case study of the Houston SMSA: The poll also showed that 77% of the citizens favored a one percent sales tax if tied to police and fire improvements. Other crucial services include water supply, housing, water pollution control and health-welfare services. Houston's public safety services are of major concern, as well as the services supplied to minority groups and concern over racial tensions in the city.. Since the period of urbanization began a century ago, cities and their suburbs have undergone great changes. However, on the whole, the division of expenditure between educational and noneducational functions has hardly changed over time, in either the central city or its suburban environs. As Table 20 shows, on average about 30 percent of the local expenditure in the larger central cities was devoted to education in 1957 and 1965; outside those cities the proportion was around 50 percent. Similar relationships would have been noted in 1880, 1902 and 1913. Although the roughly 20 percent gap between central and outside central cities in the portion of total expenditures devoted to education is widening only slightly, in absolute dollar terms the difference between the two areas is growing. Local effort is a major factor in the level of educational expenditures, but the role of State aid is also important, as will be demonstrated. Historically, cities have played a significant role in raising the level of social amenities of our population, for they represented centers of important power and public wealth. Early in the century, the cities provided more adequate education and non educational services than did their outlying areas. Policy was designed to redress this imbalance: State aid and State services were furnished to rural and suburban areas to ease the transition into urban * In Washington, Boston, St. Louis, Newark, Rochester and Pittsburgh central city police expenditure approached twice that of the total SMSA. Similar situations existed for fire protection in San Bernardino, Washington, Miami, St. Paul, Paterson, Passaic, Rochester, Cincinnati, Dayton and Pittsburgh. TABLE 20.--EDUCATIONAL EXPENDITURE AS A PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL GENERAL EXPENDITURES Source: Compiled from various reports of the Governments Division, U.S. Bureau of the Census. n.a. = Data not available. society. Rural education was the special beneficiary of this policy. However, recent developments have changed the requirements of the local expenditure equation. The new summons to conquer poverty has placed additional burdens on those jurisdications which house the poor, not only for direct assistance but also for education and the related police, housing and fire functions. It has become increasingly difficult for the central cities to supply these services out of the resources now available to them. Resources Disparities Tax Revenue Although total Federal-State aid varies only slightly as between metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas across the Nation, per capita taxes increase steadily with size and density of the areas. In the nonmetropolitan areas (which now account for only about 36 percent of the population) per capita local taxes were $81 in 1962. In metropolitan areas (which contain the other 64 percent of the people) the per capita tax take was $131. And, in the 37 largest SMSA's (which contain roughly 40 percent of the population) per capita local tax collections amounted to $153 in 1962.** By 1964-65, per capita local taxes in the 37 largest SMSA's had risen to $174, but in the central cities of those SMSA's the tax take was $200 per capita. This average actually conceals a considerable interstate difference in the level of taxes (Table 21).*** A high tax level affects both the center and the outskirts.**** Where taxes in the central city are high, the outside central city taxes also tend to be high, and conversely, low central city taxes are associated with low taxes *** In 1965, per capita taxes in the central city areas ranged from a low of $84 in New Orleans to a high of $291 in Washington, D.C., with New York City and Newark only slightly below at $279 and $273, respectively. ****The correlation between the tax levels of the central city and outside central city segments of a metropolitan area is +.5930. |