Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

TWO NOTES ON SKETCH COMMENTS

—

by

James A. Bacon
in

Excuse the new post but there are two very important points raised by the comments on the Sketch Comments post:

In the first comment, Not Ed Risse (welcome back!) said:

“Henry George is irrelevant when exclusionary zoning prevents higher density housing that an otherwise free market would support and build.

“Most of the dysfunction you decry is the result of government control of land use, not the decisions of ill informed consumers or speculative developers.”

EMR agrees. If one searches “cambium layer” in The Shape of the Future they will find text that articulates that point and puts in the context of the New Urban Region Conceptual Framework.

NER used the term “most” to start the second paragraph and this is VERY important. There are also other forces at work – within the context of dysfunctional governance structure.

For example suing Arlington County and HUD over The First Baptist Church of Clarendon’s multi-use plan on First Amendment grounds is misuse of the US of A Constitution to promote personal privilege over Neighborhood and Village interests. WaPo 21 March.

In an amazing juxtaposition, on 22 March a similar plan by a Swedish firm is covered in WaPo with the headline “A sign of life in commercial real estate?”

In fact buildings near METRO stations (the facts in both cases) with a creative mix of use can help meet the need for METRO to become more functional by balancing the travel demand and by decreasing the need for any vehicle trip to support many of the requirements of quality life styles in the station areas.

And speaking of quality of life…

In the second comment Larry said:

“I think if you interviewed the 100-mile a day folks – that most of them would agree that their work/home situation IS..DYSFUNCTIONAL …”

YES, they do know that but they continue to believe the Myths that prevents rational actions AND as Larry said THEY HAVE NO BETTER OPTION due to the dysfunctional governance structure.

He goes on to say:

“…but they’re not going to live in a 1000 square foot hovel with strange characters hanging out on the streets and schools where their kids are not safe and can’t learn.”

If Larry could just wrap his brain around the fact that 5 persons per acre within the Clear Edge and 10 to 30 person per acre in the built environment INSIDE the Clear Edge has NOTHING to do with “1,000 sq ft hovels and strange characters.” See STARK CONTRAST.

If one wants to encounter ‘strange characters’ at the Dooryard and Clusters scales look to LOWER density areas. Check the data on SubRegions (Inside the Clear Edge and Outside the Clear Edge.) with 1, 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100 persons per acre. You will find the higher the density, the LOWER the number that fall outside the bell curve on ALL measures of social compatibility – a more formal way to say ‘strange characters.’ See EMR post on Green Metropolis INCLUDING discussion of the four tragic flaws.

For example one will find the LOWER the density the higher the per capita ‘deaths at the hands of strangers.’ Spotsy Cnty is far more dangerous than Arlington Cnty according to Prof Lucy’s research for example.

Myths are powerful forces that befuddle even the most thoughtful.

EMR

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34 responses to “TWO NOTES ON SKETCH COMMENTS”

  1. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Too much land for daily habitation has short circuited civilization’s ancient process to evolve ever more civil citizens:

    Circa 120,000 years ago malcontents were forced to leave the tribe’s compound and were eaten by lions.

    Circa 60,000 years ago malcontents were forced to leave the clan’s cave and either starved, froze to death or were eaten by saber-toothed tigers.

    Circa 13,000 years ago malcontents were forced to leave the tribe, clan or extended Households settlement and starved, froze or were captured for the slave trade.

    From 8,000 to 1,500 years ago malcontents were forced to leave live outside the wall (those outside the city walls were the original ‘suburban’ residents according to the Oxford Dictionary) and starved, froze, captured or killed by the huns, et. al.

    After 1492, malcontents were encouraged to emigrate to places where there was an inexhaustible supply of land to spread out and they were able to survive and multiply.

    Now malcontents get subsidies to live at low density and use talk radio and blogs to misconstrue the need to balance of private rights with community responsibilities and the need to pay their fair share.

    From our lecture notes.

    AZA

  2. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    "For example suing Arlington County and HUD over The First Baptist Church of Clarendon’s multi-use plan on First Amendment grounds is misuse of the US of A Constitution to promote personal privilege over Neighborhood and Village interests. "

    ================================

    In this case the Developer is a church which is getting substantial subsidies, and other forgiveness from the county, as I understand it.

    Ordinarily EMR would be opposed to subsidies for speculating developers.

    Why is this any different?

    EMR state this as a case of personal privilege over Neighborhood and village interests, but it is really a case of personal interst vs community interests, which boils down to your property or ours?

    The communtiy and the church A(which has money at stake) and EMR all claim this is a sufficient benefit to the community that it should go forward.

    Those involved inthe suit say, not so fast, this is good for everyone but me.

    If this deal is so good for community or neighborhood or village or commune interests then they should take part of their interests and use it to buy out the interests of those bringing the suit.

    Ultimately, this is probably what will happen: an offer will be made on the courthouse steps, right before trial.

    Everyone except the lawyers would be better off if they simply bought out the interests before causing a threat to them. But that would mean you need a market where you can figure out what such property is worth.

    Larry would normallya rgue that your property rights end where mine begin: no one has ANY right to anything that damages my property.

    This is a case of pollution by looming, so I would expect Larry to side with the property owner and not the church. That will conflict with his conviction that majority rules.

    Which is it, Larry?

    RH

  3. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    400 years ago the indians had no sense of property. Anyone could pitch his teepee anywhere he liked. But once he left the site, he left any rights to it behind.

    Yet, if an indian worked a piece of ground to plant his corn no one else had a right to his corn. An Indian only controlld land as long as he occupied it, an no one bigger forced him out.

    This is not all that disimilar to the case today. We keep our land as long as we enforce our occupation by paying taxes on it. We pay tribute to the government primarily to keep the big guys and the mob out.

    But now, the big guys think they have the right to tell us not to grow corn. And they think they have the right to take our money to subsidize their much bigger and more profitable corn field.

    That's progress for you.

    RH

  4. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    "Too much land for daily habitation has short circuited civilization’s ancient process to evolve ever more civil citizens:…."

    =========================

    in their classic text The Principles of Urban-Rural Sociology, Sorokin and Zimmerman argued that there was a tendency for rural areas to exhibit higher crime rates in offenses against the person, such as homicides, infanticides, and grave assaults, but a lower proportion of crimes against property.

    In Rural areas you are likely to be known personally aqnd if someone has a grudge they will take it out on you, persoanally.

    In the city, anonymity means that crimes against property are relatively risk free.

    Either way our ancient process to evolve more civil citiznes mainly involves recognizing what is theirs and leaving it alone.

    RH

  5. Larry G Avatar
    Larry G

    EMR might be right about the "myths" of living 5 people to the acre but he does not have to convince me but instead the thousands and thousands of people who believe otherwise and take that 100 mile a day commute.

    The latest news down here is that we're gonna have Greenfield TOD/New Urbanism "smart growth" within walking distance of a commuter rail train that does that 100 mile a day round trip for a mere $20 per trip … 3/4 of that cost paid for by a 2% tax on the folks who make than 100 mile round trip in an auto.

    has a certain symmetry to it, eh?

  6. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    the thousands and thousands of people who believe otherwise and take that 100 mile a day commute.

    It is not thousands and thousands of people taking that hundred mile commute, unless you are talking nationally. Hundred mile commutes are rare and many of them use mass transit.

  7. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    RH, you live in a fantasy world so warped it is hard to believe that you have not done been institutionalized for you own safety. 400 years ago you would have been.

    You said:

    “400 years ago the indians had no sense of property. Anyone could pitch his teepee anywhere he liked. But once he left the site, he left any rights to it behind.”

    “Yet, if an indian worked a piece of ground to plant his corn no one else had a right to his corn. An Indian only controlled land as long as he occupied it, an no one bigger forced him out.”

    The best evidence is that for the last 400,000 year homo sapiens and their ancestors have been territorial. Almost all mammals are territorial.

    If by “indians” you mean North American’s earliest emigrants the continent has archaeological, traditional and historical records of tens of thousands of battles between tribes and sub-tribes over land – Hunting territory, fishing territory, gathering territory, farming territory, water sources, winter and summer camping sites. Tribes maintained permanent border outposts to protect millions of acres of empty land from neighboring tribes.

    You are making a fool of yourself by you incessant misrepresentation of science and fact just to fabricate unfounded statements concerning your Alice in Wonderland concept of property in an urban society.

    JML

  8. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    If RH was not paid by the word for his trash, he would read carefully enough to know that Larry is talking about 100 mile round trips.

    Just can it RH. You have less and less to add to the discussion.

    Fed Up

  9. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    train that does that 100 mile a day round trip for a mere $20 per trip … 3/4 of that cost paid for by a 2% tax on the folks who make than 100 mile round trip in an auto.

    You really need to learn some math.
    That $20 dollar trip is just for the VRE. Probably you have a car ride on this end to get to VRE and a METRO ride on the other end. Plus the VRE fre is only about 1/3 of the cost of VRE: the rest is in externalities as they say. These are priced externalities that someone actually pays in taxes. the total cost is pretty close to $40.00 for VRE + Metro+ auto costs.

    That hundred mile round trip is six gallons of gas in a normal car during rush hour. $18 in gas at three dollars a gallon – including all taxes.

    Your 2% tax calculation is a little off. Besides, a real 100 nmile commuter probably doesn't buy his gas in a county that collects it.

    Add another $15 for depreciation and insurance plus $7 for parking. Total cost $40.

    Most hundred mile driving commuters car pool, so cut that in half. Plus externalities, of course.

    When I was riding VRE it was a shorter distance and cheaper, but it was still a toss up whether I drive or VRE.

    The discriminator wasn't price. Generally it was a little faster to drive, but if I drive I can't take a nap.

    RH

  10. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    If RH was not paid by the word for his trash, he would read carefully enough to know that Larry is talking about 100 mile round trips.

    Just can it RH. You have less and less to add to the discussion.

    =================================

    I assumed it was hundred mile round trips. Those are very rare among all commuter and even rarer among all trips. Larry is and has always exaggerated the effects of these folks. And,these aren't even the same folks year after year. They get trapped in some circumstance like a job change.

    After a year or so they get it straightened out and commute less.

    Anyone can look this up or do the math, The average commute is only 27 minutes around here. That makes an average commute less than 20 miles. Even if you think it is a bell curve and not skewed towards the less expensive trips the portion of that curve out past 100 miles is really small.

    Don;t blame this on me, I'm just bringing youthe simple facts. If you want to base your theories on something else, go right ahead, just don;'t expect anyone to believe a word you say, unless you subscribe to the big lie theory:
    No matter how audacious, if you repeat it enough someone will believe you.

    Sort of like AZA believes EMR.

  11. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    "You have less and less to add to the discussion."

    Most of the discussion around here consists of Larry and a few others trying to avoid having the truth and simple facts interfere with their theories.

    Without me you'd have a couple of old goats mutually pontificating and congratulating each other, nodding sleepily in agreement.

    RH

  12. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    Facts are stubborn things …

    1. A square mile has 640 acres.
    2. Fairfax County has 1,015,302 people living within 407 sq. mi. This works out to 3.9 people / acre.
    3. The same calculation yields 12.5 people per acre in Arlington County.
    4. The town of Warrenton has 6,670 people living in 4.2 sq mi. This is 2.5 people per acre.
    5. The City of Fredricksburg has 3.4 people per acre.
    6. Henrico County has 1.7 people per acre.
    7. Chesterfield County has 1.15 people per acre.

    First, I wonder where the 30 person per acre jurisdiction is hiding in the Commonwealth.

    Second, since "malcontents get subsidies to live at low density" I wonder when my neighbors and I will get reimbursed by EMR (Warrenton), LarryG (Fredricksburg), Jim Bacon (Henrico) or Peter G (Chesterfield). Don't know where AZA lives but unless it's some place like Arlington please make your check payable to The Citizens of Farifax County.

  13. Larry G Avatar
    Larry G

    Spotsylvania – 225 people per sq mile or 2.8.

    I can deal with numbers.. and I'm betting that the number of people per acre is way higher for water/sewer land than well/septic land.

    Now I wouldn't be saying that to steal Groveton's thunder.. but if Fairfax Couny is 3.9 per acre – average – and Fairfax has some amount of land that is well/septic.. then it probably means that the water/sewered parts of Fairfax meet EMRs 5 people per acre "functional settlement gold star" standard which is a scary thought to me as the place is seriously overrun with automobiles… even where Groveton lives…

    traffic EVERYWHERE.. what a mess.

    so I'm having a lot of trouble with EMR's standard and the reality of Fairfax which is about as walkable/bikeable as a freeway at rush hour – which is what much of Fairfax looks like most of the times I've been there.

    Hard to believe that this is settlement pattern nirvana….

    but I digress.. and probably will have Groveton chewing on me for uttering these insults.

  14. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Reston is specially zoned with a cap of 13 residents per acre. There are proposals to increase that limit. Should this be rejected? Has Reston already done its duty?

    TMT

  15. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    Now, Spotsylvania – that's a walkable place. No cars either. I must be hallucinating when I think I am stuck in traffic on Rt 95 in Fredricksburg. Rt 17, Rt 1 and Rt 3 are also pedestrian walkways (but only if you are channeling Timothy Leary). The free solar powered wiki buses take Spotsylvanians hither, tither and yon in Bizarre-O world.

    I'd really like to know where these functional settlement patterns exist. 5 – 30 people per acre (at scale), walkable communities, affordable housing, happy citizens and (for Jim B) low taxes.

    I've been all around the United States and the world. I just don't see this happening.

  16. Larry G Avatar
    Larry G

    no.. the Fredericksburg Area is not especially walkable nor bikeable except in the sense that it not yet as dominated by road infrastructure as NoVa is.

    Neither place has been designed to explicitly provide for non-auto mobility.

    Bike and walking facilities are added on after the fact most all of them abruptly ending at a highway barrier that render then not practical for non-recreational mobility movement and only the diehards willing to risk their lives in moving traffic insist on it.

    You'll find in every transportation plan whether it's MWCOG/TPB or FAMPO in Fredericksburg – a Bike/Ped "Plan" which are nice looking, professionally created colored diagrams of "future" bike/ped facilities but the first time someone asks for a grade-separated overpass or other infrastructure to provide for better bike/ped mobility the screams start about how this takes money away from "desperately needed" roads.

    but I'll end adding something for your pleasure.

    GOGGLE, bless their souls, have now added BIKE directions to their GOGGLE Maps.

    here – go take a look:
    http://goo.gl/DTlh

    YO GROVETON/TMT – go to the GOGGLE BIKE tool and put in your home and some distant destination and see how it routes you.

    I tried it for my area and it sends me down a rural road – curvy and hilly without shoulders… butt-grabbing excitement for sure – though about once a month – a group of bikers will come down here to defiantly travel these roads much to the consternation of the car folks.

    Groveton's Georgetown Pike is similar to the road described above.

  17. Accurate Avatar
    Accurate

    I've said it before, EMR believes that all (or the vast majority of) problems are caused and can be solved with his ideas regarding where and how we should all live. I've compared it to a carpenter who sees the solution to all his problems as his hammer (he views all problems as nails). Recently I was shown a website with the type of habitat that would make EMR proud, except that he would have us stack them.

    http://www.greenboxpdx.com/

    Another absurd innovation from the city that I'm proud to have left.

  18. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    then it probably means that the water/sewered parts of Fairfax meet EMRs 5 people per acre

    ============================

    Maybe, but I don't think you get 95% of the population on 5% of the land at that rate. You have to stack them up and then count (necesary) parkland as open space.

    Groveton makes a point that is similar to the one I make ab out cars. Some people say they are hugely subsidized, but since virtually everyone uses autos, who is subsidizing whom? Same with low density dwellers.

    ——————————

    "malcontents get subsidies to live at low density"

    One of EMRs bad argumentation habits: using emotionally laden or unneccessarily derogatory words, like "malcontents". I don't know why he does not understand that such usage throws his argument into doubt, suggesting as he calls it, " a dog in the fight".

  19. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    though about once a month – a group of bikers will come down here to defiantly travel these roads

    —————————-

    Once a month? Arond here it seems to have become an extreme sport: traveling rural carriage tracks at high speed.

    I predict that one of these days the Porsche or Harley club is going to meetht bicycle club on a blind curve or hill, with multiple casualties.

    Last year only one biker got killed. Twenty years ago when I suggested the county start planning for bike trails my supervisor laughed at me.

    Bikers don't spend any money, he said.

    RH

  20. Larry G Avatar
    Larry G

    I'll go along with the statement that EMR (and his supporters) tends to use disparaging terms to refer to folks who "won't listen" or are "clueless" or "refuse to learn the vocabulary".

    The BURDEN is on EMR and his supporters to CONVINCE the very folks they diss to see the light.

    You won't win over converts if you fail to convince the skeptics and you certainly won't even have them listening to you if you openly diss them.

    but then again.. zealots of all shape and sizes often seem unconcerned with such niceties because ultimately they expect some govt entity to force them to do what is right.

    this is why I say we have thousands and thousands of people who willingly commute, many of them way more than 30 miles a day and many of them for their entire careers and many of them in responsible positions that require good judgement and skill

    and to describe them as suckers who buy into a myth.. that they don't understand … will not win over converts.. even if it is the truth..

    EMR is an academic and knows that he is not a politician.. he eschews the idea that anything needs to be done past the point of "proving" his premise…

    but oh as we all know.. politics is a whole other critter when it comes to needed "change".

    eh?

  21. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    If Larry could just wrap his brain around the fact that 5 persons per acre within the Clear Edge and 10 to 30 person per acre in the built environment INSIDE the Clear Edge

    EMR is deliberately obtuse about net and gross density. Sometimes he uses space that is not in the built environment as if it lowers density inside the clear edge (wherever that is). Other times he argues that there is a lot of open space that could be used to increase density, (ignoring the fact that someone owns that space).

  22. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    "this is why I say we have thousands and thousands of people who willingly commute, many of them way more than 30 miles a day and many of them for their entire careers and many of them in responsible positions that require good judgement and skill "

    ——————————–

    So you are a zealot that ignores the facts, hoping to force government intervention in a problem that is smaller than you claim?

    The census bureau reports ther are 3.5 million people with major commutes of over 50 minutes. That is about one percnet of EVERYONE which means it is two or three percent of commuters.

    You can argue that if you take 5% of the traffic off the road you reduce congestion by 20%, so your argument has some merit, but you are overselling it. They may be thousands and thousands in the sense of two to seven thousand but not in the sense of 20 to forty thousand.

    Overselling any single solution is bound to be unfair and costly in the end.

    RH

  23. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    EMR is an academic and knows that he is not a politician.. he eschews the idea that anything needs to be done past the point of "proving" his premise…

    —————————

    If EMR was an academic he would reference work other than his own, and submit his writings to peer review.

  24. Larry G Avatar
    Larry G

    well EMR has never been very clear about why some areas inside the clear edge can be less than 5 people per acre while others areas must be way more dense than that.

    It seems to me that he does not have a paradigm for where density should be dense and where it can be less so.

    His clear edge seems pretty arbitrary to me…

    and fixed… not allowed to move.. or let's say.. no rules for moving… out and shrinking..

    this is the same problem the census folks have:

    1. – how do we know how much we will grow in the future – for any given area or region other than assume we grow in the future like we have in the past.

    Detroit certainly knows the problem with that kind of logic.

    2. – how does growth allocate itself geographically?

    we already know that growth does not necessarily allocate itself where existing infrastructure is already located.

    Nope.. growth will and does "sprawl" itself to vacant land where new infrastructure is required – and arguments about who should be paying for that infrastructure.

    Do folks know why NoVa pays for VRE commuter rail when it is restricted to two corridors?

    they support it because it takes cars from the exurbs off their surface streets.

    Alexandria filed a lawsuit against the HOT Lanes in part because they feared that solo drivers would be willing to pay a toll and that so many would be willing to do that – that they would overwhelm their surface streets.

    My point?

    where does growth allocate itself geographically and how and why?

    Every jurisdictions has policies to essentially evade having to add/improve infrastructure due to growth.

    Fairfax does this and it encourages people to commute to Fredericksburg but then they drive their cars back up to Fairfax ..so Fairfax then subsidizes VRE so folks in Fredericksburg won't commute and flood Fairfax's surface streets.

    in the end though – Fairfax manages to "outsource" the infrastructure needs of their workers by encouraging them to NOT locate their homes in Fairfax.

  25. Larry G Avatar
    Larry G

    re: " That is about one percnet of EVERYONE"

    and it impacts how much road infrastructure and air quality?

    the one percent is blather that ignores the facts and the realities … that thousands and thousands of commuters need a LOT of road infrastructure that is at capacity with little hope for expansion…

    and that dynamic leads to things like non-attainment caps and HOT Lanes and subsidized METRO and VRE.

    in other words .. that one percent has wide and deep impacts on virtually everyone's life and finances…

    but it's only 1% …eh?

  26. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    that thousands and thousands of commuters need a LOT of road infrastructure

    =================================

    I'm not arguing that point, only that it is wrong and misleading to claim it is the fault of 100 mile commuters or that they use an extraordinary amount of road resources.

    All I did was quote federal statistics for extreme commuters and then relate that to the percentage of people who actualloy drive to work.

    If all of the extreme commuters took off one dy, you would barely notice the difference. Onthe other hand, when the nine-dqay workers take off on alternate Fridays, you do notice the difference.

  27. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    they support it because it takes cars from the exurbs off their surface streets.

    ============================

    They think it does, anyway.

    Then comes the induced traffic argument.
    Or the latent traffic argument.
    Or the new traffic argument.

    If the train makes it easier to travel by road, SOMEONE will notice and fill up another spot on the roadway.

    Despite the addition of VRE and Metro and thousands of new buses, our traffic congestio today is worse than before metro.

    Therefore we paid for metro and got no actual congestion relief. Would it be WORSE without metro and VRE? Maybe a little bit.

    Probably some people would not stand for it and go someplace else.

    Since neither Mtro nor VRE nor the road network is about to be increased, we will soon find out.

    RH

  28. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Every jurisdictions has policies to essentially evade having to add/improve infrastructure due to growth.

    ==========================

    If the recession does not end, we will see how long that lasts. People will be clamoring for growth.

  29. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    "According to details of the lawsuit, prosecutors attempted to fine CEMEX for a payment of $558 million. Justifying the suit, officials declared that the company had failed to pay the state of Texas for the eradication and subsequent sale of various natural resources and materials found on CEMEX’s property.

    With this suit, prosecutors were basically aiming to argue that the state of Texas has rights to the natural materials and resources on any business’ private property. Justifiably, many citizens and companies were alarmed at this charge, as supporters of CEMEX assert that the company never violated any legal directives.

    Judge Villa, charged with handling the CEMEX and State of Texas case, ultimately ruled in favor of the company, declaring that the prosecution lacked sufficient warrant and cause for their suit."

    In this case the state was looking for royalties for the removal of natural resuources.

    This is different from the situation in King County Washington or New South Wales where landowners have been limited to using only 14% of their property, the rest rremaining in natural habitat.

    However we approach questions of sustainability, it will impact property rights: who pays for them, who controls them, who gets to use them, and how they are taxed.

  30. Larry G Avatar
    Larry G

    Ray – you sound like the property rights version of Cuccinelli sometimes.

  31. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    It is a shame that 'Ray' cannot find a property rights uber ales blog so he will have people who agree with him.

    There must be five percent of the population that are similarly deluded.

    Farmer John

  32. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    It is a shame that 'Ray' cannot find a property rights uber ales blog so he will have people who agree with him.

    There must be five percent of the population that are similarly deluded.

    Farmer John

    =================================

    This is no delusion, all that I have presented is very simple environmental economics theory.

    Bad environmental conditions are caused by poor allocation of property rights. EMR does not realize it beut he is saying very nearly the same thing when he talks about properly allocating costs.

    Simply put, you are more likely to absorb costs to sustain the value of your property (the environment and other things) when yu rproperty is secure and you can make a profit from it.

    As a "farmer" you know that you need to improve the value of your property at the same time you earn more profit from it. You cannot survive by "eating your equity" or "living off the land".

    I'm pretty sure that more than 5% of th epopulation wants to see their property proteected: they just don't care what happens to anyone else. But if you do not protect other people's property, soooner or later the machine will get around to you and your property.

    What protection will you have then?

    RH

  33. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Every jurisdictions has policies to essentially evade having to add/improve infrastructure due to growth.

    ==============================

    Massachusetts' Proposition 2 1/2 law, limits annual increases in a community's tax levy to 2.5 percent and requires voter approval to exceed that cap. The law went into effect in 1981.

    "[Massachusetts] Prop 2 1/2 has served to create a damper on the rate of property taxes," said Michael Widmer, president of business-backed Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. "But the worst possible time to do this is in the middle of a recession."

    ……………………..

    Geoff Beckwith with the Massachusetts Municipal Association said that about half of the time Massachusetts towns approve tax overrides for general operating expenses. But overrides generally only get approved in wealthier communities.

    The result, Beckwith said, has been a dichotomy: "In affluent communities, the property taxes have increased at a higher level. In poor communities, they cut the services more."

    "You create long-term winners and losers," he added.

    ===============================

    Now, notice the similarity to the comparison I have often made between FAuquier and Loudoun.

    You create long term winners and losers, which means the losers have costs the winners don't have, and as EMR constantly poinsts out, we need a fair allocation of costs.

    RH

  34. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Ray – you sound like the property rights version of Cuccinelli sometimes.

    =================================

    Property rights are our most essential rights, without them we have nothing.

    This isn't a right wing or left wing issue: if anything it is Anti-Partisan because FAIR property rights favor neither side.

    RH

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