The deterioration of central city schools: A tale of two cities (Detroit and Denver)

Abstract

While a great deal more work needs to be done to assess the factors contributing to the stability and instability of the local tax base, these findings do provide some basis for understanding why central cities have been constantly plagued by fiscal problems. While increasing the quality of public services may result in the in-migration of some upper-income families, the limited findings of this paper appear to suggest that this has limited significance as a policy objective. However, it would be worth some controlled experimentation on the part of central city school boards to test this hypothesis further. It may be that if the area allows the level of its expenditure to fall too low relative to surrounding areas, the tax base may fall below the critical level necessary to maintain a competitive level of services, and cumulative deterioration will follow unless the system is saved by some outside source of funds. It is hoped that these results, although they are limited, will stimulate further research, not only on the dynamic interaction of public and private decisions but also on the question of what structural changes may be possible to shift the whole function.