Issue 73: Using Land and Water

Land is the essential economic commodity. It was the primary natural resource for David Ricardo and other early political economists who founded the "dismal science" of economics and, writ large as property, it was seen as equally critical by the political philosophers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. John Locke wrote in his Treatises on Government that "the great and chief end of men. . .putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property."

Similarly, some two centuries before Locke, Machiavelli shrewdly emphasized government's responsibility for protecting landed property even against the temptations of a prince himself. "But above all," he wrote, "a prince must refrain from taking property, for men forget the death of a father more quickly than the loss of their patrimony."

Machiavelli's caution generally has been well respected in this country. Eminent domain aside—which in any event involves compensation—no American need fear arbitrary official assertion of rights to his or her property. But if outright confiscation is not a problem, many governmental and private actions nonetheless threaten what people feel to be land-based rights to the pursuit of happiness. Leading off this issue of Resources, Frank Popper examines a wide range of developments—from prisons to parking lots to power plants—that constitute what he terms locally unwanted land uses, or LULUs. Such projects are fine and even necessary, says majority sentiment, but don't build one in my backyard.

On page 5, Robert Healy focuses on the tension inherent in the siting of new industrial facilities, especially those prone to pollution. As the economy picks up, will firms encounter problems such as they had in the 1970s in meeting federal environmental standards? Healy thinks not, for industry as a whole, but he sees some noteworthy possible exceptions, including toxic chemicals.

Is the United States facing an imminent water crisis? No, says Emery Castle in his page 8 article, but water's cost is going up and adjustments will be necessary. Castle shows why water prices are rising, addresses how more costly supplies are likely to be allocated, and outlines policies likely to govern water for the rest of the century.

The Reagan administration's plan to sell the U.S. civilian remote-sensing satellites raises the question of just what these spacecraft do in addition to providing weather data. Beginning on page 11, Ruth Haas offers an answer, with an emphasis on the several satellite techniques used in estimating global food supplies.

America's land and water resources once seemed all but inexhaustible. No longer: whether viewed from orbit or on the spot, how and to what extent land and water are used are contentious public issues precisely because they have come to be recognized as limited. Resources is pleased to provide informed perspectives on four disparate, yet ultimately related, sets of land and water issues.