How can Fairwood be financially feasible without more retail businesses?
Each city varies in the percentage of each source of revenue. In the specific case of Fairwood, since it is a residential community there is a higher percentage of property taxes compared to a city that has a lot of retail (e.g., Renton or Tukwila). However, property taxes and sales tax are not enough to run a city, thus there are other sources of revenues. Fairwood is financially feasible from its specific combination of property tax, sales tax, and other revenues. Fairwood residents provide most of the retail activity in the proposed city and most of the items are ongoing necessities such as food, therefore the sales tax base is stable. This is in contrast to cities such as Renton that sell large ticket items which a person buys only occasionally, such as cars. A city with those kinds of retail has sales tax revenue which will fluctuate greatly with economic highs and lows. Most people aren’t aware that there are over 800 businesses in Fairwood. Sales tax revenue comes from more than
