Posing the challenge of creating a livable Delaware
Remarks by William B. Chandler III
University of Delaware - Clayton Hall
March 25, 2008
If there is one thing we need not do today, it is to find a way to make Delaware more livable. In fact, I submit that it's Delaware's extreme livability that is the cause of the real problem we are here to address. This little State is perhaps more blessed by nature than anyone could expect of a twenty-by-ninety mile strip of land. The countryside is flat and well-watered, easily traveled, easily cleared and tilled, with ready water access to take products to the Delaware Bay and north, and to the Chesapeake and south. The climate is mild and the growing season is long. While there are undoubtedly many more physically dramatic regions in the United States, I hope you will excuse a native Delawarean for saying that there can be few places better situated for people to live in harmony with nature than our little State.
Our State is not blighted by the overdevelopment of heavy industry, as are some areas in the rust-belt to our north and west. We have no minerals to attract the strip mining that has destroyed areas rich in coal and copper. Our problem is more subtle. Our favorable geography, the industriousness of our people, and the economic stewardship of a number of successive governments have made Delaware so “livable” a place that it is in danger of losing the very attributes-its rural, slow-paced character and its quiet, poignant beauty-that make it, for many of us, so pleasant.
The Delaware I was born into had a population of just over 300 thousand people, with more than 100 thousand in the City of Wilmington, around 100 thousand in the rest of New Castle County and less than 100 thousand in all of Kent and Sussex Counties combined. The population of the three counties today is quickly approaching 900,000, a near three-fold increase in my lifetime alone. A state cannot experience such dramatic growth in such a short period of time without feeling sharp growing pains.
Today's growing pains may be best described by a comparison to the past. Indulge me in a bit of nostalgia. I grew up in Dagsboro, and I live there still in the same house where I was raised. Dagsboro was once the head of navigation on Peppers Creek; it was a small but locally important port. In the 1950s and 60s it was a sleepy agricultural town with a stable population of about 300 residents. I am old enough to remember a Sussex County where “a house-a-building” was a rarity to be commented on; where the main roads were paved but the countryside was farms and woods and fields. The Delaware of my youth was a place where the poorest of people often lived in the most glorious of places, and where water access was not a concern of urban planners, but a fact of everyday life.
I don't intend to idealize the Delaware of my youth. We had grave problems. The schools and other institutions of old Sussex County-and most of the rest of the State-were segregated by race, and African Americans were not integrated into the social or economic life of the majority community. There also was considerable poverty. Public sanitation was poor outside the towns and even in some towns. Water came from shallow wells, and cesspits or even outhouses were common ways to handle wastes. Today, these problems, if not completely remedied, are certainly much improved.
Since 1950, when the population of Sussex County was 61,336 people (that's half the land area of the State for just sixty thousand folks), life in Sussex County and in all of Delaware has fundamentally changed and, in many ways, not for the better. The fields and woods across which I tramped and the open space I savored have fallen to tract housing, as a huge influx of retirees and tax refugees have sought a place “in the country” or “at the beach.” This in-migration has driven the cost of housing, even in a slowed real estate market, beyond the capacity of many local people, including my own children. The average cost of a house in Sussex is now $260,000, while incomes average less than $30,000 annually. Traditional communities, particularly the small African American waterfront communities that once existed throughout the eastern part of the county, have been uprooted. Middle class children, whose middle class parents owned homes in towns like Lewes or Rehoboth, are unable to afford such properties themselves. And sadly, many beautiful flatland vistas across long fields of beans and corn fringed by marshland or pine grove are obscured by rows of houses, bulky shopping centers and billboards.
L.P. Hartly, in his novel “The Go-Between,” famously wrote that “[t]he past is a foreign country.” Well, the Delaware I grew up in is a foreign country to today's world of urban planning, skyrocketing property values, and conferences like this one, where strategies to manage growth and to preserve our cultural heritage are the challenges to be addressed. Over the past ten years, even the Dagsboro town council, like that of many other small towns, has wrestled with issues of housing density, residential planned communities and open space set aside for new developments, as well as worsening traffic congestion, noise, and air pollution.
You will perhaps forgive me if I speak so much of Sussex. It is my home and a special place to me. But these changes are not unique to Sussex. Similar profound changes have been worked across all of Delaware. The Amish way of life in western Kent County is under intense pressure from real estate development that rivals what is occurring in Sussex. The area between Odessa and Middletown, now completely suburbanized, is unrecognizable as the rural area I frequently drove through when I was a student at the University of Delaware. Thirty years ago, Bear was little more than a name on the map, an intersection on the old Baltimore Highway with a post office and couple of country music roadhouses. Today it is one of the most heavily populated parts of the State, with fields in every direction now covered with townhouses and shopping malls.
Of course, while some of us may look back with nostalgia on the Delaware of peach plantations on The Levels, rolling hunt country north of Wilmington, and the farms and marshes of downstate, others are happily occupying new Dagsboro townhouses and Bear row homes, living on property worth far, far more than it was just a few years ago. Isn't this a good thing? That is the issue we are really here to discuss, I suppose. Why is the rate of development in Delaware so much more rapid than that in the United States as a whole? Has this development been a public good? If so, do we want even more of it? Is it the small-state, quaint way of life that spurred this new development, and will further development destroy the very qualities which gave it birth? Should we-can we-preserve the unique beauty and pace of life that are among the great treasures of this State? Can Delaware have it both ways: simultaneously preserve the unique character that has made the State so livable while continuing its breakneck pace of development? And, if not, how should we choose which interest to favor?
I should note that, as always seems to be the case in Delaware, these involve slightly different questions “upstate” from those “downstate.” In New Castle County, a great deal of the growth has occurred as the result of a favorable business climate. Changes in our banking laws in the 1980s created a demand for skilled white collar workers to fill good-paying jobs. This was, of course, a boon to those Delawareans who could fill those jobs, although many were filled by skilled workers from other parts of the United States-further driving our population spike.
Downstate, I submit that the situation is fundamentally different. Let me be blunt, and forgive me if this sounds bleak: if lower Delaware is not already overdeveloped, it very soon will be. Housing developments spread across Delaware like some sort of self-replicating virus, consuming resources and space, and expanding exponentially. Accompanying this residential infestation is a plague of strip malls and shopping centers. SUVs and cars now swarm roads that were never designed to handle such a relentless volume of traffic. Despite a fairly “green” reputation compared with heavy industry, the business of providing housing and services to tourists and retirees is not a “clean” business. Not only does it monopolize huge amounts of land, but also the needed infrastructure and resulting effluence spawn a myriad of ecological problems.
Perhaps the most startling effect is the bifurcation of our demographics. As demand for property increases, so does the price, and Sussex and Kent Counties are fast becoming two-class worlds with a vast chasm between the classes: the wealthy who retire here, or vacation here or who profit from the development here . . . and the rest who serve them. The result is communities increasingly divided by economic status. One of the blessings of the rural Sussex of my youth was that poor families, and what passed for wealthy families, inhabited largely the same society: we went to school together, we shopped at the same stores, we worshiped together, and we worked together. The rapid growth of Sussex County has not been kind to this tradition of integration of economic classes. Though the population influx has created jobs, most are low-paying and low-skilled, with little room for advancement. Increasingly, locals cannot afford to live in the towns where they grew up, while the County struggles to provide low and moderate income housing amidst a building boom. This financial stratification is reminiscent of the segregated society of the past, an unwholesome situation to which we do not wish to return.
Not only do I look back with nostalgia and sadness as I see the changes that development has wrought, but I also look forward with fear and apprehension as I imagine what damage further unrestrained development will bring upon the place I hold so dear. The landscape of Delaware has already changed, its character is changing daily, and the charm and poignant beauty that makes this State so enticing will inexorably become the next casualty. These problems have not arisen in a vacuum, however. I believe we can identify several root causes. First, Delaware's aesthetic and natural qualities draw huge numbers of new residents to the State every year. This population boom drives the development juggernaut. Second, our property taxes, especially downstate, are incredibly low. When one compares the low tax rates in southern Delaware to the comparatively high property taxes in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maryland, one sees a “property tax vacuum,” a vacuum that siphons residents of those neighboring states to Delaware, away from high taxes. In addition, some of our tax code is tied to the age of the taxpayer rather than income. The fact that someone is 66 doesn't mean they are poor. When you combine low property taxes with discounts for seniors, you create a tax haven-without reference to actual ability to pay. Finally, and perhaps most insidiously, Delaware's real estate transfer tax undemocratically creates perverse incentives for local governments to approve all manner of development. The monies collected from this tax-once collected unproblematically only by the State-fill the coffers overseen by the very public officials who must approve new development. Let me explore each of these causes in greater detail.
First, Delaware has a uniquely beautiful and charming atmosphere. I'll spare you further musing on the rustic and striking imagery of my youth, but my perception of the area's appeal is clearly shared by others. Folks from other parts of Delaware, as well as from neighboring states, move downstate because they like the relaxed “country” atmosphere. It is an unwelcome irony, therefore, that the more that people flock to southern Delaware for its beauty and rural charm, the less beautiful it becomes. Truly, we are mining our main resources: inexpensive developable land and unparalleled physical beauty. Further, many move downstate to lead a quieter life in the country. Some who have moved there as recently as two years ago have already remarked to me that they can discern a palpable change in the culture. What will become of Delaware when the last of its slow-paced charm is overwhelmed by outlet malls, fast-food restaurants and six-lane highways?
Second, Delaware has relatively low property taxes and is one of only thirteen states that does not collect a state-wide property tax. When averaged, however, the amount of property taxes collected by Delaware's three counties is among the three lowest in the nation when property taxes are viewed as a percentage of home value (47th/50). Maryland has the twenty-ninth highest property tax burden under this calculus, Pennsylvania the ninth, and New Jersey has the sixth highest property tax burden of all fifty states. Sussex County itself charges less than 45 cents per $100 of assessed value, and its last completed assessment of value was in 1974. New Castle's last assessment was in 1983, and Kent's in 1987. Thus, the tax rate itself is low, and the assessed value to which that rate is applied is appallingly out-of-date. The 1974 assessed values are roughly 12 percent of what the actual market values are today!
Third, and perhaps most disturbingly, the current transfer tax provides, in my opinion, inappropriate encouragement for new development. A transfer tax is a tax on the sale of real property. Delaware presently levies a 3 percent tax on those transactions, half of which goes to the State and half to the counties and municipalities. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, Delaware's transfer tax is the highest in the nation. It does not take an economist to see that this tax is potentially very lucrative for local government. The problem is that, under Delaware law, much of the authority to make decisions with respect to new development is left in the hands of that same local government. It is local government that adopts the zoning laws and grants the variances, and it is those laws and variances that regulate just how many homes a developer can cram onto a given acre of land. Delaware's transfer tax is a transactional tax-it generates more income for perpetually cash-strapped local governments when there are more transfers. This system incentivizes local government to pass congestion-friendly laws: the more units allowed per acre of land, the more potential transfers and sales, and the more revenue generated.
I know what you are thinking. It is easy to stand up here, reminisce about the way things were, and rail against change, or “progress,” as some might call it. I suppose you can guess that, having expressed my belief that overdevelopment threatens all of us, I am going to propose some sort of restraint. Lest you criticize me for trying to abridge property rights, let me first acknowledge that this is particularly nettlesome terrain. The American experiment is and has always been based on ideals of freedom: freedom to think, to speak, and to control oneself and one's property. The ability to hold, creatively use, and alienate property-real and personal-is essential to basic liberty and the American economy. The greatest wealth-producing engine ever conceived is the United States' stock markets and, as economist Hernando de Soto has pointed out, it is the ability to leverage the value of private real property into capital that may be invested creatively that is the basis of an entrepreneurial society. In that sense, private ownership of real property is the force that drives the American economy.
The free market works because individual owners sell their property to those who value it more. Friedrich Hayek refers to this as the genius of the market; that is, through the millions of Ricardian exchanges-in which both seller and buyer leave the transaction better off-the market allocates property to its best use with an efficiency to which no central planner can compare. Why, then, should we be concerned about overdevelopment and land use? Won't the market provide for development that is “just right?” Why would the opinions of government or citizens groups be more valuable in determining to what use land should be put than the ideas of the willing buyer, content to back up his ideas with cold cash?
The answer to this question, of course, as with nearly all market-based problems, is in the consequences of the transaction not captured in the price. I drive from Dagsboro to Georgetown each day and pass many beautiful and peaceful scenes of fields and woods, though there are fewer than just five years ago. Some of this land is used by farmers. Let us assume that the proceeds of selling a piece of property to a developer are more than the present value of all profits the farming operation might generate going forward-an assumption that is quite obviously not at all far-fetched. The farmer sells his property to the developer, and is happy with the sizable profit he realizes on the sale. The developer subdivides the property and invests his skill and labor to develop it. He then sells lots to individual owners, and is happy with the profits he makes on those sales. The new owners have each bought a house and lot that is worth more to them, by definition, than they have paid for it. They are happy, and these transactions seem to benefit all parties.
But the people who drive by that spot every day experience a poignant loss. The beauty of the farmer's land and the pleasure that beauty gave to others was an asset of his property that the farmer had few ways to capture. Its destruction is a cost-what economists call an externality-of the development that is not borne by the developer, the farmer, or the new home owners. As open land becomes increasingly scarce, the cost not captured in these transactions- what I will call the “aesthetic loss”-increases with each new development. This externality remains beyond the market and, in this way, the market itself drives overdevelopment. And, I note, this is only the aesthetic loss: I have said nothing about other costs that may not fully be taken into account by the market, including those public expenditures that will be needed to compensate for increased demand for schools, roads and sewerage, damage to waterways and wetlands from the run-off from land disturbed in development, secondary aesthetic loss due to increased traffic, and so forth.
In one of the seminal works of modern economic theory, Garrett Hardin described the “tragedy of the commons,” the ruinous overgrazing of English village commons that occurred because the land was owned in common and therefore no one had an incentive to act as its steward. In a sense, the “tragedy of overdevelopment,” to echo Hardin, is the flip side of the same problem. The physical beauty and the sense of community and freedom that were such an integral part of my youth were enjoyed in common. The opportunity costs of maintaining that beauty and refraining from development, however, fall only on the landowner. In other words, the profits of overdevelopment inure only to the landowner, while the loss occasioned by that development is spread among many individuals. Unlike with the village commons, we cannot remedy this market distortion through privatization.
As you may know, I preside over a court that is known for being business-savvy. Indeed, the Court of Chancery generally has a strong understanding of economics. Thus, I'll be the first to admit that the market may, in fact, ultimately solve this problem. Eventually, Delaware will become so overdeveloped, so overcrowded, and so downright ugly that no one will want to move here any more. A drop in developers' profits will accompany a decline in demand, causing the development to slow or stop. In addition to being a so-called “business” court, however, the Court of Chancery is first and foremost a court of equity, and courts of equity are in the business of preventing irreparable harm. What I am suggesting to you is that allowing Delaware to spiral into an overdeveloped mess would inflict irreparable harm on the State. Even if overdevelopment ultimately kills demand, it will also kill much of what makes Delaware so special. We cannot let that happen.
But how? If market distortions drive overdevelopment, and if we are a society dedicated to private property rights, what can be done? We are not the first community to wrestle with these issues. Early attempts to preserve the benefits of open spaces in the face of development pressure, ironically, arose in the form of those village commons we have just discussed. Governments have attempted to directly intervene by purchasing and preserving open space deemed particularly beautiful or geographically important. This strategy came of age in the nineteenth century urban parks movement led by, among others, Frederick Law Olmstead, and the drive to create state and national scenic parks. Though the urban parks movement has continued, it is clear that in a free market society such outright acquisition of land is necessarily a limited solution. More recently, governments or quasi-governmental agencies have tried purchasing development rights from landowners, which prohibits the owners from making certain uses of their land but leaves title to land in the hands of the individual property owner. These limited purchases are made in the belief that some uses of the property-industrial development or residential development-are detrimental to the public interest and, therefore, the right to pursue such development is purchased from the property owner and held by the government. Constructive use of the property that is considered more benign-farming for instance-may continue. Delaware's Ag-land Preservation Act and the Forest Legacy Program are excellent examples of this strategy.
Another reaction of government to perceived market distortions in the development of real property is, of course, zoning. Like the park movement's purchase of open space, or the purchase of development rights, the application of zoning involves governments' determining what pernicious uses of property might be encouraged by the free market in a particular area, and preventing those uses by laws or regulations. Unlike the purchase of property rights, however, zoning is done under the police power. As a result, zoning lacks a fundamental restraint. In zoning, though the benefits theoretically inure to society at large, the cost of limiting development is borne solely by the property owner. When zoning has a relatively low cost to individual property owners and a large perceived benefit-prohibiting slaughter houses, say, in residential neighborhoods-it is relatively non-controversial. As the cost to individual property owners rises, however, zoning may be widely seen as inequitable and can generate severe controversy.
Because the governmental units administering zoning are sensitive to various political pressures, zoning's perceived utility in preventing overdevelopment is problematic. The Sussex County Council (to take an example with which I am familiar) has granted variances from zoning to allow development of property despite sometimes intense public opposition. According to a recent local television report, the current proposed Sussex Comprehensive Land Use Plan would permit farms that are zoned agricultural/residential to have two housing units per acre with the possibility of residential community overlay zoning of up to ten units per acre in agricultural districts. Let me say that again: ten units per acre. This could conceivably lead to one million buildable lots in Sussex County! Imagine the real estate transfer taxes the county could collect from all of those units changing hands. Now, with that rich figure in mind, query whether that had anything to do with the decision to permit so many units per acre.
This debate has yielded a predictable political battle between farmers and private owners of large tracts of land, who will be the big economic winners or losers, and those individuals who wish to see development limited. The problem with either side “winning” is the bluntness of zoning regulations, as opposed to market forces. Allow two or ten units per acre and many beautiful areas with public significance will be developed. Enact substantially lower density and a demand for housing goes unmet, with the cost being born solely by the landowners.
If purchasing real estate rights is but a limited remedy for market inefficiencies, and if zoning and similar laws are blunt instruments for community preservation, subject to political whim and gamesmanship, what can be done to keep Delaware livable or restore its livability? Can we adjust the free market to stimulate development that is “just right”? Surely protecting our quality of life fits logically into an intelligent economic development strategy for Delaware-but precisely how? I commend this question to all of you later in this conference. Meanwhile, let me focus on the underlying causes for overdevelopment that I identified earlier and propose some solutions.
First, I am not suggesting that we make Delaware less attractive or charming. As I noted a few moments ago, all of the overcrowding, traffic congestion and strip development is doing a fine job of that already. Rather, I think we should examine other primary causes.
Let's focus instead on the second underlying cause of overdevelopment-the property tax vacuum that pulls residents from neighboring states to Delaware. Though, like most taxpayers, I favor lower taxes, taxes set without regard to the rates of taxation in neighboring jurisdictions can be problematic. That property taxes in Sussex, for instance, are so low and property taxes in surrounding jurisdictions so relatively high is a tremendous economic incentive for property owners to relocate to the County. Drive down a back road across the state line into Maryland and you will see a dramatic decrease in the pace of development. I don't necessarily want my property taxes to be as high as those in neighboring states, but we should realize that our property tax policy does influence the rate of development. A modest rate increase would bring Delaware more in line with its neighbors, pushing us closer to equilibrium and away from a vacuum. Next, remove the inherent conflicts, assess the property tax at the State level, and dedicate it to infrastructure, land conservation and education.
In addition to low property tax rates, property taxes are kept low by the fact that assessments of real property values are many, many years out of date. Now, I recognize reassessment is politically unpalatable, but it is surely inevitable. The only question is whether it will come from courageous leadership, or by judicial fiat when a constitutional challenge is instituted. To the extent inequities result from reassessment, the judicious use of grace periods and income waivers may soften them. In any event, with assessed values amounting to just twelve percent of present market values, frankly, the time has come for Delaware to undertake the painful process of reassessment.
We must also address the third cause of overdevelopment-that pernicious realty transfer tax. As low as property taxes are, the counties have made up much of their revenue through the levy of the realty transfer tax. Because the transfer tax has come to represent a significant portion of the counties' budgets, the county governments now have a built-in conflict: to disallow zoning variances, raise property taxes, or do anything that would limit development means risking a very substantial revenue stream.
I spoke earlier about the mining of Sussex County's beauty. The transfer tax is, in reality, a royalty paid on destruction. As I have said, if it goes to general revenue it creates perverse and pernicious incentives. I believe, therefore, we should re-direct some or all of this stream of cash. Why don't we segregate the money collected from the transfer tax into a trust fund used to preserve open space, perhaps through purchasing development rights or through more esoteric types of property law tools such as public access or public view easements? In Montana, for example, every land transfer is taxed at .5 percent, all of which funds a nonprofit “community stewardship” organization dedicated to the environment. In a similar vein, the transfer tax could become a significant tool to limit the effects of overdevelopment, and one that would follow the market and naturally keep pace with that development. Moreover, the lost revenue would be made up for by the increase in property tax rates.
Though it is necessary to address solutions to each of these underlying problems, it is not sufficient. Briefly, let me suggest five additional solutions to the problems presented by the current state of affairs. Though these suggestions may not be popular, I am not concerned with popularity; I am concerned with preserving the State's vanishing resources.
First, let's focus on new and useful trends. Delaware should embrace “green” technology and use it deliberately as a tool to slow new development. For example, the State could pass laws requiring new development to use only the latest and greatest in green technology and environmentally friendly materials. Doing so might slow growth (by making new development more costly and time-consuming) and it will create a demand for highly skilled workers who understand how best to use the new technologies. Indeed, the University of Delaware could devote some of its resources towards the creation of a new institute on green living and could become the preeminent institution at which students can learn about such things. Delaware could, following California's lead, take a more aggressive approach to its environmental laws, but during the transition period could auction off pollution or carbon credits to developers. The funds raised could subsidize education and job training for a new class of “green-collar” workers. In addition, we need to restore the “price balance” for developers-the choice between whether to revitalize that which has already been built but abandoned and that which is new. Many older areas already have core infrastructure in place. Brownfield credits are not a new idea, but that doesn't mean more can't be done. Upstate, for example, New Castle faces the continued erection of suburban “office parks,” contributing to sprawl, difficulties in getting a public transport system going, loss of wetlands (usually large, wide parking lots covering permeable earth), and transportation gridlock. Finally, why do market failures never seem to correct themselves in Delaware? The relics of past folly simply persist, with no one undoing it. Red Clay Creek is devoid of aquatic life, and we know the plant that made it so-NVF, a plant that employed relatively few people even at its height, and whose crumbling building remains astride a beautiful waterway. Why not direct transfer tax revenues to correct such past failures rather than allow them to continue to spoil our landscape?
Second, State policy makers should consider imposing a development moratorium statewide, but especially in Kent and Sussex. This moratorium would prohibit new expansion until we have put into place a real plan of action to manage growth. This would enable the infrastructure to “catch up.” How long would such a moratorium last? Perhaps for two or three years; just until the details of the proposed solutions are finalized and the solutions implemented. With a large existing inventory of unsold and unbuilt homes, moratoriums might be a welcome respite from more growth.
Third, in developing and implementing programs, we need to make comprehensive involvement from all levels of government a priority. All levels of government-city, county, and state-should have input in the planning and approval process so as to respect each other's territory. Where, for example, there is county land surrounding a municipality, a certain area outside city or town limits should act as a buffer. This would mean that any new developments would require approval from both the city and the county officials. This requirement is far more democratic than the current system in which only three or four county council members, who were elected by people living elsewhere, determine the development of county land immediately adjacent to Lewes, or Bethel, or Frankford. Land along state highways, state parks, or state forests should also be buffered in a similar fashion, requiring both state and county approval for any new development. The idea here is to ensure the involvement of all the people whose interests are most immediately affected by these types of decisions.
Fourth, adequate public facilities laws should be adopted for all three counties. The carrying capacity of a region or district-not just the immediate neighborhood of the proposed development-should dictate whether a proposed new development is approved. That is, the roads, sewer, water and schools in the region or district must be able to absorb the new development without straining at the seams. If the region or district is unable to do so, then the developer should have to pay for all the necessary improvements in the region or district. Provided, of course, that such development is appropriate in the first instance for the area according to the comprehensive plan.
Lastly, I am tempted to suggest the abolishment of DelDot, the state agency in charge of the roads. If counties and cities are forced to pay for their own road improvements, then they cannot pass the buck and blame DelDot for nightmarish traffic. By making the same governmental actors responsible for development decisions, as well as their consequences, the costs of development become more transparent, and political accountability more likely. And take a look at the horde of Pennsylvanians commuting each day to Wilmington on Routes 7, 41, 82, 52 and 202. The roads are clogged with them, working in Wilmington but educating their children in Pennsylvania's public schools. Are they paying their fare share of the burdens on our clotted roads? We need to consider more toll roads using advanced technology like “EZPass”-all over Delaware.
I candidly do not know the feasibility of these ideas; I'm a judge, not an urban planner. But I do know that we have a problem that deserves the attention of the State's best and brightest minds.
There is still much beauty in this little State. But it is a beauty that is increasingly fragile, imperiled by overdevelopment. I've had the strange and vertiginous experience of driving in a place I have been hundreds of times-Fenwick Island comes to mind but there are many other such places-and suddenly not recognizing my surroundings due to the incredible development that has taken place. Without sacrificing our private property rights, we must find a way to correct the market distortions that are enriching some but are impoverishing us all as a community.
I'm reminded of one of the smallest independent countries on earth, the island nation of Nauru in the South Pacific. Nauru was once an idyllic place with fertile land and surrounded by coral reefs, but Nauru had the fortune-or misfortune-to exist literally on a lump of birdlime, a rock of phosphates so valuable that European powers located thousands of miles away fought small wars over it. When independence came to Nauru about the time I was growing up in Dagsboro, it finally controlled its resources, or more precisely, its resource: the mountain of fertilizer on which it stood.
The phosphate of Nauru was developed, and for a few years, its citizens were technically the richest people on earth, per capita. And then, the great rock of phosphate ran out. The money was gone and, more importantly, most of the island was gone. Today, Nauru exists as a fringe of ground along the ocean surrounding a giant and sterile pit that was once its center. The government of the island of millionaires now relies on foreign aid for its budget.
What will the children growing up today say of their elders on Nauru? Likewise, what will our children and our children's children say of those of us who are here today wrestling with a problem that is as difficult to solve as it is to ignore? Will our children praise us for promoting the principles of good development, or will they damn us for mining the beauty of this land and squandering the proceeds?
Let's not allow today's conference to fall into the usual pattern. It would be comfortable and easy for us to pat one another on the back, praise Governor Minner's Livable Delaware program, and go home tonight and promptly forget about everything we've discussed here. Instead, let's get to work. Let's argue with one another. Let's confront a problem that is menacing the entire State, and let's propose some potential solutions. I want to hear ideas that range from the mundane and practical to the wild and esoteric. Now is not a time for platitudes and niceties. Now is a time for action, for purpose, and for resolve. Too much is at stake here. Too little time is left.
This land has been lived in, and loved, for centuries. Every part of it, even the Cypress Swamp and the Delaware Bay marshes, bears the imprint of the men and women who have come before us. On a March day like this, if you wander through the empty places in this State-if you can find them-through the old fields and greening woods, almost every spot you pass will have been someone's home. You might see no more than a few foundation stones, or a cellar hole near-filled with a century's accumulation of leaves and duff, or you may see no sign of a house at all. But if you are out on a March day, you will see a tangible sign of our forbearers love for, and good stewardship of, this land: blooming around those forgotten homesteads are the daffodils planted, just for beauty's sake, long years ago. Throughout the State, around houses long since gone to dust, bulbs planted by generations of Delawareans long dead prove through their blooming that those people were faithful stewards of the land they have passed down to us. Though anonymous, though their structures have decayed, their legacy is this March beauty. What will be our legacy? Will this generation of Delawareans leave behind a token of our good stewardship to our children's children yet unborn? I believe we can and we must.
Forgive me if this talk has come across as bleak or depressing, but my role here is to challenge you; I am not here to make us feel good about ourselves. The situation I've described is dire, but it is by no means hopeless. The future of Delaware can shift today-right here-for the better, but only if we all take this seriously.
Thank you.