For some,
the belief was that divinity would show beneficence toward American expansion. Others of a more scientific bent believed that
the increased dust from plowing would bring rain. (There was valid science to the latter
expectation, although the effect wasn’t nearly as big as needed.)
Both types of
believers were soon disappointed. After a
period of above normal precipitation, long-term norms were reestablished. Wells became necessary for many farms and marginal
farms were abandoned.
To the
extent that any of us remember the 19th century belief that rain would follow the
plow, it’s with a condescending acknowledgement of the gullibility of our forbearers. We’re sure that in our time we aren’t nearly
as susceptible to wishful thinking detached from reality.
Except that
we’re just as susceptible and perhaps more so.
And we’re doing it on a subject that may be more critical to our future
than a false belief in rainfall. Furthermore,
we’re clinging to the belief even as the facts pile up in opposition. At least our forbearers had the common sense
to surrender the farmsteads when the rainclouds didn’t gather.
For the past
seventy years, we’ve built our cities and towns in the belief that property tax
revenue from new development would be sufficient to service and to maintain the
new development. That incremental property
taxes would be adequate to pay for police and fire services, to provide the
other services of civilization such as parks and court systems, and to maintain
and periodically to replace the infrastructure.
There was no
particular reason to believe that this would be true. We had 4,000 years of history in which we
generally allowed cities to disappear if they couldn’t meet that standard. There were exceptions to the rule, such as
capital cities relying on support from the countryside in exchange for
governance, but most cities had to comply with the rules of Darwinism, to
successfully adapt or to succumb. A
great many cities did the latter.
But then we
made a mass commitment to an alternative and experimental model in which we
encouraged a vast spreading of our cities and towns. The experiment assumed that the growth would
be financially sustainable. And
as StrongTowns points out with tongue in cheek,
we didn’t just try this experiment
in New Jersey, we rolled it out nationwide.
Furthermore,
we took an unscientific approach to the experiment. There are two critical elements of a good
experiment. First, the experiment should
be constructed such that the results are clear and unequivocal. Second, if results begin to show that the
experiment is doing harm, the experiment should be ended and remediation begun.
We did
neither. At the same time we embarked on
the drivable suburban experiment, we increased the transfer of funds from state
and federals governments to local government, masking the results of the
experiment. In many ways, we separated
the financial sustainability of cities from their financial viability.
And when the
citizenry began to chafe under the tax burden that was required to sustain the
experiment, embarking on the taxpayer revolts of the late 1970s and 1980s that
reduced property tax revenues, we allowed ourselves to go further into the hole
rather than ending the experiment.
And now
we’ve reached 2013. It’s clear that we
can’t sustain the experiment. Our public
amenities are badly underfunded. We have
a backlog of infrastructure maintenance and replacement that we can’t begin to
tackle. But the cost to repair the
damage done by the experiment is more than we want to pay. So we engage in a frenzied attempt to attract
more development, using the impact fees to remedy the worst of the budget
shortfalls. StrongTowns is correct in
calling it a Ponzi scheme.
It makes the
whole rain/plow thing look like a warm-up exercise in self-delusion.
As always,
your questions or comments will be appreciated.
Please comment below or email me.
And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)
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