By Matthew Tester, Project Associate. It should come as no surprise that our nation’s cities are in trouble; the Great Recession has cut a wide swath. My colleague Will Corbin blogged in March about the Recession’s constrictive effects on municipal finances, which are confirmed in a report by the National League of Cities from December 2009. In 2009, municipal budget shortfalls averaged about three percent, which, alongside increased demands for municipal services, severely inhibits city...

By Ellen Anderson, Director of Research.    As the U.S. Census Bureau rolls out each new year of American Community Survey (ACS) implementation, the survey offers a greater variety of data to a broader reach of geographies. The 2008 ACS includes data on property taxes for counties with populations of at least 65,000 residents, marking the first publicly available data set of its kind in terms of scope and accuracy that will be reliably updated on a regular basis. The Census Bureau defines...