Suburban Renewal As the fuels that spawned our far-flung, energy profligate suburbia get more ex.pensive, fears of the cost of replacing that multi-billion dollar investment begin to worm their way into our consciousness. We sat down a couple of years ago to brainstorm what a conversion of suburbs to a saner, more conserving way of life would involve. The news was good. It's easier to get simpler than to get wasteful! The space-grabbing demands of the automobile required whole new urban and regional infrastructures. Adapting to its demise requires only ingenuity and self-interest, which we've never b'een short on. We got our friend Diane Schatz tc) draw up some of the possibilities: * We wring our hands too much over prime agricultural land lost to suburbia. Fritz Schumacher reminded us some time ago that intensive gardening and Tender Loving Care (TLC) in suburban gardens has been shown in England actually to increase food uutput per acre. The Farallones Integral Urban House in Berkeley and other projects across the country have also shown a very substantial part of a household's food needs can be met with ve ry little space ur labor. Our main concern should be to avoid puisoning the ground so heavily with "lawn care" products as to make future food production impossible. Fruit and nur-bearing trees call provide both food and natural air-conditioning in the summer. * Water, power, streets, sewers, phone and other utilities are already in place in suburbia. Reduction of usc through conservation measures means that many mure families can be served by the same utility network. Some possibilities: -Conversion of large suburban homes to duplexes or apartments. Many have multiple baths, would convert easily and would provide a better retirement investment than pensions. -Street houses and backyard apartments. Closure of unnecessary streets can provide opportunity to build additional housing or neighborhood gardens in their place. • This doubling of the usc of existing housing, utility networks and roads makes possible increasing rhe density of desired areas to levels where public transit becomes more economical. It also makes neighborhood shopping more feasible b}' increasing the number of people within walking or bicycling J i5tance of a shop. * Home businesses are a.lready becoming more common, in spite of prohibitive wning regulations. Conversion of garages to businesses, home workshops to furniture making and repair, and spare bedrooms to home offices is likely to occur more and more frequently as people discover working patterns that eliminate commuting, that can be .tarted themselves with minimum capital, and that provide rewarding and secure work. Rcnting guest rooms provides a low"'cost alternative to freeway motels. * N1!ighborhood or community-sized renewable cnergy systems can augment individual conservation and solar systems at less cost than conventional power plants. Solar collectors on the roof of shared parking, laundry, or shop sp1lce, connected to large heat storage tanks serving a whole block, are already coming off the drawing boards, and community wind-electric systems a.re now operational. It looks like what already ex.ists in suburbia can be used much more intensely, creatively and cftectively. What needs to change is our habits and our panerns- the physical environment can be adapted quite readily. T B d - om en er April 1978 RAIN Page 7 New Directions in State and Local Tax Reform, 1977, price not listed, available from: Conference on State and Local Public Policy 1901 Q Street, N.W. Washington, DC 20009 Tax reform always seems to be replacing one set of loopholes with another and more taxes for [ewer. So it was a pleasant relief to see this survey of the vast number of good things happening. Some samples: * California's 1976 Forest Taxation Reform Act chat put forestry land in a permanent zone and converted timber from a property tax to a yield tax, removing the incentive for premature harvest of tree.s. * Systems Development Charges assessed oy some Oregon cities on development of new properties to pay for not only the streets, sewers and water lines directly serving the properties, but the cOSt of increased capacity in the rest of of the systems to provide water, treat sewage and handle increased traffic. Good move for further internalizing of high development cosTS that existing taxpayers are usually stuck with. * Since 1955, the New York Telephone Co. has mailed refund checks for wrong numbers reached on pay phones instead of returning the money to the caller in the pholle booth. Few of the 10rt chccks are ever cashed. The Phone Company knows it, and pockets the money. N.Y. Attorney General Lewis Lefkowitz has forced tlw company to turn over to the state $246,000, representing uncashed refund checks, and to pay $373,000 more by 1980 if the problem persists. * Banks in many states have quietly pocketed millions of dollars abandoned by depositors who h.'lYe died or moved leaving checking accounts or safe deposit boxes in the banks. 25 states how require such money to revert to public revenue if no heir can be found. Peanuts? $7 million per year in New York alone, $900,000 per year in Maryland and probably $1 million in D.C. * Mississippi and Colorado collect tax or license fees on chain stores based on number of stores owned in the entire chain. Mississippi cbarges up to $300 in extra taxes per sture in Mississippi for large chains. There are ways to recoup some of the money extracted from a state by thc chain stores! * The rationale and effects of including in tangible personal property (stocks, bonds and savings) in general property taxes are laid out. Such changes would lower pro perty taxes an average of 13 percent and would lessen tax avoidance by the wealthy. Almost 400 pages of encouraging developments from almost eve.ry nook and cranny of the country. - TB
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