Saving the Dinosaurs

As yesterday's post shows, suburbs and their cities relate like parents and children. In some places, the children are grown and still living at home. In others, the parents are moving in with the kids. In Milwaukee, the parents are looking for a little financial help in their old age.

As the population, and attendant tax revenues, have moved to the burbs, older cities are having a hard time keeping up parks, zoos, arts complexes and other attractions that, they argue, benefit surburban residents as much as downtowners. A study group Milwaukee commissioned to look for solutions suggested a regional "cultural" sales tax that would sustain the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts, the Milwaukee Public Museum (above) and Art Museum, and Milwaukee County's parks.

Milwaukee isn't the first to discuss a regional tax. New York City used to charge suburbanites a commuter tax to defray transit expenses. A 0.1 percent sales tax tacked onto retail purchases in the Denver area helps foot the bill for the city's botanical garden, a zoo, and two area museums. Other cities, including Detroit, are looking at similar solutions.

So far, suburban county officials in Wisconsin have said no, suggesting instead that the state prop up wobbly cultural institutions, or, says the Waukesha County executive, make them pay for themselves or close—an ultimatum Waukeshans offered their public-funded nursing home. If you're willing to put your own old folks on an ice flow, you're more than happy to do it to your city.