Land Use in the Northeast U.S.

Ten Things Members of Every Rural Community Need to Know About Land Use... Edited by Stephan J. Goetz and Timothy W. Kelsey, June 2003

1. No other region of the country faces greater pressure on its land base than the Northeast US
2. Once traffic gridlock occurs in a community, it is almost always too late to do anything about it

Source: The Brookings Institution
3. Planning is usually the only way in which unpleasant surprises related to land use can be avoided

by M. Dougherty, WVU
4. The smaller the unit of local government, the greater the potential local control of land use and planning

But, the fewer the resources available for planning, and the greater the staffing problems. (By Stan Lembach, Penn State)

5. Generally speaking, the nation's food supply is at this time not under threat from land conversion to new housing development

Source: Heimlich and Anderson, ERS
6. Compared to previous economic expansions, and given the amount of population growth during the last decade, developers are currently undersupplying new stocks of housing

This is especially a concern in the Northeast, and attributable to a desire on the part of developers to raise profits (The Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development).
7. There is no clear-cut relationship between land preservation efforts and the supply of housing

(Source: The Brookings Institution)

8. Conventional cost of community services studies need to be used with caution - and they are often misused

by T. Kelsey, Penn State
9. Some individuals claim that residential development is always beneficial to a community because of the increased tax dollars it brings

... others claim costs of residential development are always negative because new school expenses offset any potential tax benefits. Neither assertion (stereotype) is in fact accurate (T. Kelsey, Penn State)
10. Property rights are granted to individuals by the community in which they reside

These rights are a creation of the legal process used to resolve land use disputes, and hence subject to change. In this context, experts are following the recent US Supreme Court Decision related to the Lake Tahoe area with intense interest (D. Bromley, U. of Wisconsin).
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