A farmer's field is like any city zoning district. The yield per acre from both must be subsidized when less than the cost of support per acre. (To visualize municipal yield, divide the total revenue received per lot, block, zone, or tract by the taxable acres within these boundaries. Compare this revenue per acre to a city’s total annual expense divided by its taxable acres.) The municipal revenue imbalance found in many cases will make it apparent that “big data” is required to provide the information needed to manage the city as a farm, since each must become productive within geographic limits that protect our source of life.
The fact that acreage is a divisor in this yield equation conveys a serious message. If a taxable acre is providing $1,000 to local government, its yield is $1,000 per acre. If the same total tax is provided by 0.1 acre, its yield is $10,000 per acre. This simple arithmetic explains the importance of land use, since a city has a limited number of acres and the activity located on each determines a city’s ability to support its lifestyle. Annexing land to increase these acres can be self-defeating when the activity planned provides new money that proves inadequate to meet a city’s average expense per acre over time. New revenue can be deceptive since it isn't reduced by public maintenance expense that increases with age. It can be a mirage that declines for later governments and is one source of the disease we call "sprawl".
I doubt that a city knows the total revenue per acre produced by its individual lots and parcels, census tracts, census districts, or zoning district areas. In this context, a farmer knows more about the productivity of his land and crops, and a city cannot easily change the crops it has planted. A city cannot manage what it has not measured. “Big data” is needed to visualize the city as a farm that must become a productive part of a symbiotic future.
It doesn’t take much to visualize the city as a farm.
·
Every lot, block, zone,
and tract produces revenue per acre that is a function of its shelter capacity,
intensity, and activity.
·
Total yield divided by taxable
acres produces average municipal revenue per taxable acre.
·
Total expense divided by
taxable acres produces average municipal expense per taxable acre.
·
Some taxable municipal
acres produce less revenue than the minimum required to equal expense and must
be subsidized by others.
·
The objective is to improve
the average yield from all municipal acres to support a desirable quality of
life.
·
The misallocation of
land use areas, activity, capacity, and intensity can easily disrupt the
fragile physical, social, psychological, environmental, and economic balance a
city must maintain to ensure a reasonable quality of life that exceeds a
minimum standard of survival.
A few related thoughts have come to mind while writing this.
Property Value. Property value is determined by a city’s ability to deliver basic public services. Value is compromised by crumbling curbs and sidewalks, potholed streets, flooding basements, sewer backups, deficient water quality, failing bridges, traffic congestion, maintenance deferral, government conflict, budget reductions, inadequate social services, and so on.
The rate of property value appreciation is a function of a city’s school system. A school system has very limited ability to offset the physical decline fought by government, but consumes the greatest share of local tax revenue. Sacrificing basic government services to meet the increasing cost of public education leads to a market-timing exodus as residents become aware that they are investors in a depreciating asset with deficient physical, social, and economic equilibrium.
Minimum Standards. The concept of minimum standards began with Hammurabi for some and with the Ten Commandments for others. The definition of “minimum” has been a battlefield ever since. Protection of public health, safety, and welfare with minimum standards became a grudgingly accepted objective in the 20th century, but is still seen as an infringement on individual freedom to achieve at the expense of others by those who object to the definition of “minimum”.
Services defined as “minimums” by some are considered excessive by others; but I doubt that any resident can recite the full list of his or her city departments, let alone the services provided by each. Under these circumstances, it is no wonder that residents often consider the cost of government excessive for the benefit received since many apply to limited segments of the population. A simple list with related costs might help to create a more informed discussion.
Quality of Life. The term “quality of life” has become a frequent substitute for the term “welfare” in an attempt to refine the intent of the term, but in either case I believe the intent has always been to protect the physical, social, psychological, environmental, and economic interests of entire populations from domination by a few under the banner of “freedom”.
Quality of life is compromised by municipal deficits per acre that must be offset with annual budget reductions. We will continue to assume that budget reductions are improvements without the assistance of “big data” evaluation; and will continue to flee decline with metastasizing sprawl in the absence of more informed diagnoses and treatment.
Summary. The expansion of internal urban decline and fringe area sprawl over the face of the planet are visible symptoms of our inability to manage the city as a farm within geographic limits that protect its source of life – The Natural Domain. The Agricultural Phylum of the Built Domain and the entire Natural Domain will remain at risk until cellular content classification, “big data” collection, and leadership language formation improve to support knowledge assembly, diagnostic success, and leadership direction. Science has already taught us that an ignorant parasite will consume its source of life and a symbiotic parasite will survive. City design of the future will reveal if we have learned to live this lesson.
