Funding Equity: City Mouse versus Country Mouse
The debate on the equity formula has gone on pretty much since its inception. Fast-growing urban areas want a bigger share of the pie and claim that money should go where the growth, congestion and people are. Hence, they want to scrap the formula or rework it in favor of a more population-based system.
Rural voices say “Keep it.” To them, the Equity Formula and its component that ignores population is the only thing that keeps money coming to roads and other transportation infrastructure in their counties. The system is flawed, no matter how you look at it. Many of the voices at the public hearing claimed it was unfair to everyone. Someone finally said “then it must be equitable if it is unfair to everyone.”
There’s no easy answer because someone will lose. If we ignore the growth needs of urban areas – and the fact there truly are more people coming to these cities and counties – then we continually fall farther behind in addressing traffic congestion. Better, denser urban planning is part of the solution, but only part.
And for rural communities, underfunding remains a problem. If they don’t get their fair share, they will lack the transportation infrastructure needed for safety (think fire and other first responders), to attract economic opportunity and create jobs. Without jobs and stability, rural flight will continue – only exacerbating the problem of urban growth.
Smart planning, efficiency and project prioritization are only part of the puzzle. Until we realize we need a bigger pie – not bigger pieces of the pie – we avoid the real problem. North Carolina is a fast-growing state that still needs to find ways to preserve rural communities. If we don’t we’ll continue to pit urban versus rural, which gets us nowhere.
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