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This is why we should vote for Florida Hometown Democracy’s Amendment 4 in the 2010 election. In his book "Better Not Bigger," Eben Fodor cites study after study showing how growth raises taxes.
There are dozens of these studies. They all come to the same conclusion. New developments reach into the pockets of established residents to finance additional schools and services, and the traffic and pollution they generate reduce nearby property values.
Given all the evidence to the contrary, it's amazing how many still believe the myth that growth reduces taxes. But then, every myth springs from a seed of truth. Municipal growth does benefit some people.
Real estate agents get sales,
Banks get more depositors and borrowers,
Stores get more business (though they also get more competition).
Landowners who sell to developers can make big money;
Developers can make even bigger money.
Fodor quotes Oregon environmentalist Andy Kerr, who calls urban growth, "a pyramid scheme in which a relatively few make a killing, some others make a living, but most [of us] pay for it."
As long as there is a killing to be made, no environmentally concerned tree huggers are going to stop over development.
The developers make the money. They're playing the game according to the rules, which rewards whoever is clever enough to put any cost of doing business they can onto someone else.
They get the profits; we build the roads.
They hire the workers (short term help, which are paid as little as they can get away with); we sit in traffic jams and breathe the exhaust.
They get jobs building the subdivision; we lose open lands, clean water, and wildlife.
Then we subsidize them with our taxes.
Do not believe the myth that all growth is good. Ask hard questions. Who will benefit and who will pay?
How much growth can our roads, our land, our waters and air, our neighborhoods, schools and community support?
Shame on our city officials for allowing this, but, sadly, local legislatures are controlled by political contributions from the growth machine and, as a result, we have a fiasco whose results are indelibly etched in the built-out landscape of Florida.
Recently the Governor signed into law a bill that eliminates the need for developers to pay for roads in their projects. If you ask yourself why, the only answer possible is - he is looking for campaign money from developers.
Because growth does not pay its own way, cities wind up with unfunded infrastructure needs, something that elected officials won’t talk about and newspapers don’t print.
But every day Florida residents experience those infrastructure problems through gummed-up roadways, classrooms for children in air-conditioned trailers, unkempt and inadequate parks and playing fields, pollution, degraded wetlands and a declining quality of life.
This isn’t a “gloomy point of view”. This is reality.
From: http://eyeonmiami.blogspot.com :
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Community support grows for Creek wetlands cause.
