How Does Cities 101: Revenues and expenses Work?

A city is like a big kid who needs money to buy toys and snacks, that’s revenues, and using that money for things like playgrounds and ice cream trucks is expenses.

Cities get their money from different places, like taxes. Taxes are like when your parents take a little bit of your allowance to pay for your school supplies, the city takes a little bit of people’s money to pay for things like lights on the street and trash pickup.

Sometimes cities also make money by selling stuff, like tickets to a funfair or charging for parking near the park. That’s like when you sell lemonade at your stand to buy more lemons.

Cities use their money to do cool things, like building new parks, fixing roads, and hiring people to clean up after the big game. These are all expenses, it's like using your allowance to buy a new bike or pay for pizza on Saturday.

If a city has more revenues than expenses, it’s like having extra change in your piggy bank. If it has more expenses than revenues, it needs to find another way to get money, just like you might need to do extra chores to earn more allowance! A city is like a big kid who needs money to buy toys and snacks, that’s revenues, and using that money for things like playgrounds and ice cream trucks is expenses.