Building Two Housing Developments in Santa Cruz County - Essay Example

After concentrating on the points presented by the proponent and the opponent group, as an economist, I think that the decision for accepting or rejecting the proposal should be taken by keeping these points in view.
The size of the county will be changed in terms of scale (small or large)

Explanation
Some of the advantages are:
Close Supervision
If county size is small then there are fewer residents in the county, and county administration can easily take care of the needs of county residents, as a result, residents remain loyal and do not think about migrating from there.

Economy in management
A large county administration has to spend a sizeable portion of the income on the maintenance of the county but that is not the case with Small County.

Close contact with the residents
As the residents in a small county are few in numbers, the county administration can have close contact with them. It can listen to their problems carefully and can redress them if it thinks them justified. Due to better understanding between a resident and administration, the chance of resident’s disloyalty and disappointment is reduced.

Greater capability to deal with a problem
Another advantage claimed by Small County is that it can more easily deal with a problem than a large county. For example, if a problem of water occurs in a county, a small-sized county can better deal with this problem due to its small size than a large county.

Secondly, as the size of the county increases another issue about providing facilities like water, security, gas, etc. is also raised that is, will the county administration be able to fulfill all the needs of the residents in return for taxes e.g. property tax, paid by the residents. If the size of the county increases it will be very difficult for the county’s administration to fairly administrate the system of taxation.

Conclusion
The above observations provide a simple conclusion of the problem that is Santa Cruz County should not permit the investors to build two housing developments because:
1. The development would add another 40,000 people to the county and it would be very difficult for the county board to administrate such a large county for 65,000 residents.
2. If the investors are permitted then how county board will provide necessary facilities e.g. water etc., in return for taxes and funds paid by residents. As the county already lacks sufficient water to support such a population increase, as a result, residents can be disloyal. In this situation, how it would be possible for the county board to raise sufficient funds for wanted projects.

So according to my opinion, it will not be adequate to permit the investors unless the county board becomes able to manage such a population change in a well-organized manner.