TWO DIFFERENT SPRAWL PERSPECTIVES FROM TWO SITE VALUE TAX PROPONENTS Sprawl is a Freedom Issue by Joseph L. Bast, Chicago, IL The following quoted excerpts are from Mr. Bast's article, "Managing Growth, Destroying Freedom," published in the Sept.-Oct. 1998 Issue of Intellectual Ammunition. "Urban sprawl" worries some people. They say it will lead to a shortage of agricultural land, deplete the planet's limited suppies of fossil fuels, and load the air we breathe with hazardous pollutants. Others worry that sprawl reinforces social inequalities by separating jobs from workers and encouraging race- and income-based isolation. Still others think "sprawl" is compromising our quality of life by taking away the intimacy, social connectivity, and sense of social identity that come from living in compact neighborhoods.... Urban expansion is, in fact, responsible for surprisingly little conversion of either forest or croplands into roads, houses, and parking lots... Air quality in nearly all major American cities has dramatically improved during the past twenty years, even as suburban "sprawl" boomed... During the past twenty years, estimates of oil reserves have increased nearly every year due to new discoveries and technological advances, even as we consume more gasoline with each passing year... As cities grow, property values in their central business districts rise, prompting businesses that require large amounts of space--typically manufacturers--to leave, and companies requiring less space--typically service providers--to enter... New employers will take the place of businesses that leave... When suburban expansion harms low-income families, it is usually due to government policies that inflate the cost of housing in suburban areas, making it more difficult for low- and moderate-income families to relocate closer to the new suburban job markets... Randal O'Toole says empirical investigations consistently find that lower operating costs in the suburbs more than offset the higher initial capital costs of installing new infrastucture.... A careful study of taxes paid by road users in 1992 found total revenues of $114 billion, while spending on roads that year (including law enforcement and administration) was just $76 billion... The problems often attributed to unplanned growth are more often the result of prevailing government policies that distort market processes that would otherwise lead to win-win solutions. ___________ (Mr. Bast is President of the Heartland Institute, a non- profit think tank based in Chicago. Heartland has over a dozen "Georgist" documents posted on PolicyFax, its fax-on-demand information service, and expects to post more in the future. A Heartland Policy Study on site-value taxation, written by long-time Georgist Fred Foldvary, PhD, is currently undergoing peer review.) Sprawl Is a Tax Issue by Al Katzenberger, St. Louis, MO, I enjoyed reading "Managing Growth, Destroying Freedom" by Joseph L. Bast, president of The Heartland Institute. It saddens me, though, that Bast wants a flare of freedom that can not be sustained. Freedom is a balancing act requiring discipline on the part of each individual immersed in the collective nature of the state (governments.) Urban sprawl is not a freedom issue. Urban sprawl is a privilege provided by the state. When a government relaxes its moral responsibility to the individuls in its jurisdiction, individuals will create other jurisdcitions to escape. Just look at the patchwork of jurisdictions round our urban centers. We have over 100,000 local governments in the United states. If we count local entities legally authorized to collect subdivision fees, business district fees, land trust fees, beautification fees, etc., we have over 500,000 local governments and more being created every day. These taxing jurisdictions are privileges provided by the state. Why is this happening and why is the state so willing to allow the growth of all these taxing agencies? Answer: TO INCREASE TAXES! In urban areas there is the phenomenon of urban overload. We have many taxing agencies taxing the same location and individual(s) who reside(s) at the same location. Usually we do not pay much attention to this phenomenon because the payment of those taxes are usually out of mind because we pay them through a third party such as a mortgage company. The state is smart in not requiring each of the taxes to be paid separately to each taxing agency. The state has developed a system of what is called "captured revenue." Anyone who is an employer knows the state has "captured" its revenue before the employee sees a paycheck. The mortgage company captures the state's revenue from your mortgage payments. All these government efficiency techniques keep us from paying attention to our payments to the state. Some might call all this freedom to sprawl, but those who understand the nature of the state call it running from the tax collectors. Once these new local jurisdictions are created, they start demanding services from the state. The first demand is usually new or improved highways. The new jurisdictions usually require developers to follow strict building codes that do not encourage "mixed housing or transitional housing." So I get married and buy a house that is too big, knowing I want four children. By the time the children are ready to leave home and live in "the neighborhood," all the houses in the neighborhood are too big and too expensive. Mr. Bast needs to continue his efforts to help us safeguard the freedoms we have. We can not be free as long as the state continues to take from us what does not belong to the state. We need site-value-charges (not taxes) to break the last vestiges of slavery to the state. (Katzenberger is Treasurer of the St. Louis Teachers and School Related Personnel Union, Local 420, AFT/AFL-CIO. Three resolutions written by Katzenberger, initially submitted to the 1992 National AFT convention, were resubmitted to the 1994 National AFT convention. Supported by the Missouri Federation of Teachers, the three resolutions were entitled: "Economics Issues," "Fair Taxation: Amendment 28 to the U.S. Constitution," and "Henry George Commemorative Stamp." (See Sept.-Oct. 1994 GroundSwell write-up.) (For the past three years, Katzenberger has staffed a PREC/CGUSA booth at the National Conference of State Legislatures annual meetings.) Back to the What's New page