I made a few Excel charts from the results of the Muhlenberg/Morning Call’s Annual Quality of Life survey that I’ll be posting over the next few days.
Here’s the open space question. A political gold mine awaits anyone who wants to run against sprawl in the municipal elections :
A combined 81% are either concerned (44%) or somewhat concerned (37%) with the loss of open space.
To fix the problem, voters need to be looking for two things: in the borough and township elections, the ideal candidate is someone who wants to vote against building anything in areas that aren’t already developed. This person wants everything that is now farmland or forest to stay that way.
In the cities, the ideal candidate is someone who wants to increase density in and around the central business district.
If you’re going to stop development of the “open space” areas, that amounts to a significant downzoning. That makes the already-developed land more expensive, so you have to balance the “zoning budget” by upzoning elsewhere – ideally in the core cities.
Still trying to screw over the poor farmers?
Here's a better idea – charge anyone from NYC, North Jersey or Philly a $200,000 fee per person if they relocate here.
Most of the sprawl has been caused by your desire to get out of those locations and come here, let's have you pay for the privilege.
Maybe you should move to Youngstown, considering how much you seem to like a Rust Belt with shrinking population, not a growing population. It's amazing to me how much you contort yourself to misunderstand the elementary economics of land use.
"Most of the sprawl has been caused by your desire to get out of those locations and come here, let's have you pay for the privilege."
Sprawl is caused by government zoning decisions. All that land is zoned at very low density, there's maximum lot occupancy rules that say your house can only take up such-and-such a percentage of your property, each new retail store is required by law to have a certain number of parking spaces.
In other words, it has absolutely nothing to do with a free market for land. Sprawl is what follows from government rules.
I understand what you're doing completely. I do not condone the Government taking something away form a private landowner without compensation. And I have a real problem with you intentionally screwing over farmers – those guys work harder than you ever have in your entire life and don't deserve to get screwed by a PLE from NYC.
What you're advocating may be legal, but it's immoral and unethical.
But that doesn't surprise me, your other posts show you have no ethics.
Besides, your "Youngstown" comment shows you have no grasp on reality – too close to Philly and NYC. Oh, and Youngstown was ruined by the very unions you protect through your staunch support of Davis Bacon, legislation that keeps unemployment much higher than it would be otherwise.
How Concerned Are YOU With Anything What-Am-I-Gettings-From-Big-Government? Says :
A. Slightly less than not at all
B. Even less than that
C. Still even more but this sort of quality Circus Act just can't be found anywhere else