Wes Craiglow gives a TEDx talks about city budgeting services from a spatial point of view (per acre, per square mile) and uses a Walmart Superstore site versus a historic commercial property in a Arkansas city as an example. While Walmart delivers a massive tax assessment compared to its smaller historic peer, it’s much more unproductive and less valuable on a per acre scale. Craiglow also takes a similar approach to evaluate the sales tax and what he finds is that urban development is more more financially prudent than suburban development.
