Following up on Cienna's excellent coverage of the White Center annexation issue (here, here and here), the under-appreciated neighborhood blog Blogging Georgetown jumps into the debate in response to a statement from Seattle City Council President Richard Conlin, and in so doing raises some interesting questions about the fundamental philosophical issues underlying annexation in particular, and city government in general.

Writing in defense of annexation, Conlin asserts:

We should be clear that none of our residential neighborhoods pay for themselves. If money is our only concern, we should immediately start deannexing many of our neighborhoods. Georgetown, Lake City, Broadview, Beacon Hill, they are all money pits.

Seattle works because we take the revenues generated by downtown and the Duwamish Manufacturing Center and use them in other places. We know we have many things we would like to do, but that we also are a relatively wealthy city with a stronger budget than most.

Remember, Conlin is defending annexation, but the folks at Blogging Georgetown take offense at the characterization of their neighborhood as a "money pit." Georgetown is arguably a part of the "Duwamish Manufacturing Center," so how could it be, the author asks, both a "money pit" and the source of revenue to "make Seattle work?" The post also correctly points out that neighborhood neglect in the name of short-term savings helps create the "illusion" of a money pit. But I think Blogging Georgetown's more salient point is this:

Is all of the (much needed) investment in infrastructure on 1st Ave, 4th Ave, East Marginal, Airport Way, and Spokane Street in SoDo a money pit, or an investment? Conversely, are the proposed improvements on Airport Way (including the bridge over the rail yard), Ellis, Albro, Corson, and other smaller projects in Georgetown a money pit because the result is qualitative and not (as) quantitative?

In some ways, the whole annexation debate can be viewed as a proxy for our debate over the role of government itself. One of the primary functions of city government is redistribution of wealth, Conlin tells us (though not exactly in those words). We do take revenue generated in the commercial and manufacturing core, and redistribute it across the city. Without this redistribution, many of our neighborhoods would fall apart, and with dire economic consequences for the downtown and Duwamish businesses who look to these neighborhoods for customers and employees. You know, the same businesses that foot much of the tax bill. Thus we all benefit from investing in the city as a whole.

And yes, it is fair to characterize much of city government spending as "investment," as difficult as it might sometimes be to quantify the return. Conlin is right that Seattle is a "relatively wealthy city with a stronger budget than most." But a lot of that wealth is predicated on maintaining the quality of life that attracts new businesses and residents to our city... a quality of life that is itself predicated on seemingly little things like, say, resurfacing the Georgetown play field from dirt to turf. Money pit or investment?

So no, as Cienna points out, from a dollars and cents perspective, the White Center annexation just doesn't pencil out for Seattle taxpayers. And yet, situated as it is just across the street, in the long run we'd all benefit from a healthy and prosperous White Center... much in the way that we all benefit from the economic revival that has transformed Georgetown into a cultural hotspot.

That's just kinda how cities work.