We continue to face challenges in Snohomish County in the form of crowded roads and rising taxes. Often blaming government, many of us are frustrated with these problems. Population growth is a primary cause of many of our current difficulties.
Property taxes are driven by the need to provide public services such as water, sewage treatment and schools. Increased assessed land values push taxes higher. Both are a result of a rapidly increasing population size.
Individual freedoms are also affected by population density. My freedom to burn leaves may reduce my neighbor’s freedom to breathe clean air, and his freedom to cut down trees in an upstream wetland may reduce my freedom to have a dry basement.
A stable population size won’t solve all of our problems. But it will ease the demands on our roads, schools, and water and land resources. Long-term planning will be easier, taxes will be more stable and freedoms not so quickly eroded. Snohomish County needs better information and broader discussion of the costs we are now paying for population increase.
Snohomish
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