Tough question. I live in the safest city in America and it has great schools plus a commuter rail so there isn’t a whole lot of easy targets to shoot for. I might want to revitalize the rather small downtown area and put in some good nightlife and live entertainment but that wouldn’t cost close to a billion dollars. However, the area is too cold for my tastes. How about outdoor heaters at least in select areas? There is also a nice small lake down the street that is only open two months of year for swimming because that is the only time it is warm. How much would it cost to turn that into an artificially heated spa like the Blue Lagoon in Iceland? There was also a small ski area here until the 90’s. We could reopen that and include some killer snowboarding and a grand lodge.
In a dream world (well, even more so than the hypothetical provides) I’d use it with some additional funding from the City of Chicago to buy out the parking meter contract. But at this point, I don’t think you could even do so for close to the $1.2 billion the contact was for and you’d probably need several times that to even attempt to kill it. I don’t even live in the city but that deal was still terrible enough that I could be a folk hero by ending it.
More realistically (ha) I live in the unincorporated hinterlands between Plainfield and Joliet and Plainfield seems to be doing well enough so I’d try to find some way to give Joliet an assist. As suggested above, perhaps some sort of tax incentive – not eliminating taxes on businesses but maybe cutting them some significant percentage based on hiring locally and using the billion to make up the shortfall. It would last longer that way and, when the billion ran out, the increase on the businesses wouldn’t be quite as drastic as going from 0% to 100%.
I’d spend 90% on hookers and blow. The rest of it I’d probably waste.
What’s that? (re-reads OP) Crap.
OK then…howsabout a top notch regional theatre company (with me as Artistic Director, and playing one lead role per year, directing a different show, and designing lights for a third). I figure $100 Million would be plenty to endow such a facility for perpetuity.
With the other $900 Million, I’ll air condition the small town where my office is. Yes, the whole town. Including the outdoors–that’s why I’ll need $900 million.
A billion doesn’t go far in a city the size and sprawl of Houston. One idea is to fund a grant program for businesses that open up or relocate to the bombed out areas of the city. Houston is the very definition of urban sprawl. New development just continually moves out, mainly north and northwest, and there are no geographical barriers to prevent it. So formerly thriving neighborhoods get left behind and become a mix of closed up businesses and slum housing. It’s a problem that’s getting bigger, huge areas of town that have become cultural and economic wastelands, and it snowballs.
Thriving businesses would help center these communities and start to rebuild them, but there is no incentive for business to open in these areas when they can get cheaper facilities, taxes, utils, etc. in the open spaces north of the city. Maybe some grants can attract some business to make an attempt at rejuvenating some of these 1st world favelas.
Problem? No. But that’d only just scratch the surface-- By my count, there are 27 Cleveland public middle schools and high schools within biking distance for me, and all of those students are too poor to afford private schools (because absolutely nobody would voluntarily send their kids to the Cleveland Public Schools if they had any alternative). I’m not particularly fond of just throwing money at the existing school district, either: As I said, it’s completely dysfunctional, and I don’t have any confidence that the money would go anywhere other than administration.
The best plan I can come up with is to establish an entire new district of private schools parallel to the existing public district, and then once it’s established make a pitch to the state to go public and replace the old one. I don’t know how well that would work, but like I said, I’d start by hiring other people to try to find better solutions.
Buy an entire city block, put the rest in Government bonds, live on interest, breed geniuses inside your compound.
Are you a kid of Tug McGraw?
A billion isn’t nearly enough to fix Chicago.
Chicago has 33 billion in debt and pension obligations.
If a billion is all I’m getting I’m using it to provide security for troubled schools so the kids who want to can at least go to school without fear. I’d like to see a vast increase in college scholarships for smart kids from poverty stricken areas of the city as well.
If I can’t fix the city, maybe I can help some kids who have the potential to be successful but are burdened by circumstances beyond their control.
The thing most desperately needed where I live in substantial investment in public transit. This isn’t me as some green eco freak demanding people give up their cars - truth be told, given my job, I’d rarely use the public transit anyway, but the Toronto area desperately needs it. It is already the worst major metropolis in North America for transit and commuting, with the arguable exception of Atlanta, and the long term prospects are worse than Atlanta’s. It is going to become a serious barrier to the city’s ability to grow its economy and function.
So with a billion dollars I’d… not spend a penny on public transit.
Instead, I’d use the money to influence elections to get politicians who would build it, because
-
$1 billion isn’t even close to enough. $10 billion is probably not enough, really.
-
Even if I had fifty billion dollars, the political landscape is so screwed up that the city could not spend it effectively. We’re ten years into a debate over how to expand public transit here and nothing has been done and few good plans have been set forth.
You know Toronto’s crazy, drug-addled mayor, Rob Ford? Do not be fooled. He is not the problem; he is a symptom of the problem.
Clean water and sewers
If any money is left I’d go for more of the “hill staircases” the people in shanty towns /slums need.
Picture
Minneapolis. Currently has two LRT lines. (Well, one, with another opening in about a month.) Each of these lines is slated to get an extension in the next ten years or so out to the northwestern and southwestern suburbs. However, due to the stupid-ass Bush-era criteria for federal funding (weighting end-to-end speed over anything else) that were in effect when initial studies were done for these projects, each line will neatly avoid the densely populated and transit-dependent areas they pass in the direction of, instead traveling mostly through parkland until they get out of the city proper. Everyone realizes that this is a stupid idea, but the powers that be are so terrified of losing their spot in line for federal funding that it looks like the lines will be built as planned.
So, I’d use the billion to offset the probable loss of federal funding, and get the lines built right, through the heart of North and Uptown instead of around them. If there’s any money left, it goes towards accelerating the enhanced bus lines Metro Transit is also building at a slooow rate.
Well here’s a chance to give both my city and Rhymer Inc some benefit.
-
improve our public transit, particularly with an east to downtown subway expansion. Why yes, my new house IS in the east of the city, but it’s still needed for thousands of other people too.
-
Hire Rhymer Inc to knock off the current Mayor. Hello my name is Moon and I live in whispers Toronto.
-
Any leftover cash goes to replacing the Gardiner expressway before it kills someone. By falling on their head. Look we haven’t had an “incident” in almost 18 months! I know this item alone would take the billion dollars but after the others are done we can seed it with the remainder and encourage the city to shift some budget it’s way.
St.Louis (and the surrounding metro area) has a significant “food desert” problem. I’d like to set up a network of local non-revenue stores that provide fresh produce and baked goods to local poor families. Each family would get an I.D. card which would entitle them to an amount of fresh food needed by their family size on a weekly basis.
The Wesley Clark Foundation to Help Hookers and Strippers pay for college block grant program.
If I can’t do that (damn government) I would probably start by filling all the goddamn potholes that are around due to this last winter.
I’m sure there are a lot more creative solutions, but that is what I come up with.
Maybe a rapid transit system (high speed busses, etc). Or investments in a zip car grid.
My city has a terrible problem with child abuse. I would use the money to create a system of follow-up services that the state cannot provide. I want to find ways to reduce stress for parents by providing free daycare, maybe free housecleaning and free community-building activities to make parents feel less burdened.
I would also like to help our domestic abuse problems by having more support available for anyone and everyone affected. I would have free group counseling and free one-on-one counseling with free daycare and food provided.
I want to galvanize the community to care about each other. I want to remove barriers and stressors so families can feel more supported and less alone. I want less talk and more action. I want to figure out what the real barriers are that hold people back from getting out of bad situations and tear them down.
I know throwing money at these problems won’t solve everything. But my city needs some massively improved support systems to help people feel like life can be better. We need some one-on-one meaningful counseling to really help parents and kids mentally, emotionally and financially.
I almost want some sort of middle-man between abuse and CPS. Maybe a referral service where CPS lets my agency (for lack of a better term) know that people could use some assistance but they have no evidence to get involved themselves. And absolutely a process where my group follows up when CPS closes a case. It seems to me those families are terribly at risk. A friend’s niece had her case closed because she did all the right things. Then things went south for her and she ended up killing her baby. Balls were dropped. I want to spend the money picking those balls back up and helping.
I will use one beeeeellion dollars to build a heated dome over the city so it can stop being so fucking cold. -2 on the 3rd of May grumble grumble.
I’ve also thought about this on occasion. I live in a rural county with the nearest incorporated city three miles away.
(1) The first thing I’d do is buy some land and construct a small sewage treatment plant for the 40 or so residences in the immediate area. That would solve some local issues.
(2) Next, provide the local K-12 school district with enough funding to demolish the existing run-down high school and build a modern facility. Then provide funding to equip it with whatever is needed. THEN provide funds for a sort of endowment to the DISTRICT for the purpose of salaries and equipment/facility replacement for all the schools of the district.
(3) I think there would still be enough to commence a sort of land/property buyout program whereby outlying or run-down homes are purchased (and demolished) and the residents relocated closer to the city. The idea is to bring people MUCH closer to town and help generate a walkable community. (This to be a strictly voluntary program.) The purchased outlying properties would be put into some form of conservation trust NOT under the control of the city or county. Within-the-city properties would be redeveloped into additional housing.
I sort of doubt number 3 would work, but if I were in charge of the funding it’s what I’d try.
The city I’m in at the moment has just started a $22.5 billion project on a subway system. Until it’s finished the roads are all being dug up as tunneling doesn’t work in sand. The city will change out of all recognition if the locals take to it, so I wouldn’t know how to spend $1 billion.
If he is proven to have fathered a child he’s out of the program and required to pay back any and all funds received post the date of the child’s conception. Actually, I suspect many men if given a choice between permanent sterilization and owning a nice car and not being sterilized and taking the bus or owning a beater would opt for permanent sterilization.
I live in San Francisco, so I suppose I would spend the money here.
The city budget for the fiscal year previous to this one was nearly $7Billion, not to mention capital projects like the new Chinatown subway line. So another billion is not going to make over the city. Therefore it is necessary to spend it carefully.
-
$300 Million on infrastructure - streets and sidewalks, streetlights, street signs (woeful lack of these, some corners have none). I would hire private companies for this, and hire a small audit team as part of the process to make sure we were getting value for money, not the usual city boondoggles.
-
$600 million to try to resolve the homeless problem. $50 million to study ways and means, $550 million to make it happen. Special attention to weeding out the truly needy from the opportunists, and to keep from importing new homeless when they find out how good it is here. This is about 3x what the city spends per year now. The goal is to reduce the city’s homeless budget by at least 50% without causing human suffering.
-
$99 million on a series of independent audits of city government, city departments and expenditures. These will be hard-nosed forensic accountants from elsewhere who don’t give a damn about anyone in city government, and who can’t be bribed. All the results will be published n detail and in easily-digested summary form, with names, dates, and hopefully indictments to follow.
-
$1 million to persuade Rose Pak and Willie Brown to shut the hell up and move somewhere else.
#2 is probably a pipe dream; #4 is probably not nearly enough money, but it’s not worth any more than that. Maybe the audits can uncover something that would put them both in jail instead.