[seanalltogether]

I disagree, if a town with 1000 households are interspersed with 100 farms, those 100 farms should not be paying an equal amount of money to the town finances as the 1000 households. It just doesn't make sense. They should certainly be paying for the right to have exclusive access to that land, but those 100 farmers do not put as much of a financial strain on the town budget as those 1000 households

[yellowapple]

> those 100 farms should not be paying an equal amount of money to the town finances as the 1000 households.

If those 100 farms take up the same land area as 1000 households, then yes they absolutely should. Hell, they'll even have an easier time doing so, since they're (ostensibly) using that land productively (and if not, they absolutely should be) and thus be more able to internalize that opportunity cost they've imposed on others.

And if they can't produce enough to internalize that opportunity cost, then all the more reason for someone else to be given the opportunity to do so.

[maxerickson]

Would that happen? 100 smallish farms can be a pretty big area, it would be atypical for 1000 additional residences to be mixed in (they would tend to concentrate).

Also, when I lived in a rural township there weren't any household services, the township did things like look after a couple of roads and zoning and had a little park. We had a well and septic and contracted with a private trash hauler.

[foobarian]

They do - if there could be 5000 more households on the land occupied by the farmers, and paying that much more tax revenue to the town, that could be viewed as a financial strain.

[throwaway201103]

It's unlikely that there is pent-up demand for 5000 more households in a rural farm area. Farm land just sits there. It doesn't "cost" the local town/county anything.

[yellowapple]

> It's unlikely that there is pent-up demand for 5000 more households in a rural farm area.

Okay, then all the more reason for those farms to sell off some unused acres to alleviate what little pent-up demand there is. And if there are no unused acres, then it's best to work on getting more productivity per acre to make some unused acres.

The agricultural sector is in dire need of a kick in the rear to encourage better land efficiency; LVT is one heck of a kick.

> Farm land just sits there.

Then it ain't a farm, in which case all the more reason to sell off that land and make it available to someone else.

> It doesn't "cost" the local town/county anything.

It imposes an opportunity cost on everyone who would more effectively use that land, including other farmers with better methods (and also, more broadly, anyone else wanting places to live and/or work and/or play).