Elmira has lost half its population since 1950. Its property tax rate is among the
highest in New York State. None of this was an accident. Four forces drove it.
Manufacturing collapsed. A flood wrecked downtown, and the rebuild made it worse.
White middle-class residents left. And a decade of state and county money deals
deepened the hole.
A City That Once Grew
Elmira grew steadily from the Civil War through World War II. It peaked at nearly
50,000 people in 1950. The fall started before 1972, before the flood, before the
factory closures that made the headlines. It has barely paused in 70 years.
49,716Peak population — 1950
26,523Population in 2020 — down 47% from peak
−23,193People lost since 1950
30.2%Residents below poverty line (ACS 2024 5-yr) — vs ~14% statewide
Year
Population
Change
Context
1920
45,993
—
Manufacturing boom; Erie Railroad hub
1930
47,397
+3.1%
1940
45,106
−4.8%
Depression-era contraction
1950
49,716
+10.2%
Peak — postwar industrial employment
1960
46,517
−6.4%
Suburban highway development begins
1970
39,945
−14.1%
Manufacturing contraction underway; flood not yet
1980
35,327
−11.6%
Post-flood; factory closures accelerating
1990
33,724
−4.5%
2000
30,940
−8.3%
2010
29,200
−5.6%
2020
26,523
−9.2%
2023 est.
26,176
−1.3%
ACS estimate
Sources: U.S. Decennial Census; ACS 2023 1-year estimate
The Manufacturing Base Collapsed
Elmira's economy was built on heavy manufacturing: fire trucks, electrical equipment,
railroad works, machine tools. From the late 1950s on, and faster through the 1980s,
those employers shrank or left. The city lost its economic foundation in one generation.
1873–1985
American LaFrance — Fire truck manufacturer founded in Elmira, one of
the city's largest employers for over a century. Elmira plant closed 1985.
1960s–80s
General Electric, Westinghouse, American Bridge (U.S. Steel), Remington Rand,
Ann Page (A&P) — All shrank or left the area during the recession and
industrial shakeout of the 1970s and 1980s.
1950s–70s
Route 17 / I-86 highway corridor — The Southern Tier Expressway made
commuting from the suburbs practical. Residents who could afford to move to Horseheads,
Big Flats or Southport did, and their property tax payments went with them.
Between 1950 and 1970, Horseheads village grew from 3,600 to 7,989. Big Flats grew from
2,460 to 6,837. Elmira lost 14% of its people over those same two decades.
June 1972
Hurricane Agnes — The flood — The Chemung River came over its
banks and put all of downtown Elmira under water. Roughly 15,000 residents had to
leave their homes. Two of the city's four bridges were knocked out, the Walnut Street
bridge among them, which partly collapsed and was later rebuilt. That left Lake Street
and Madison Avenue as the only crossings. The National Guard blocked parts of downtown
and kept Lake Street for emergency and official vehicles, so every civilian car was
funneled onto Madison Avenue. The city was already losing people and industry when the
flood hit. The flood sped up both.
1972–76
The recovery that didn't rebuild — New York State put its Urban
Development Corporation in charge of redesigning the flood-damaged areas.
The "New Elmira Plan" did not rebuild the downtown business district.
Buildings along Water Street came down instead of being restored, and the site became
a riverfront park. The city lost an estimated 40% of its downtown commercial space for
good. Corning flooded badly too, and Corning came back, because Corning Inc. paid for
the rebuild and ran it. Elmira had no company to play that part.
1972–76
Erie Lackawanna Railroad — Flood damage to the main line between
Hornell and Binghamton was severe. The repair cost, on top of years of financial
difficulty, ended the company. The Erie Lackawanna was absorbed into Conrail in 1976.
A major source of industrial employment and freight infrastructure was gone.
The flood is real history. It is also a convenient explanation.
Elmira had already lost 6,000 people between 1950 and 1970, two decades before the water
came. Factories were closing and families were moving out. The flood did speed things up,
and the rebuild decisions made the damage permanent. But it did not start the decline.
And it does not explain why Elmira never came back when other flooded cities did.
Sources: U.S. Census; New York Heritage Agnes Flood exhibit; Chemung County
Historical Society, "The Second Flood of 1972"; NYS Financial Restructuring Board for Local
Governments, City of Elmira Comprehensive Review Report, June 2016
White Flight Outpaced Total Population Loss
The people who left Elmira did not look like the people who stayed. White residents
left at nearly four times the rate of the city's Black population. That is not a side
note. It is how middle-class homeowners and their tax payments left, and how poverty
concentrated in what remained.
Between 1970 and 2020, white residents left faster than the city as a whole
shrank. The white population fell by 17,525, or 47.8%. Total population fell
by 13,422, or 33.6%. The rest of the city explains the gap. Black and Hispanic residents
held roughly steady or grew a little, which offset part of the loss. Elmira did not
shrink because everyone was leaving. It shrank because white residents left.
Year
Total Population
White
White %
Black
Black %
1970
39,945
36,694
91.9%
3,139
7.9%
1980
35,327
31,226
88.4%
3,502
9.9%
1990
33,724
28,815
85.4%
4,162
12.3%
2000
30,123
25,379
84.3%
4,039
13.4%
2010
29,200
22,850
78.3%
4,268
14.6%
2020
26,523
19,169
72.3%
3,960
14.9%
−17,525White residents lost, 1970–2020 (−47.8%)
+821Black residents net change, 1970–2020 (peak 4,268 in 2010)
−13,422Total population loss, 1970–2020 (−33.6%)
Elmira's Black community lived mostly in the South Side and along the Water Street
corridor. Those blocks took the largest share of the urban renewal demolitions of the
1960s and 1970s. The homes torn down for highway construction and flood recovery were
mostly in Black neighborhoods. The residents who chose the suburbs were mostly white.
The money side of this is direct, and it compounds. Every middle-class homeowner who
left took taxable value off the roll. The city's fixed costs do not shrink to match.
Police, fire, roads and debt payments stay where they are. Fewer people paying the same
bill means each one pays more. That makes the city a worse deal for the next homeowner
deciding whether to stay or go.
Sources: NHGIS 1970–2020 Decennial Census extracts at Place level (Place = City of Elmira, NY);
ACS 2024 1-year estimate for current figures
The Fiscal Spiral
A shrinking population doesn't produce a proportionally smaller city government.
Roads still need plowing. Police and fire still need staffing. Debt still needs
servicing. When fewer people are paying for those services, the rate each remaining
property owner pays has to rise. Higher rates make the city a worse deal, so more
people leave.
1
Population and commerce decline
Fewer residents, fewer businesses, more vacant and abandoned properties
2
Tax base shrinks
Less taxable value to spread the cost of city services across
3
Fixed costs don't shrink
Public safety, infrastructure, debt service remain substantial
4
Tax rates rise
The levy is spread across fewer properties, so each one pays more
5
More residents and businesses leave
Higher taxes make the city less competitive with neighboring municipalities
6
Repeat
Each cycle leaves fewer people carrying a larger share of an unchanged bill
Between 2009 and 2013, Elmira's property tax rate averaged $16.62 per $1,000
of a home's market value. A house worth $100,000 paid about $1,662 a year in
city taxes. That ranked Elmira 9th highest among all New York State cities, against a
statewide median of $10.54. By 2022 the rate had risen to $23.71. The same $100,000
house now owed $2,371, a 43% increase in a decade.
City of Elmira — Property Tax History
Property taxes are measured in dollars per $1,000 of value. Which value
matters enormously. Per $1,000 of assessed value is what your bill charges:
$29.98 for the city in 2025. Per $1,000 of full market value is what compares
Elmira to anywhere else: $18.49. Same tax, two yardsticks, because Elmira's assessments
sit at 56% of market. The table below shows both, so the trend can be read without the
basis playing tricks.
A note on a correction. This table
used to run assessed-value rates for 2003–2012 straight into full-value rates for
2013–2025 under one heading, which made 2013 look like a sudden drop. It wasn't. The
state changed how it reports, not what Elmira charged. New York's ORPTS published
assessed-value rates through 2012 and full-value rates from 2013 on.
Year
City tax levy
City rate per $1,000 assessed
City rate per $1,000 full market value
All three levies per $1,000 full market value
Notes
Loading rate history…
The city levy grew from $10.4 million in 2012 to $17.8 million in 2026, a 71% increase
over 14 years. Inflation accounts for some of that, but not most. The city's taxable
property base was essentially flat from 2013 through 2022, ranging between $653M and
$706M. So the entire rate increase fell on the same pool of properties.
The 2023 rate drop, from $23.71 to $19.74, does not reflect a reassessment.
Individual property assessments in Elmira have stayed largely frozen. Total taxable
property jumped from $659M to $802M. That is New York State updating Elmira's
equalization rate, its yearly estimate of what frozen assessed values are worth as a
share of current market prices. As the housing market recovered after COVID, frozen
assessments fell further behind, and the state revised its ratio to match. That revision
raised the denominator in the rate calculation. For most owners, whose assessed values
did not change, tax bills kept rising with the levy.
In 2015 Chemung County and the City of Elmira made a trade. The city gave up part of
its share of the county sales tax. In return the county took over running some city
services. The county has since undone its side, service by service. The city's share of
the sales tax was never restored.
The original deal (2015). The county rewrote the sales tax formula,
moving from a 50/50 split with the city to 66/34 in the county's favor. The city's share
of countywide sales tax fell from roughly 12.33% to 8.17%. That is about $3 million a
year, dropping the city from around $9M to around $6M. In return, the county took over
staffing the city's Department of Public Works and its Buildings & Grounds department.
Between 30 and 40 employees moved to the county payroll, costing the county about $1.5M a
year for DPW alone. The county also let the city join its health insurance plan.
This was a real trade, not a giveaway. The city was in deep trouble. Its workforce was
down to roughly 159 full-time employees, 85% of them police and fire, and about 40 workers
had already moved to the county. The county's help let the city keep maintaining
infrastructure it could no longer staff itself.
The problem is what happened next. The county has undone its side of
the deal, piece by piece, and kept the sales tax split:
2018: The health insurance arrangement ended and the city had to
insure itself. That alone ran $2.7 million over budget in 2023 and 2024.
2021: The buildings and grounds agreement ended.
2025: The county gave notice to end the DPW agreement on
December 31, 2025. The county executive proposed that the city take on the labor
costs over four years.
The Chemung County Legislature sided with the city and blocked the county executive's
termination plan. As of early 2026, the DPW agreement remains in effect under
negotiation.
$23.4MCity's estimated cumulative loss since 2015 — lost sales tax + re-absorbed service costs
−$3M/yrAnnual sales tax shortfall vs. original 50/50 split (~$9M would have been → ~$6M actual)
66 / 34Current county/city sales tax split — unchanged since 2018 despite service terminations
Moody's named the sales tax renegotiation as a main reason for its 2015 downgrade of
Elmira's bonds. The rating went from A2 to Ba1, which is junk, five notches in one move.
The city lost its share of its own county's sales tax at the same moment its factories
and its population were already going.
The sharp crisis of 2015 to 2018 has eased. The conditions underneath it have not.
The city still carries a high tax burden and concentrated poverty, and it has almost
no room left for the next shock.
$2.42MFund balance remaining in 2024 — down from $7.46M in 2023
Ba1Moody's bond rating since 2015 — junk, non-investment grade
$18.49City property tax rate (2025) — $18.49 per $1,000 of market value; statewide median was ~$10.54 in 2009–13
The 2023 rate drop is an artifact of the math. The state updated Elmira's equalization
rate, the ratio it uses to convert frozen assessed values into market-value terms. No
individual property was reassessed. Most homeowners' assessed values and tax bills kept
climbing. The gap underneath is unchanged. The city taxes a small, frozen base at a high
rate to pay for services in a poor city. It can do little to grow that base, and little to
shrink the fixed costs of government.
The 2026 budget proposed a 12% property tax increase. That came straight from the county
service terminations hitting city finances at once. Negotiations cut the increase to about
6%. Meanwhile the city's general fund balance, already thin, fell from $7.46 million in
2023 to $2.42 million in 2024. That is a $5 million drawdown in one year, and it leaves
almost no cushion for an unplanned expense.
Elmira's fiscal position took 70 years to build.
Governments at every level made decisions. Private money moved. Households looked at the
conditions around them and chose. None of those forces acted alone, and the city's tax
burden only makes sense with all of them in view.
For a closer look at the current assessment roll, frozen values, exempt properties and
what a reassessment would actually do, see the
City of Elmira fiscal health page.
For how PILOTs from tax-exempt institutions could offset part of the burden, see the
PILOT analysis.
Sources: NYS OSC Fiscal Stress Monitoring System; Moody's 2015 downgrade notice
(via NYS Financial Restructuring Board 2016 report); WSKG December 2025; NYS OSC Local Govts AUD data