From: ted@nmsu.edu (Ted Dunning)
Subject: Re: Greens vs. Property Rights
Reply-To: ted@nmsu.edu
Organization: Computing Research Lab
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1993 18:13:11 GMT



In article <1678600006@igc.apc.org> Dale McMillen <dmcmillen@igc.apc.org> writes:

    [a long description with some questionable premises, culminating
     in a pastoral description of how homeowners could form their own
     cooperatives and supplant the evil sub-dividers and live in
     eternal bliss near their square foot gardens]



what dale doesn't seem to see is there is no restriction preventing
people from doing exactly what he suggests.  in fact, i have friends
who have done almost exactly what he suggests.  6 of them got
together, formed a corporation, bought a farm near silver city and one
by one are saving up so that they can return to it.  those who live
there live in beautiful sort of place that most of us will never see.
their 40 acres are kept organic and the refuse to allow grazing.
their apples are supremely wonderful and their garden is a delight.

but the fact remains that this is a *very* rare situation.  i think
that dale and his philosophical kin would like to blame this on `the
system', but in fact, the system does nothing to prevent this sort of
arrangement. 

instead, i see the following factors as the major limitations on
whether or not small cooperatives form

1) organization.  getting one person to decide to develop an area is
*much* easier than getting even 5 people to decide on something.

2) timing.  assuming you find your 5 (or 100) other people who would
like to cooperate in building a community, finding them at the same
time is nearly impossible.  the traditional developer makes this
timing much more lax; he starts the development and the residents
filter in on their own time.  this lack of synchronicity makes it much
easier to make anything happen.

3) risk.  how in the world are you going to convince real people to
put up their life savings in the face of factors 1 and 2?  wouldn't it
just be easier to get them to put up their savings to form a
traditional subdivision combine?

4) skill.  forming an organization, dealing with zoning, neighbors and
builders is an art which most people have no skill in whatsoever.
whether you like it or not, a successful subdivider has many skills
in a combination that almost nobody has.  the proof of this is in the
fact that there are only a few successful subdividers and they reap
large profits.

in particular, the following factors are *not* to blame for the
disparity in styles of development:

1) desire.  this country has a population so large that you can be
sure that there are an enormous number of people who would like to
avoid a traditional living arrangement.  there are probably several
you could stand to deal with.

2) capital.  come now.  the people who live in the subdivision had
enough access to capital to make the subdivider *rich*.  they could
just as well have used a fraction of this capital to do what the
subdivider did.

3) evil capitalists.  nobody kept the people living in the burbs from
developing the land the eventually bought.  nobody except themselves,
that is, and they had excellent reasons at the time.