A core principle of creating financially strong and resilient communities is this: local government must run a profit. This doesn't mean local government must do things for profit, extract residents' private wealth, or charge for every service or piece of infrastructure. Far from it. We mean this in a more prosaic sense: local government must, at the end of the day, have enough revenues to match its expenses. It can operate at a loss for short periods of time, by taking on debt or spending cash reserves, but it cannot do so indefinitely, any more than any nonprofit organization or your household can. Government is like a business in that sense. #strongtowns
