Local Resource Utilization

Immigration’s benefits and costs are also related to the capacity utilization of local economies. This is meant to measure public services utilization, such as high school class size or local hospital usage rates. It should also include other possible measures. There seems to be a connection between a higher immigrant population and higher rental prices, although such relationships are highly complex and require more study” (Saiz 2007, pg. 355). It may be beneficial to create some gauge of existing housing utilization (for example, the proportion of unoccupied housing units as a share of total housing), and increase (decrease) the remittance cap the more unoccupied (occupied) the region is relative to the nation overall. For example, a town where much housing goes unused, a hospital wing has just shut down, or classrooms are going empty, would have a higher remittance cap since it has all these facilities, all these unused resources which an increased population can use. By contrast, a region where essentially no housing units go unused, the local hospital is overburdened by a high patient load, and students are sitting on the floor since there aren’t enough seats faces a differing physical limitation than a depressed region. Their infrastructure will be less equipped to handle the added stress of additional population. without creating greater overextension and harm.

The basic aim would be to avoid potential overcrowding of public facilities and housing while encouraging stories like that of Schenectady, New York, where a mayor in the mid-2000s was able to attract large numbers of Guyanese immigrants to his city and revitalize the municipality’s economy (Kershaw 2002). By including local capacity in the remittance equation, the federal government can utilize external immigration to assuage the social maladies associated with population outflows from a community. Especially in recent years, with the growing trend of internal migration toward the so-called Sun Belt, such an enterprise could yield positive localized results to local economies on the downswing and provide a degree of relief to overheating regions. In essence, remittance regulation can help leverage external migration to outweigh internal migration patterns, providing stability and security.