The Rave: Home, Home on the Range

    There is considerable talk about efficient cars, smaller homes, cleaner energy but for the most part, it's talk. The reality is that we live in a society that wants you to use more gas, have a bigger house and use up more energy resources because-money. Specifically, tax revenue.

    The more gas you use, the more road tax is collected. Same with property. City zoning prefers you have a bigger house based on the economics of property tax. The idea that you can do whatever you want with your property is anathema to local zoning. Private property owners inthe Portland area found this out after building small additions on their land and then were handed huge tax increases.

 People who want to live off the grid on their land have been cited for living in unsafe conditions and forced to go on the grid, at their expense so that local utilities can make money.

    Large cities have also expressed little interest in resources or space for the poor and homeless because there is no profit in it. The housing market prefers high rents forcing out the middle class and poor causing evictions instead of small, sustainable living. Most cities require a dwelling to be at least 500 sq. feet making most tiny homes illegal.

    For now there is no incentive to be resourceful. Bigger is better, a scenario based on the delusion that land and fossil fuels are inexhaustible as well as a burgeoning economy.

    Solar energy? In Spain you are taxed for using it even as the user attempts to lower their electrical bills. There are attempts to ban it in some places because it competes with the local utilities.

     The current approach to development involves asking for a tax break from a local city government claiming it will improve the economy but that bargain comes at our expense. How does this encourage sustainability? How does this promote efficient use of land and resources?

     Contractors don't want to build small homes-not profitable. Banks don't want to finance or loan for the same reasons. Realtors can't sell them because of the belief no one wants a small house. These are the realities economy living are up against.

      The archaic codes governing land use, energy and building have to be modified to suit the changing landscape. There are solutions and movements to more sustainable living. The alternatives are spreading because they are more economical and efficient.