Conference Presentation, Panel, Fireside Chat
Creating Community Wealth and New Revenue: Public Assets Workshop
Milken InstituteMatt Horton, Ben McAdams, Dina Blaes, Jason Foster, Shayne Kavanagh, Joe Minicozzi, Dan Tangherlini, Natalie Cohen
- Context and Objective: The Milken Institute Center for Regional Economics hosted a public finance forum session focused on transforming local public asset management into a revenue-generating tool for community reinvestment, moving beyond traditional tax reliance.
- Core Problem: State and local revenues have failed to keep pace with economic changes due to technical obsolescence in tax bases (e.g., property taxes not capturing non-real-estate wealth; sales taxes excluding services) and the regressive nature of reliance on fines and fees.
- Proposed Solution: The panel advocates for "Urban Wealth Funds," a model where governments use private-sector management techniques to derive income from publicly owned assets while retaining full public ownership, rather than selling assets to the private sector.
- Salt Lake County Case Study (Valuation): Former Mayor Ben McAdams commissioned a study valuing Salt Lake County's public assets; while the county budget was $1.3 billion, the inventory revealed approximately $12 billion in transit-corridor assets with potential to generate $45 billion in value if developed to market standards.
- Salt Lake County Case Study (Productivity): Urban planner Joe Minicozzi noted that while transit-oriented development covers only 3% of the county's area, it generates 11% of its value, identifying it as a high-priority site for immediate redevelopment.
- Specific Development Opportunities: Minicozzi highlighted the Salt Lake High School site, suggesting that developing surface parking and utilizing the land for revenue-generating projects (e.g., a stadium or mixed-use) could generate $13.5 billion in new taxable value and fund the school's operating costs ($2.5 million/year) through land lease revenues.
- Implementation Challenges: Dina Blaze, Salt Lake County's Director of Regional Development, noted that 70% of residents cannot afford the median home price ($550,000) and that the county faces hurdles in digitizing real estate records, accurately valuing assets, and overcoming political reticence regarding government involvement in private-sector-style development.
- Community Equity Endowments: Dan Tangerlini (Emerson Collective) and Jason Foster (Destination Crenshaw) proposed "community equity endowments" to ensure residents directly benefit from asset development, rather than just receiving indirect government services, citing the need to capture value for communities often displaced by transit-oriented development.
- Destination Crenshaw Model: In South Los Angeles, a $100 million public-private partnership created "cultural infrastructure" (parks, art, streetscapes) alongside the new rail line to ensure the community, which lacked capital for traditional real estate investment, retains value from the $2 billion transit investment and prevents displacement.
- Governance Models: Panelists agreed there is no single traditional governance structure; recommendations range from highly controlled municipal departments to independent non-profits (like San Antonio's 2020 Vision) or quasi-public entities (like the Destination Medical Center in Rochester, MN) that insulate decision-making from short-term political cycles.
- Reframing the Narrative: Participants emphasized that cities function legally as "corporations" (REITs) and that the "socialism" label is a barrier to adopting "equitable capitalism," where the community acts as a shareholder in public wealth rather than a renter.
- Forward-Looking Statement: The panelists urge local governments to prioritize asset inventories and valuation modeling as the first step to identifying "low-hanging fruit" for revenue generation, with a goal of shifting from reactive policy to proactive, long-term wealth management.