Why Saving our Cities means Protecting our Farms!

[@TheRuralUrbanist]

Hi Everyone, thank you so much for watching! I don't want to claim monopoly on any solutions to save farms. My purpose with this is to say that it's important to protect farms and then to provide a few potential solutions, not a final policy recommendation. Thank you all for being patient since my last video, I've recently started a new job and I wanted to make sure I got this video right!

[@michaelimbesi2314]

There’s really only one thing that needs to happen: zoning and parking reform in cities. Getting rid of those restrictions would result in the market doing the one thing it actually wants to do: dense urban mixed use development. Single-family suburban sprawl isn’t natural. It only exists because of zoning laws. The simple fact is that people need housing and the local government has nearly always made it a crime to build literally anything else.

[@jerredhamann5646]

Land value tax the remedy was figured out by henry george

[@planetarysolidarity]

Great video except that it would have been more accurate to say, "Not enough people are talking about..." instead of "No one is talking about." 1. You are someone. 2. People have been talking about this for decades.

[@benbrown8258]

...please see my reply... I Do like the point you brought up though.

[@SoybeanAK]

Regarding how to save farms, this is a whole thing but- the simplest solution is one you can start today! Vote with your wallet. Do actual shopping at farmers' markets. Join a CSA or Co-op. Buy beef in quarters from somebody local. Pay that extra bit to buy direct and support small farms who are growing food the right way- for the environment, the animals, the community, and your health. And the food is so much better! Don't blame capitalism, embrace it. We'll never get the government to save us from ourselves. So convince the people how much better local- especially regenerative- farms are, and we can take the power away from corporations, lobbyists, and politicians- and out-compete the developers.

[@alanthefisher]

Land Use planning and housing go hand in hand. Focusing on one without the other will always cause issues. Smart regional politicians will always help/protect farms if they have a smart vision for the future.

[@Randomguy-ys8yz]

I love your content! Greetings from argentina :)

[@linuxman7777]

At least this guy addresses the economics, no amount of planning can overcome economics and planners become blind to their own biases, like the 50s sprawl, the 90s new urbanist, or the modern Weeb vs Europhile urbanists. In the end even with no planning, humans have made amazing places when the incentives are right. And always remember that suburbia was a product of urban planning, not a natural outcome, planners are just coping and in denial.

[@lozoft9]

@@linuxman7777 this guy doesn’t actually address the economics adequately tho. Higher property taxes wouldn’t actually have an effect on the spread of low density sprawl b/c most sprawling developments are built in unincorporated areas that aren’t subject to any property taxes (at least, that’s how it works in most US states). Urban growth boundaries or ETJs would be necessary to ensure that any urban development is subject to local taxes and that localities aren’t able to undercut each other. And land value taxes would additionally have to be levied to incentivize density. None of these policies in isolation can solve the issue.

[@lozoft9]

@@linuxman7777 also, suburbia isn’t an outcome of urban planning as a discipline. The most consequential policies that lead to suburbanization and car dependence were the product of economic policy. FDR’s brain trust wasn’t out to fix cities, they were out to save the US economy (with a side of red-lining). Eisenhower’s highway system wasn’t a product of urban planning, it was a Cold War defense policy that just happened to benefit GM a member of the MIC. The people who made US suburbs what they are today didn’t have “urban planner” affixed to their name tags. They were senators, presidents, representatives, economists, surveyors, developers, traffic/civil engineers, secretaries of urban development, transportation, etc. Their primary concerns were not the livability or sustainability of the urban form. Urban planners and the discipline of urban planning have been but a small factor in the determination of the built environment in the US.

[@linuxman7777]

@@lozoft9 No offense man, but this comment is very cope in the same way that Traffic Engineers cope with the fact that if they actually solved traffic, they would be out of a job. So they never actually solve it. If you want to see what a suburbia with almost no planning looks like, check out some old Japanese suburbs, or a few other asian suburbs. If you look around, you can clearly see a difference between the planned and unplanned suburbs of places like Tokyo, Osaka, Fukuoka, Nagoya, Sendai, Hiroshima etc. The difference in form is obvious from a bird eye view.

[@evanfreund5651]

I love this video. Some people argue that they need cars because they live in a rural area and turn against urbanism when in reality rural areas are fine and we have a common enemy: the car dependent suburban sprawl

[@kevley26]

tbf a lot of those people don't actually live in a rural area. They think suburb = rural.

[@jamalgibson8139]

These people frustrate me to no end. Just because you bought a house on an old farm with 10 other people doesn't mean you're some special snowflake that deserves special consideration for infrastructure.

[@nerdwisdomyo9563]

Literally where I live Everywhere is within biking distance but there isn’t a single bike lane for miles and no one ever bikes

[@irok1]

@@jamalgibson8139 what is this?

[@deadalkabob]

@@jasonriddell i wonder why ... almost like urban sprawls are hellholes lol

[@ilyfrankh]

In my historically ag-centric, conservative town located in the Central Valley of California, farmers are consistently the most outspoken residents against sprawling developments. Many of my progressive-leaning California peers seem to think that these semi-rural/small-town conservative populations are undereducated anti-urbanites, but if you were to sit down and listen to them, I bet you'd agree on a lot of things.

[@jasonreed7522]

I'm from a tiny town in the middle of nowhere NY, and after moving to CT for work reasons I'm perpetually irritated with the car centric everything. (Atleast my office is on a historic Mainstreet so i can atleast walk to get lunch, but otherwise driving is mandatory.) Also so many places don't realize that a proper sidewalk is mandatory if you have houses. I think suburbs like to think they are some back country road that obviously doesn't need sidewalks when in reality tiny towns less dense than them have sidewalks on both sides of every road making it perfectly reasonable to walk anywhere in town. (Also i miss my Mainstreet park)

[@davidcanatella4279]

Suburbs and farms are sprawling developments which is why more than 90% of the prairies are gone. No matter how much we like this arrangement our survival still depends on the biomes of the earth. That is never going to change

[@thespanishinquisiton8306]

I realized this at one point after seeing backlash from rural people against local suburban developments. Urban and rural people don't agree on a lot, but urbanism is surprisingly one of the things they do agree on

[@TheRuralUrbanist]

Yeah, that's my thinking in this case. But at the end of the day, sometimes I think that rural and urban people have muuuccchhh more in common that we both do with suburbanites!

[@thespanishinquisiton8306]

@@TheRuralUrbanist I think there's a sort of "live and let live" attitude between rural and urban people that can't really exist between suburban and urban people or suburban people and rural people

[@lazergurka-smerlin6561]

@@thespanishinquisiton8306 God that reminds me of that stupid bellcurve meme where both extreme ends agree while the middle disagrees with both ends

[@iqbalindaryono8984]

@@thespanishinquisiton8306 It might also help that both has a co dependent relationship with each other. One supplies the food while the other ensures consistent purchase from the former.

[@Bluecho4]

Honestly, urban and rural people share the same class interests. It's to the benefit of the wealthy class that the two groups are pitted against one another.

[@Ranman242]

It may not be as flashy as calling out how bad stroads and urban freeways are, etc., but this video is important. It's been said in my family that the farmland between my hometown and the nearby county seat will be gobbled up quicker than we think. This is probably the one thing we all agree is a problem.

[@stevencooper4422]

In the west, this is less of a problem since the farms themselves use an astronomical amount of water that suburban homes don't even match a tenth of. For example, to grow a CUP of walnuts, it takes 10 gallons of water. For the sake of the water crisis, we must stop the growing of alfalfa for export.

[@gljames24]

I think one thing that should be mentioned is that suburbs pushing into farms has a knock-on effect as farms push further into forests. The more we push back on suburbs, the better our total environment!

[@meadowrosepony9609]

I grew up behind a farm in a rural town that is slowly becoming more and more suburban. Even the neighborhood I grew up in was built on farm land that had been parceled out. Every year more things are built and traffic gets worse. I think part of fixing it is fixing zoning. We don't need 3 car washes and new apartments built a couple miles from town when there's plenty of space in town on giant grass lawns to put that apartment complex. It saddens me that they bulldozed a woodland hiking trail instead of just bulldozing the abandoned shopping center and putting it there.

[@TheRuralUrbanist]

Some good ideas here and yeah, it really sucks... Maybe we can have together and fight it!

[@alaskanjackal]

I'm so glad to see a good video addressing this topic. Interestingly, it was observing this exact thing happening in my town that got me on the road to questioning suburban development, and learning about urbanism and discovering all the big names (Not Just Bikes, Strong Towns, Alan Fisher, CityNerd, etc.). I live in a "fast growing" community in Missouri. A family member bought a house in a small housing tract on the outskirts of town surrounded on 3 sides by farmland. Within the span of a couple of years, literally 100% of that farmland has been devoured by three new housing developments. The pleasant pastoral scenes of sheep grazing and cows wallowing in ponds are now an endless stretch of mirror-image houses on treeless streets that you can barely tell apart, and all of these developments are connected by shoulderless roads that require a death wish to walk or bike on (so of course literally everyone drives, because it's the only way to get in or out of the neighborhood). And across the street from my own apartment complex, the historic "Century Farm" is now undergoing development, eating up yet another parcel of food production. Meanwhile, our town's quaint courthouse square continues to lose businesses and become more and more lifeless. Before I'd even heard of NJB or even the idea of urbanism, I brought this concern up in our very-popular local community's Facebook group (shockingly, about 75% of our town's population is on that group; I think our community's demographic is very much in line with the demographic that grew up on and continues to use Facebook; I'd guess we're underrepresented in the TikTok demographic!) and suggested that maybe we should build some condominiums around or near the square so that there's a local population of people who could walk to those shops and help keep them in business. In my utter naïveté, I thought no one on earth could possibly argue against that, right? Oh my goodness. The *lashing* I got on my comment about how I was trying to single-handedly destroy the beautiful, peaceful, rural nature of our town shook my world, and when I drove home and saw the hills that used to be covered in farmland now covered in soulless tract housing, I couldn't reconcile the community's opposition with what I was seeing happening in real-time with the very "beautiful, peaceful, rural" surroundings the town claimed to value being eaten up by endless growth and sprawl because the community refused to consider that allowing denser housing downtown might allow the community to grow without devouring and destroying what they claimed to love about our town. It wasn't too long after that that I ran into NJB and I was able to put words to the feelings I was struggling with (and also to know I wasn't alone). Interestingly, despite the destruction of farmland being the catalyst that made me discover the urbanist movement and values, I haven't seen any other references to the destruction of farmland (most other urbanist channels talk about "cities good" and "walkability important" and "denser living healthier," etc., but aside from some oblique comments on rural areas being fine, they don't tend to touch on the necessity of farmland, food production, and open spaces. So thanks to @The Rural Urbanist for shedding light on this important topic! Oh yeah, and props to TRU for featuring lots of footage of the area around Rosenheim, Bavaria! My very first experiences in Europe were visiting friends who lived just outside of Rosenheim, and the experiences I had in that area still remain the predominant image in my head when I think of European development, so it was interesting to see that featured so prominently in this video!

[@BackTheNerd]

I live in an area that is slowly undergoing suburbanization, it fucking sucks. On the other hand small town America is slowly dying. A village within 20 miles has effectively lost almost all business, both commercial and industrial, and the oil and gas plant doesn't often hire locals.

[@TheRuralUrbanist]

Fight back, but above all else, never lose hope that things can change for the better!

[@NoirMorter]

I've seen similar here they lose what few non-farm jobs they have forcing them to close down.

[@maYTeus]

I just saw a video about how a new suburban development was prioritizing a "small town feel" and I hadn't realized why that was gross until now

[@Gilburrito]

Can't believe I hadn't thought of the loss of farmland before now, it's such an integral part of society

[@NoirMorter]

Compare a map of Omaha, Ne 50 years ago to today. It's scary.

[@NamelessProducts]

I was born and partially raised on 6 acres in a rural farm town. I'm so glad this channel exists.

[@wesleynewsam]

"There is no such thing as new land" Boston and a fifth of the Netherlands have entered the chat

[@TheAmericanCatholic]

Nyc is considering following its Dutch heritage and is considering expanding Manhattan

[@superj8502]

@@jasonriddell well jokes on you (and whoever bought propriety there) the artificial parts of dubai are quickly sinking back into the gulf. Edit: i'm starting to suspect "jokes on you" has a different meaning than i think it has. English is not my first language. Can you please tell me if it fits the sentence and whether it could be seen as offensive?

[@alaskanjackal]

@@superj8502 That usage looks normal to me as a native speaker of American English. The phrase in general can be very mildly offensive, but not in a nasty fight-picking way, rather more in a jesting manner.

[@mrmartinezvida6987]

Years ago we had a farm nearby where we could buy a box of eggs but it was sold and now there is a suburb build there. What I learned about working in construction is that urbanist and farmers hate the suburbs.

[@Robin_Goodfellow]

Reminds me of how quickly cities turn back into farmland in Europe. You'll be watching the view from the train and it goes city-city-city-city-FARMLAND, with hardly any transition.

[@punkdigerati]

While "increase taxes" would be the effect for many, we need to tax appropriately for the services in any given area. Suburbs cost more for the same road, sewer, power, and other infrastructure and amenities and typically pay the least for them. Make each area responsible for the costs of their area, and offer the option of adding some mixed use to help offset the costs.

[@peggedyourdad9560]

Yep, it's only fair to require more money for more stuff. Besides, that extra tax money could go toward important things like schools, roads, hospitals, etc.

[@PWNDON]

This was a great eye-opener for me. I never really thought about urbanism in this way, thank you.

[@seanedging6543]

I’m surprised that you didn’t mention urban growth boundaries as a tool to protect farmland. In Oregon, we have minimized the loss of high quality farm and forest lands through this policy. It’s always contentious with plenty of grumbling from builders/real estate, but combined with pro urbanist policies that build more densely within cities, it’s a pretty effective policy for preserving farmland.

[@TheRuralUrbanist]

I'd never heard of this, thanks for bringing it to my attention!

[@seanedging6543]

@@jasonriddell VERY strict farmland regulation outside of the UGB. When you have zones for exclusive farm use, it is exceedingly difficult to change it to incompatible uses

[@blankface_]

As a city slicker, I agree with you on the wastefulness of suburbia

[@jasonstormsong4940]

In short, rural areas must be preserved, suburban areas must be deurbanised or urbanised further, and existing urban areas must be optimised. I think I can get behind this.

[@TheRuralUrbanist]

Yeah, basically! 😅

[@mdhazeldine]

In the UK we have green belts to try and solve this problem, but there is still often pressure to build on them and people talking about scrapping the idea. I know greenbelts have their issues, but at least they force people to think more carefully about land use.

[@isawrooka4]

Green belts kinda failed at their own objective though. Instead of limiting urban sprawl people just kept building on the other side of the belt (in the US and Canada anyhow). Not to mention there’s often no rhyme or reason to the green belt chosen. Sometimes this meant preserving less fertile farmland and then developing suburbs on much more productive farm land outside of the belt, or not protecting sensitive nature zones, for example. So in the end it was probably carbon emitting as the sprawl didn’t stop and people just drove further to get their SFH. I think the video makers proposal of a land value tax is a good one. In Germany (where I live now) they had such an incredible opportunity to do so recently and only one state did it. The rest just implemented an American style property tax law that disincentives dense development over suburban development.

[@mdhazeldine]

@@isawrooka4 Yeah that was the problem I hinted at. I'm not an expert on this, but I don't believe we've had that problem here (at least not too bad). Probably a combination of other factors going on to prevent it. I'm quite in favour of a land value tax actually. Interesting that somewhere in Germany is trying it. I wonder how that will work out.

[@sterlinghartley2165]

Greenbelts just get ignored this days, many part of the UK are still sprawling as all hell despite them being in greenbelts. I feel done right they a great plan but no one wants to put the work it to fix them. I feel letting denser transit orientated development in less ecologically/agriculturally areas would be fine but we just let them develop where they want without transit plans or anything.

[@matthewconstantine5015]

I live in the suburbs around Washington D.C., and while the specific town I live in has been here for a couple hundred years, the town I lived in when I first moved to the area was farmland like 50 years ago. Now, it's condos, single family/cul-de-sac neighborhoods, and lifestyle centers. Not only that, most developments have rules against gardening or anything like that. Side note, I'd live in the heart of the city if I could afford it. I live 20 miles outside of the city only because it was the only place I could find in my price range.

[@xenotiic8356]

This is an amazing video. I am a city girl through and through, but also an urbanist. I had a feeling this was the case, but this video did much more than just validate my suspicions. I learned a lot in just a handful of minutes. Thank you.

[@sterlinghartley2165]

Living in an area that use to be a village but now is just on the suburban fringe in the UK really hammers this point home. We have new development that everywhere here hate that is detached SFH (UK tho, so 2-story brick cookie-cutter houses with 0 architectural taste). They build over many fields, destroy the value in our walk paths that we all love (tree lined path next to a field just is better than next to crappy Suburbia, shocker) Glad someone is talking about.

[@stevencooper4422]

It's mostly due to immigration. There wouldn't be more development of there wasn't a constant flow of people into the country. This was partially the reason for Brexit, which got botched lol

[@handsfortoothpicks]

Another anti car urbanist I can subscribe to! Ty good sir 🙏

[@TheRuralUrbanist]

Welcome aboard!

[@joeleblanc]

Great video! I didn’t realize Germany had laws like that protecting farmland. I remember one time when I was visiting Wiesbaden, I took the train from Frankfurt. I was blown away that five minutes out, we were already in farmland. I grew up in a small town, then a rural area. Since then, I’ve bounced between suburbs and closer in neighborhoods. I am now living in a completely walkable neighborhood 2 miles from our mid-size city’s downtown. We dropped down to one car and I am loving it! After all of this, the one thing I disagree with you on is raising property taxes in the downtown area. Overwhelmingly, people move to the suburbs because they’re cheaper and generally have higher rated schools. If you raise taxes downtown, people will move out all the faster. I believe the answer is in retrofitting existing suburbs to accommodate more density and promote more walkability. This is beginning to happen with large malls dying and redevelopment plans sometimes allowing for mixed use. We need to promote that more in the existing low density commercial areas (where people aren’t going to argue “don’t put that next to my house”.) Then build in infrastructure for appropriate transit.

[@TheRuralUrbanist]

Thanks for the comment! Yeah, my solution is just an attempt. I'm thinking that in hindsight I may have been better off discussing zoning regulations. But that's why I opened it up to responses, curious what other ideas exist!

[@superj8502]

Infrastructure should be the first step, not the last.

[@villagernumber77]

As someone who is British I found this video interesting as it isn’t just the US where urban/suburban sprawl is happening but it seems to be all western countries including the UK. I have noticed in my local area the amount of development regarding housing estates, industrial estates, and retail parks (the British equivalent of a strip mall) that are taking up the countryside, farmland, forest, and greenbelt land that should be preserved though housing developers don’t actually care and destroy the preserved greenbelt land.

[@PolkCountyWIProgressive]

I have a few other ideas worth considering: 1. State run pilot programs for high demand crops that subsidize purchase of infrastructure for producing the product. 2. Tax incentives for developers to build multi-use zoned buildings on existing residential or commercial land. 3. Tax penalties for developers to convert zoned rural or ag to single family. Decreased penalties for multi-use zoning. 4. Proposition 13 like policies (CA property tax limits) on the land value assessment of rural zoning. 5. Property tax credits for people that purchase a distressed farm property and either use it for its original use or uses it for a high demand crop. I have some more, but those are just some.

[@ekaterini128]

This video was so informative! My grandma grew up on a farm in NJ, which of course is now a subdivision similar to the one you showed in the video. Let's hope we don't keep repeating land use mistakes in the future.

[@LeonaPrime]

I love seeing new channels in this community

[@RextheRebel]

I've always found dense, mixed residential housing as a hellscape and suburban life as an escape from it. To each their own I guess.

[@markd.9042]

After seeing this video I had no other option but to like it, subscribe, ring the bell and I will be sharing. I have been looking to educate myself on the topic for some time now and thus is a good start. I want to do more research so this is really all I can say. Thank you.

[@TheRuralUrbanist]

Glad that you liked it!

[@grahamturner2640]

And in some growing metro areas, there’s still a stark contrast between farmland and suburban development. In the suburbs of Phoenix, primarily out in the west valley, there are still farms next to and mostly surrounded by farmland (e.g. some near State Farm Stadium). The one positive of that development is that Arizona uses less water now than it did 50 years ago, as cotton, and especially alfalfa, consume tons of water. There’s also still the occasional ranch and orchard, even inside the 101 beltway, and a few years back, I knew someone from high school whose family had a small orange orchard. I wonder if there are good food crops that don’t take much water and do well in the summer heat.

[@Demopans5990]

Prickly pear should be a decent candidate, as it is packed with nutrients and is kind of native to the area. A few years of selective breeding should help with decreasing the prickly part of prickly pear, as the usual method is to scorch the outside to burn the needles off

[@darthmaul216]

Here from Alan fisher

[@bui3415]

I think permitting more options in the market for alternative housing, like removing zoning restrictions and encouraging more dense housing, could reduce the demand for single housing. It might inevitable be built but at least the scale could decrease and populations are aging, they may need more convenient housing. If there was an investment in better transit, people wouldn't be so incentivized to live so far and drive everywhere.

[@kevley26]

Great video!

[@TheRuralUrbanist]

Glad you enjoyed it

[@hotswap6894]

I read the book The Timeless Way of Building recently and it includes a guideline for densifying suburbs and returning parts of the city to farmland in order to introduce harmony and a deeper connection to nature for city folk. It's a good read for any future urban planners like me.

[@Njndirish13]

A Land Value Tax would fix this

[@recurrenTopology]

Exactly. Property tax is also a function of the value of what is built on the land, so will sometimes discourage development.

[@Njndirish13]

@@jasonriddellWhy would a city tax its own land (a library) and why would farmland, far away from any amenities, have high value?

[@FalconsEye58094]

I live on Long Island which has extremely limited space to work with compared to most parts of the country and we keep cutting down more sections of trees to make room just for parking, which isn’t always enough

[@Ashathefree8]

Ive been ranting about this to those around me for a few years nows, its nice to know that i didnt randomly come up with the idea and that other people realized something similar.

[@Chappington]

Yes! So glad I found this channel - it sums up the thoughts I haven't been able to concisely put together myself.

[@EngineerBJ65]

Finally someone is taking about this! Thanks for making this video.

[@TheRuralUrbanist]

Thanks for watching! It was a long process researching this, because you're right, no one is talking about this. I'm just happy that other people care too!

[@benbrown8258]

Almost 20 years ago we lost farms from both sides of my family to pay on hospital bills and healthcare "deductibles". Moving to the nearest big city more people than I have fingers have been coworkers with different employers that were from formerly farming families from that same region. It has taken me 5 years to honestly transition my 1/8 acre lawn to an urban farm. I'm still in the process. I've only supplied my neighbors with a token amount of produce. During the pandemic shortages my household was never short on crops, but because I'm not truly a commercial venture yet would higher taxes have eliminated me and made me homeless once again while working for an agribusiness or gene giant?

[@Mrpizzagaming1]

Absolute legend! Keep farming brother. Yes agribusiness is killing small farmers and especially😢 the farmers that are working for the companies by debt trapping and exploiting them. However perhaps tax cuts for anyone trying to use their land for agriculture or productivity because there is already too many single family houses already built up, and perhaps incentives to those who would resell their single families so they can be turned into duplex triplex four plexus or small rural to urban farms also mixed use would allow you to effectively run a small business out of your house without the government getting heavily involved.

[@rossedwardmiller]

A unique and important video Thank you

[@joshuaspokes3359]

This is a critically important point that's often lost in debates about zoning in cities. Environmental reviews are required for dense buildings in cities but no one bats an eye when a farm or piece of grassland in razed for some McMansions. Raising property tax is one way to encourage denser building but I'm pretty heavily in favor of the Land Value Tax for this purpose because it incentivizes building the most possible on one plot of land to be more profitable. I live in a city with a lot of vacants and property owners can just hold onto them paying almost nothing even though the land itself is very valuable.

[@thesilentone4024]

I think farming native fruits and vegetables from the country there in will help reduce fertilizer and pesticide demands and reduce water demand by a lot and it should help improve ecosystems unless they pesticide the crops then it will still continue killing them.

[@peggedyourdad9560]

Or, at the very least, planting crops that are already adapted to a similar climate as the region they're being planted on.

[@cooljonathan]

Portland's solution for saving farmland is an urban growth boundary. There's a line around the city and outside of that line it is very hard to develop.

[@gabrielclark1425]

Personally, I feel we should just build sky scrappers everywhere instead of concentrating them in single locations until the ground starts sinking into the sea. It would certainly make the skyline more interesting.

[@RextheRebel]

That honestly sounds like one of the worker ideas I've ever heard.

[@topolojack]

i'm a big city boy but i grew up rural and i still adore the lifestyle. as the urbanism issue gets talked about more and more, it's important to remember that it's not about turning everywhere into big dense city. a small town could have just as much relative urbanism as a big city, maybe even more. it's all about efficient land use, and some basic principles. live where you work and shop sustainably. farmers do that just as easily as anyone in big cities. SFH zoned, car-dependent suburban sprawl is the problem. and even "suburbs" (medium density areas) can be good when they're built for people, not for cars. save the farms!

[@TheRuralUrbanist]

Yes!

[@Knightmessenger]

Yep, I've been thinking about this in rural towns that have become engulfed by suburbia. If people in rural areas want to keep the countryside looking like country, and not big box store traffic clogged suburbs, they have every reason to support mass transit and more dense zoning in areas closer to the city, even if they would not seemingly ever use or live in those areas.

[@TheRuralUrbanist]

True!

[@lozoft9]

I think there might be a bit of confusion of terms here. Raising property taxes by itself wouldn’t make low urban density more expensive. I think the policy you’re thinking of is a split-rate or land value tax, where the land itself is taxed at a higher rate than buildings and other improvements to land. As long as urban growth boundaries are also implemented, that wouldn’t affect farmers. A lot of single family developments are built on farmland in unincorporated areas that aren’t subject to local property taxes, so urban growth boundaries are probably necessary for that reason as well.

[@tylerroberts1276]

The major issues leading to suburban sprawl into our rural areas is largely due to our zoning policies that prevent mixed use areas, and discourage public transit / walking / non-motorized transport, while encouraging outward sprawl, at the expense of infill development. Many farmers saw the railroads as the enemy (and they were, and in some cases, still are), but I feel the interstate highways have done FAR more damage than we expected, because the "farm to fork" roads meant to benefit farmers, instead helped facilitate the expanse of car oriented exurbs, engulfing the rural towns and farmlands along the routes.

[@circleinforthecube5170]

i love infill devleopment, it saves buildings from demolition too so we dont have to loose 50 years of architecture that was built in sprawl, (although cookie cutter suburbs should have house numbers reduced but not zeroed)

[@circleinforthecube5170]

@@jasonriddell front yard buisnesses aswell, i want more stores in my neighborhood

[@mitchhammond3213]

Being from New Hampshire and having some of the highest property taxes in the country, I can say confidently that suburbs are still razing over out countryside and farmland and do not show any sign of stopping.

[@ajlynch91]

Everybody in Plainfield, IL and Kendall County needs to see this. Our land is so much more valuable than single family zoning.

[@amg1591]

Interesting idea with prioritizing other farmers bidding on farmland, similar to the 'right of first refusal' that tenant advocates push for to allow tenants or nonprofits or the gov't to purchase apartment buildings or trailer parks when they go up for sale

[@Ascertivon]

Informative and quality video as always, but I don’t see an explanation behind the proposition in the title at all. Mind you, I’m no fan of the suburbs, either, but how are cities and farms connected other than with supply and demand?

[@TheInsaneupsdriver]

vertical aquaponics can be fully automated in urban areas to replace farms, and built using recycled plastic bottles to build the greenhouses. we are only recycling our plastics at around 30%, we can do allot better, and it's free resources.

[@elizabethdavis1696]

8:14 such pretty buildings I will buildings like that were being built today

[@TheRuralUrbanist]

Yeah, me too! Vienna is so pretty😍!

[@jonathanfarrell2378]

Excellent points made. Another topic you might want to address is monoculture farming such as wine grapes and specialty food items like dairy versus nuts and the increase in “nut milks.” Just a thought! Thanks for posting!

[@jetfan925]

I'd actually live near a farm in the middle of suburbia at Malverne, NY.

[@Nic1700]

My parents are farmers. I'll always remember when the larger town we'd drive to for shopping and appointments built a power center on the edge of town with a bunch of big box stores. My dad was visibly upset that it would never be farmland again, and he was angry at the old, newly retired farmer that sold the land. I know this is an issue that really speaks to rural folks. But that said, I don't think he could stomach any solution to it involving the government or higher taxes.

[@TheRuralUrbanist]

It's really tough and your dad had a response that I also have. It's a rightful frustration. Maybe taxes is not the solution, but my goal was only to start a conversation 😃. I think that the only way to stop individuals from making a detrimental decision that affects society is through some form of govt intervention, whatever that looks like.

[@Nic1700]

@@TheRuralUrbanist It really is a matter of an individual's perspective. He sees the government as an overbearing force on the populace. I think the government should be a force of and for the populace. With voting systems, cooperate spending on elections, gerrymandering, and a gamut of other issues, I can certainly empathize with why he feels the way he does.

[@curumu_yt]

Love this, thanks!

[@lovaaaa2451]

Great! This is what we need and I wish the (anglophone) climate movement would be aware of these things. In Sweden rural people are just becoming super right wing and supporting motor highway projects, mining and forest exploitation, and of course particularly big agro business, just because there is no other rhetoric about how we make actual sustainable communities, nobody is talking about the farmers and everything is basically already abandoned to the massive corporations killing the soil and exporting it to other places. Thank you so much for making content of this sort and please keep going with it because this is what we need!

[@DobberD]

Very good video!

[@TheRuralUrbanist]

Glad you liked it!

[@nullifye7816]

I think the suburban house is a subconscious survival of the farmhouse meme. The large yard, a reminder of the field. Historically, small, dense, sociable, easily walled (defensible) cities were the norm for most people not on a farm or a village, ie. a security-oriented concentration from which people commute on foot/cart to their field, if they don't live in a farmhouse. Farmhouses were the American/frontier way, ie. the homestead meme, and villages in most other places, or so I suspect. This preserved arable land and food security, except for Imperial-type cities, eg Rome. The food could be quickly gathered in in case of attack. We moderns discount such notions of siege at our peril. On the other hand, with the total collapse that would come to cities that have swallowed up their farms, we can look to Detroit to see how nature can quickly indeed reclaim suburbs and turn them back into farmland.

[@ThePi314Man]

Metropolitan areas being subject to a land value tax would help so much in producing more dense and mixed use developments again. It would necessitate an end to single family zoning because it's literally the only unprofitable method of developing land, and the tax burden would be on the wealthiest land owners rather than labourers.

[@lozoft9]

LVT by itself wouldn’t fix everything. There would have to be a metro-region level government (akin to Oregon Metro for the Portland area) to prevent localities from undercutting each other, and urban growth boundaries (also a Portland thing) to prevent sprawl from popping up in unincorporated areas.

[@isawrooka4]

@@lozoft9 or just implementing it at a state level

[@ThePi314Man]

@@lozoft9 Of course, no one thing will be a catch all solution. However, taxing land value instead of property or even split rate taxation would be a great start. If we incentivize building upon what we already have, there's less incentive to keep sprawling outward. LVT would be good for rural communities too.

[@ThePi314Man]

@@jasonriddell 🙄 kzbin.info/www/bejne/bX_aZ6SvrteHm6s

[@theelectricwalrus]

I get that you're not a fan of capitalism, but zoning is very much the opposite of capitalism. It's a land use restriction that removes free choice of how to use ones property. In Norway I've seen zoning used the other way, with agricultural land zoned for only agriculture

[@lazygongfarmer2044]

Raising the property taxes in cities might work as you suggest, but only if single use zoning ceases to be the default. If you fail to do that, what you get is Californian-style gentrification and housing shortage, with growing homelessness

[@peggedyourdad9560]

That's where getting rid of unnecessary housing and zoning laws would come in, with fewer restrictions on the type of housing and neighborhoods that can be built, there'd be plenty of more affordable housing options. I think a complete overhaul of how it's approached is needed for the homelessness issue. My crackpot idea is for there to be some service that helps these people first figure out what gov benefits they're already entitled to and to help them file the necessary paperwork and also help them get a P.O. box to actually be able to receive and send the mail. Next would be an organization that attempts to help these people with whatever substance dependency or mental health issue that may be keeping them from being eligible for any housing programs that are already established since almost all of them have a sobriety requirement.

[@personmcdudeguy]

​@@peggedyourdad9560 my crackpot idea for the homeless is to put them in homes. crazy i know

[@peggedyourdad9560]

@@personmcdudeguy Yes, helping them file for section 8 would be part of figuring out what benefits they're already entitled to. You can't also just stick someone in a home and expect them to be able to get their life together without any other kind of help, this is why I mentioned services to help them with any mental health or substance dependency issues since, without those being taken care of (or at least managed), they'll end up right back out on the street again. I would actually even argue for some kind of rehabilitation program to help them reintegrate into regular society since I'm sure that would also be an issue for people who've been homeless for a long time.

[@personmcdudeguy]

@@peggedyourdad9560 Section 8 is garbage, most homeless people don't use any drugs, almost 1/4 of homeless people have jobs, and a significant portion of them are elderly or children. The waitlist for section 8 is years long, and most places don't accept it when you do get it. Most people actually can and do get their lives together once they have a permanent address first. The permanent address has to come first.

[@peggedyourdad9560]

@@personmcdudeguy Did I say that most use drugs? I also just said that there are a lot of people that can't get their life together not that this was the norm. I think you need to work on reading comprehension before you start making assumptions about what other people mean. Of course, section 8 isn't perfect, I know this because my family has been on it in the past and I've spent almost my entire younger childhood in section 8 housing. Social services should have to deal with the children and elderly and help them into some kind of housing situation, especially the children (which would probably end up in a group home). Having only 1/4 of them having jobs means there's another 3/4 who don't, I don't know why you brought that up. I want to know where you got your numbers just out of curiosity btw.

[@nerdwisdomyo9563]

I’ve been watching stuff about unsustainable farming practices I didn’t know it was such a bad time to be a farmer but it makes complete sense with the constant expansion of suburbs Do you think the unsustainability of farming might’ve been at least partially caused because of how unprofitable farming is?

[@nerdwisdomyo9563]

Also great video!

[@Iquey]

Levittown used to be potato and onions? Good to know. These are still some of the easier plants people can try to grow in their yards.

[@clamato54]

Before raising taxes across the board, resolve the issue that property taxes are currently skewed much more heavily towards multi-family housing units and away from single family and big box store type developments which are often subsidized, land/resource use is not even the main component used to determine tax, but total home value, also the efficiency gained by multi-family dwellings are not rewarded but punished with higher tax rates per $ of home value

[@ShadyCharacter97]

Hey Bro it’s so wonderful to see your channel pop up! You bring in the perspective I’ve been searching for in this “KZbin urbanist” space for a while, and hit it out of the park. You’ve got a good voice for audio too, that’s rare! Great job so far👍🏻 looking forward to seeing your new cawntent.

[@malcolm_in_the_middle]

One idea I had to reduce vacant houses, and allow more housing without more building, was to exponentially increase property/council/housing tax for each additional home owned by a family. For 2 houses, you pay double on each, for 3, triple, and so on. If a renting business owns a block of flats, then each vacant flat counts as an additional home owned by the developer, and this increases the tax. That will drive down housing prices, and free up some of the vacant housing in city centres, while not increasing the tax burden on the average homeowner.

[@BcroG11]

I don't get what's the point of single family houses if they are all crammed together, in close vicinity to each other. They give you even less privacy from other's looks than apartments since apartment buildings are usually further apart from each other.

[@carlessbikemore]

Just found your channel - great seeing someone bring a rural perspective to urbanist ideas. Urban growth boundaries are another tool that can be used. Of course, they require regional cooperation to work well. They arent always effective if only the city government enforces a growth boundary but the surrounding suburbs and unincorporated areas do not.

[@DevelopmentRobco]

In rural areas, it's half California and North Eastern dwellers with more inflated incomes coming in and building up large gated suburbs and lake, river, ocean communities. The other half is older retired people who pretty much have carried their inherited prosperity they were all born in (back from the good ole days). These later people aren't going to live forever. These houses can't just sit abandoned once this baby boomer generation finally dies off, and those houses won't be able to just sit there at extremely inflated prices. This will help alleviate the quicklime growing suburbs from moving over into farm and nature, while also alleviating younger generations who are struggling with home prices.

[@_gajewski3626]

In Poland we have the same problem. American style suburbs are being built everywhere and countryside is becoming one giant suburb.

[@eduarddvorecky3731]

Allow single family housing, but require that residents grow part of their own food on their land. We for example grow enough potatos, onions, garlic, cellery beadroot, apples, currends, apricots, pears and nuts to last my family entire year, plus we give some away to family members in exchange for food they grow. Honestly it's kinda amazing to see how much potatos does it take to satisfy your family anual consumption while you farvest them, especialy in regards to space they take up. This policy would lower needed supply, show people what it takes to grow food and due to closer management let you grow more on less land.

[@reckonerwheel5336]

I like the root of this idea. Maybe land use tax is the better way to go though? So if all you’re using your greenspace for is lawn, you pay steeper than someone who fills the space up to grow food. Incentives but not requirements. I’m probably missing something though, the intricate policy-making isn’t my forte here lol.

[@eduarddvorecky3731]

@@reckonerwheel5336 Yeah, that could work, but it shouldn't be dependent on space. Because you can have nice lawn or ornamental front yard, but still outproduce your own consumption on same area as your neighbour who struggles to grow enough for 1 person. Thing is you can implement gardening practices that allow you to grow much more dense and more important vertical, only because farm can't do that at scale. I would base it on average crop yield vs consumption, if you want to go by metric

[@TheRuralUrbanist]

It's an interesting idea, but not everyone also understands how to actually farm. From watching Clarkson's Farm, there is a lot that can go wrong with farming.

[@eduarddvorecky3731]

@@TheRuralUrbanist from real life experience it's not hard at all ask someone who knows, if that won't help, offer to help them to watch and try it out yourself. If noone know what to do, try it out.

[@gvi341984]

Farmers main concern are environmental laws not some houses.

[@HamSaladtv]

Well done! Cheers!

[@TheRuralUrbanist]

Many thanks!

[@NoirMorter]

Coming from someone that is fine doing without the modern amenities for myself and my family and would rather live a small town, farm life. I have come around and agree that there needs to be way more dense housing built. And it doesn't have to all be high rise apartments. You can look into France incentivizes protecting farms. I will say, raising taxes only and has only ever hurt the poor. The rich have and will always get around paying, sadly. This has been true in ever nation even in modern China, the USSR, Cuba and more. Sadly I don't have a theory on how you could protect the farms. Maybe get rid of the estate tax. Which makes it very difficult for large family farms to stay in the family. Allowing them to be bought out by wealthy individuals such as the Gates family.

[@TheRuralUrbanist]

It's probably true, that taxes hurt the poor more. You can always pass on costs to the consumer I guess... But yeah, dense housing is the only way to ensure that anyone can live in a truly rural place like you're wishing for 😀

[@nicokelly6453]

The other big way we need to reduce surburban sprawl is to lessen the percentage of land zoned specifically for that purpose. The same amount of people could be housed on a much smaller plot of land if more high density housing was allowed.

[@empirestate8791]

Another thing is transportation. Developers won't build sprawl if there are only single-lane roads with stopsigns and 25mph speed limits. It's freeways and road widenings that enable sprawl. Instead, if the government builds rail infrastructure, development will be much more contained, and existing built-up areas could be densified due to the new transit infrastructure.

[@circleinforthecube5170]

hopefully that doesent mean erasure of currently existing buildings, infill development is a good option because theres plenty of lawns and parking lots

[@robertdeckard2136]

It's amazing to me that there are any family farms left. I have a sociology book from 1972(Social Change In Rural Societies Second Edition) which discusses the decline of family farming due to rising land prices, increased upfront costs due to agricultural mechanization, and the children of farmers moving to the city. Apparently, they have even more to worry about today.

[@meltossmedia]

It's like America wants to give up being self sufficient for a quick buck

[@jacobsomebody9266]

I really think a land value tax would be a much better alternative than a property tax in protecting farmland and forcing developers to think smartly about land use. You basically follow the logic of a LVT without mentioning it. Just plain property taxes can be a problem for farmers. My grandfather's property taxes actually went up when he tried to build another building on his farm. A land value tax wouldn't punish development and would discourage wasteful uses of space like vacant lots, parking lots, and overabundant single family homes.

[@Mrlino091]

Could someone please tell me what's the name of the city that appears in 8:05, please? I've been trying to look for it, but can't find it.

[@TheRuralUrbanist]

I got it from stock footage, check pexels! It is a part of LA I believe.

[@p.a.andrews7772]

You're exactly right these things are speeding up climate change and fast!

[@Amir-jn5mo]

We need farm allocated zoning probably. If the land is fertile for farming it should only be dedicated for farming. I don't know why housing gets so much special treatment in land-use policy while we bulldoze our greenbelts and farmlands.

[@SuperCompany007]

I dont understand why so many americans online just refuse to even think about the alternatives to suburbia, 500 lane highways and walmarts with 18000 parking spots. Like I get they’re used to it, but they just say that walkability and mixed use developement and integrating nature into cities sucks without doing any research or experiencing it. I’m just happy I live in a country and city that respects nature and recognizes the problems of car dependency.

[@fast.biking_freddy]

I don't think taxation is necessarily the first step towards revitalizing downtowns. This leads to gentrification and displacement of many urban minority communities that have clung to their roots. I appreciate that you recognize your need for more knowledge and better solutions. We need to start with getting rid of detached single family zoning outright in very urban areas, and all single family zoning in large portions of our cities. Then we need to build so much more subsidized housing. All this will have a significantly more positive albeit gradual change in the right direction much more than a tax hike that will kill urban communities that are already gentrifying.

[@UnicornzAndLolipopz]

I would highly recommend getting involved with Strong Towns. They'll help roadmap what's America's problem with infrastructure and the many possible solutions that can be implemented.

[@thetrashmaster1352]

The easiest fix would be to simply pass laws in cities that provide clear city boundaries that cannot be extended for a certain period of time or until some condition is met. For example, the city is limited to its current boundary for 20 years but if it achieves 35% green space it can then extend. That way redeveloping land becomes much harder than property developers complaining so planners pull the map out and start drawing squiggly lines.

[@XenoRaptor-98765]

There are bumble stickers says “No Farms No Food”

[@martinmoya9387]

We have this same problem in the south of chile. 15yrs ago you could bought very cheap land that was used for farming, but now that land it's like 10 times it's previous price, and you can bought only on 5000² meters or more, with the permission to build only 2 houses per 5000²m. Before the pandemic and specially during the pandemic the people from the capital city santiago, came in masses to the south of the country. In my city villarrica (50000 people) more that 10000 people came to live here in only 2-3 years. Now we don't have farm land, and our public services are collapsed. The cops, the hospitals, the fire department, water and electricity supply, all collapsed. And it's worst, we are now finishing the building of a new hospital, but now the capacity of it it's not enough to all the population. In summary, we are screwed

[@leilanigreenwood5064]

There is plenty of vacant space in my city, houses that are empty and could be torn down, to build new ones. But, builders keep buying farmland to build new subdivisions , malls, strip malls and shopping centers. There was so much farmland, farms around my city in the past. There were diary farms, cattle breeders, pigs, and chicken 🐔 farmers. Vegetable farmers, that's all gone now. Every Saturday morning a vegetable farmers, farmers selling eggs and double yolked eggs, fresh fruit, meat, when I was growing up. think wow we could have used this during the pandemic, especially during the lockdown. We need more independent farmers, like it used to be. Developers are destroying the land. America needs more public transportation, less cars

[@natrixnatrix]

While it might not be a problem in the US due to the amount of arrable land, there is also the fact that while you can turn farmland into housing pretty easily, it might not even be possible to turn it back into farmland.

[@dominik262]

Every city should have it's own "green belt". Also state should consider buying out farm land from farmers which are willing to sell it and then rent it to other farmers / turn back to nature.

[@superjfbm]

... i don't think higher property taxes will protect farms converting to housing developments... i think it will encourage more conversion ...

[@eric2500]

I'd like to see more farms IN cities.

[@Elementalism.]

rooftop farming

[@xandercruz900]

@@happygofishing McDonalds doesn't "bribe" anyone, dude. You are free to grow some tomatoes in a pot.