Here’s how Robert J. Smith viewed land use planning:
One of the few states that has really done a careful job has been the State of Arizona, and Arizona has been noted for having some of the most free market, pro-private property rights state legislators. They demanded that the General Lands Office do a thorough study right down to getting the tax records from every municipality, every county, and so on. To everybody’s surprise, it turned out that 87.5 percent of all the land in Arizona is owned by the government. Only 12.5 percent of Arizona is in private hands. One of the ironies there is that is one of the states where there is such a big push for smart growth and stopping urban sprawl. They’ve already got the whole state; 87.5 percent of the land is desert and cactus. They can own all the land they want, but the problem is that too many fat cat Republicans have retired down in Scottsdale, bought a piece of land, put up their $3 million house and have a beautiful view of the mountains with some cactus across the street. They forget to buy the lot across the street and the next wealthy Republican retires down there, buys that lot, puts his house up, and destroys the view of the guy who was there the year before. Suddenly everybody says that there ought to be a law against this…There is too much growth in this state…We need “smart growth.” And wealthy retired Republicans end up working with the Sierra Club out there to promote smart growth.
