Thanks to everyone who posted and stay tuned!

Hello Everyone,

Thanks for posting comments, or even taking the time to read my last post. I know that this may be a new topic for you, and it can be confusing. From reading your comments, it looks like you all put some thought into what you wrote. Like I said, how land is used is a very controversial issue, and I think that a lot of your comments reflect that. I am not going to respond directly on each of your comments, but I would like to bring up some of what a few people mentioned in their responses and I hope you all find this useful.

Most of you mentioned good examples of negative externalities associated with what activities you do at your home and how these choices effect the environment, which is great, and I urge you to continue to think of these things now and throughout your life. Some of you mentioned positive externalities which I really like because I think that this is a harder area for some people to conceptualize (learning and education are positive externalities by the way!), especially when talking about issues like land use economics. One of you mentioned that your condominium association had a tennis court and swimming pool which you haven't seen used much, but raises the value of the properties because it is marketable and it does improve property value and effect the local tax base. Thinking like this, using what you have versus what you need, is an asset-based approach to building community and how we value our communities.

One of you mentioned that how we view externalities is completely subjective to our preferences, and that thought is right on with how we value resources in economics. This type of reasoning is in part why communities choose to create master plans and zoning so that the community has a certain feel and continuity to it and everyone has to conform to certain rules. But I ask you to think about subjective preferences and ask yourself do the benefits, or your happiness from having that particular type of grass as I think the example was, outweigh the costs associated with having it? In environmental economics and in a community setting, cost-benefit analysis is commonly used to determine if a particular project is viable in the long run and what impacts it will have on the environment and community at large before continuing with that project.

Someone else mentioned how zoning laws effect land. They brought up that zoning laws can say that on new properties, homes must be on a minimum of two acres in Durham, and it used to be a quarter of an acre. By increasing the minimum standard from a quarter of an acre to two acres, development will become much more spread out. Some people argue that this is good, and some that it is bad. By increasing the lot size requirement, more land will be used quicker for housing. With the old requirement, housing was much more compact. Some people think that with a larger lot size requirement, more expensive homes might be built because the land is more expensive, and that these new homeowners might preserve the land. But you have to think is it better for wildlife if the land is fragmented into multiple two acre lots, some might call this sprawl; or if it is clustered into housing, and the other part of the land in the town is left as open space for wildlife? This is a big issue in New Hampshire right now, and across the country.

A lot of you mentioned the word balance. A balance between satisfying our consumptive needs and preserving the environment. This is a wide topic with lots of conversation and lots of views attached to it. I think that it is important for individuals and firms to find this balance. Which brings us to waste, another largely mentioned topic by most of you. I would like to center the next blog topic around waste and recycling and how they relate to economics. I will be posting this for you sometime soon.

Also, if you have any questions at all about something someone said in their comment, or anything about what I have said, or anything about economics and land use in general, please let me know and I will try to answer your questions as best I can.