Are we losing our farmlands to housing developments? Where should the developers build, instead of farmland?

We’ve outsourced manufacturing, and much of mining and oil production. Might as well outsource farming as well and buy everything we need with the money we will no longer have.The fantasy that we are transitioning into the information age and will sell information is absurd. THe information people pay good money for is all about how to manufacture, how to mine, how to farm. We won’t be selling that info if we no longer know how to do those things.

Some cities are trying to turn that around, such as St Lucie, FL and Detroit

In many cases the farmers are offered so much money for their land, they would be crazy not to take it. Unless the land is condemned by the government and purchased at a low price, (but that would not be the case if it is a private developer) I can’t say I blame them. Same thing happened to my grandfather probably 50 or 60 years ago. He was getting older and a small farm is hard work so he sold to developers and started a small business in town.

The developers want the land closest to the city center, end of story.

Once virgin farmland is developed then it’s very hard to return it to productive agricultural use. The things we do to land (now) to build on it can ruin it for food production.
The best plan, (in my opinion) is to reuse already developed land. The infrastructure is already there. The power, water, sewer, as well as schools and other kinds of support. When rundown abandoned neighborhoods are redeveloped, that by far is the best place to build new homes and businesses. IMO.

@wilma I agree with that, but the developers don’t want the expense of demolition, I guess. The other thing of course is build in the foothills. That land is not much good for anything else anyway. I think the Land Development Department should deny the applications on farmland and turn the developers to the run down areas as you said. What a shame this is happening.

I know what you mean about developers not wanting to have the cost of tearing down and cleaning up old structures. I think there should be some incentive to do that or rehabilitate old buildings. In the end I believe it would be cost effective. The local tax payers have to pay for new infrastructure when there is new development. There is an article here with good comments after.

Supply and demand. People want to spend hours a day driving between home and work just so they can have their own little place in the burbs, where it’s nice.

Builders want to sell them houses. Farmland is the easiest to buy and build on, so that’s where the developers develop. The land is worth much more with a house on it than with wheat on it.

The only real solution is to drive gasoline prices up so high that people want to live in the cities again. But now that we have electric cars, not even that may work. We’ll have to make cities more attractive than suburbs—with culture, education, and vibrancy. We’ll have to eliminate urban poverty. That, more than anything, will make cities look attractive enough to bring the people looking for their own little bit of heaven back.

Why do people leave cities? Bad schools and fear of crime. Turn the schools into the best schools and get people good jobs and eliminate poverty, and you’ll drive crime rates down. Then, over time, people will want to come back to cities, and there won’t be any demand for those mushroom developments. All the developers will come back to the city to try to make money here.

@wundayatta – I think pretty much everything you said is spot on. But there is one question, is crime the result of poverty or drugs? Seems I have read statistics that lead one to believe it is driven by the need to procure money for drugs. How does one address that?

@rooeytoo I think it’s more complex than that. I think part of the motivation to take drugs is that you are unhappy and you have a lot of time on your hands—in other words, the jobless who are pretty much the poor. I think if we address the issue of jobs, a lot of the issues of poverty and drugs will go away. However, to address the issue of jobs, we have to address education—which is a cultural issue as well as a functional issue. And to address education, you have to address home conditions (dirt and poor health and drugs, etc) and parental support. And to improve home conditions you need to work and have resources. So it’s back around the loop, over and over.

It’s all tied together. Addressing only one thing doesn’t help. Still, there may be something that is key. Such as home conditions. Fix those, and kids may get better educations, and jobs, and we might break the cycle of poverty and unhappiness and self-medication.

@wundayatta – I just moved from an environment that epitomized what you describe. The one difference is that education, housing, jobs, health care were all there for the taking but rarely utilized. So it still comes back to yougottawanna. But the example set by parents, granparents, etc. is a strong influence and it is the rare young one who has the strength to buck the trend. I tried very hard, in my own way to show the kids there is another way, but I don’t think I made much difference. Granted this was in a completely different culture than what you are in but I think the bottom line is similar and how does one sow the seed of motivation?