The genius of American government is a system of checks and balances. Over the last year, the system of checks and balances have come into place again in Lancaster County. We now have a functioning board of Commissioners.

The price of freedom is indeed eternal vigilance. We have to assure that the checks and balances are working. I have met some people in County government who believe that getting elected or being appointed makes them important. It does not. They hold their authority as matter of trust and in positions of service.                                        

Lancaster County is a place like no other. We produce more farm revenue than ten other states. The area which stretches from southern Chester County through Lancaster County and southern York County is the largest block of successful farmland in the world ! 

The County has staggering resources. It is the third largest business center in Pennsylvania. But it is held back because it is part of Pennsylvania. Our Commonwealth is the eighth largest state in the nation, but it is third from the bottom in econmic growth.

                                                     The Pennsylvania Curse 

We need to understand that County and City government are subdivisions of Pennsylvania government. Those governments were created by the General Assembly and their power is derived from that body - which has granted the power to serve the people and has granted the people the power to choose who will govern them.

We really ought to call our Commonwealth a "Parochial-Wealth."  While the federal government has 633 elected officials, Pennsylvania has 33,000 ! (That includes school boards.) Plus there are tens of thousands of appointed officials. The people are more directly involved in their governments than anywhere else in the U.S.

That's good, but we suffer from "the Pennsylvania curse." There are too many small, fragmented entities - each with the power to either approve change or to preserve the status quo. We are perceived (probably accurately) by those who would invest in the state as not agile, not responsive, not progressive.

Take land development. The standards for development in Pennsylvania are comparable to other regions.

But we are not competitive in the permitting process. Each individual jurisdiction has to review plans sequentially. This is deadly to Pennsylvania, because states we are competing with (the Carolinas, for example) can grant approvals in 45 days for what takes 18-24 months here.

The Campaign to Renew Pennsylvania will try to "fix" this. Hosted by "10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania", the Campaign will be a partnership of agencies, associations and people across the Commonwealth. Bailey hopes to show others that Lancaster County is not only an anomaly - growing much faster than the state is - but is also a laboratory, an opportunity to demonstrate improvement in the process by which growth and development are encouraged and approved. Lancaster will finds ways that multiple-decision-makers can work together.

Lancaster Looking Forward

Lancaster County and City are poised for a spectacular renaissance. We are going to see some marvelous changes. Ten years from now, we will look back at this period as the Golden Age for the city. An example is the transformation at the northern end of the city - starting with the restoration of the Amtrak station. This is an architectural gem which will be splendid when restored. Amtrak is completely re-laying the trackage from Philadelphia to Lancaster. When they finish, we will have one of the finest mass transit facilities in the U.S. in Lancaster. And new businesses will develop around it.

Look to the downtown, as well. It will never be the retail center it once was. Back then, King Street - the Lincoln Highway - ran right through it. Now the 30 by-pass is the main shopping street for Greater Lancaster. But the city will be a tremendous place to live and to do business. Private re-invesment will make our existing community viable for years to come.

Don't look to the convention center to make money. It doesn't need to. It and the adjacent hotel will attract businesses around it which will make money, which will increase the tax revenues - and the convention center will be financed by the room taxes on the people who come to Lancaster.

Urban growth, such as we will see in Lancaster, will be spurred by:

1. Giving investors confidence

2. Effecting economies in the fixed cost of development - largely through removing non-essential

    government restraints.

3. "Flagship" developments like the hotel and convention center - and the little ships like the Quilt Museum.

Perspectives on Growth and Farmland

Agricultural preservantion comes down to economics. Farmers may, in the absence of other factors, choose to sell their land for immediate gain, rather than go through the toil and risk of achieving the same gains over time. Agricultural land preservation provides the stability that private land owners need to earn a longer range return on their investment.

We cannot stop sprawl. We can design good growth paths. We have - and they are working. Contrary to popular belief, Lancaster County grew the most and spread out the least of all Pennsylvania counties in the period 1990-2000. We are not "spreading out and hollowing out" as a Brookings Institute study showed is happening in many Pennsylvnia communities.

Lancaster County farmland is not being eaten up by houses. It is disappearing in lawns !  The biggest obstacle to "smart growth" in Lancaster are the requirments for minium lot sizes. The word "density" does not appear in any zoning regulations. It is not a bad word. It does not mean deficient housing or homes for the poor. It means simply the number of residences per x acres of land.

"Minium lot size" creates cookie-cutter neighborhoods. The same lots sell for the same prices and are purchased by people in the same economic circumstances. We need variations in housing sizes, types and positions on the land - to make better use of the land and to create more interesting neighborhoods. the Mill Creek development in West Lampeter Township is an excellent example of this kind of land use.

It is increasingly hard for people with middle incomes to find affordable housing near where they work. The majority of new office locations are outside of cities. It's much cheaper to build on the fringes. Need parking - just put down asphalt over the former farmland. That will cost a developer $3,000 per parking space, as compared with $10-12,000 if a parking garage has to be built in an urban area.

The fixed costs of new residential development (sewer, roads, impact fees) do not change because of the size of the house. Consequently, businessmen who build houses (and that's who build them) want to build where fixed costs are a lower percentage of the total price they have to charge for those dwellings.

Change the density and you change the economics - spreading the fixed costs over a range of homes whose total aggregate value makes the fixed costs affordable.