Who Owns America's Land: Problems in Preserving the Rural Landscape
2023
Wunderlich, Gene
Excerpts: The efforts of the 92nd and 93rd Congresses to produce land use legislation heightened the national awareness of resource policy and problems. The bills, testimony and publicity changed our latent concerns about land use into a national issue. The esthetic appeal of a national design for our landscape, however, should not cloud the discomforting problems of pluralistic decision making. The success of land policy will depend to a large extent on the combined decisions of many landowners. Although various instruments of Federal policy may influence decisions, and State and local governments may regulate land uses and tax returns, private motives will remain the ultimate arbiter. The impacts of land use programs, and natural resource policy generally, depend upon independent ownership. Before we devote too much attention to land use, then, we need to understand how ownership distributes benefits and burdens and influences decisions. Land ownership may affect the outcome not only of land policy but also of other policies for income and wealth taxation, welfare, and public investment. Let us, therefore, examine what we know and, more important, what we do not know, about land ownership in America.
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