Written by Bock Oliver   

I regularly ride through one of the wealthiest neighborhoods on the planet in Silicon Valley south of San Francisco. I am continuously struck by the outrageous opulence of the new houses being built. Aside from their incredibly large size, the number of workers employed for months and months is truly astounding. I cannot understand the motivation behind this kind of showy excess, especially as our species struggles with trying to manage a global ecosystem collapsing from the stress of meeting the needs of 7 billion people. I have to travel less than 2 miles away to find trailer parks where people are struggling to make ends meet while perhaps working as laborers or domestic workers in the multi million dollar homes up the street.
What amazes me is that this inequality is acceptable in our society. Due to family, education and just sheer luck, some of us are able to live like royalty while others struggle to get food on the table. In between these two extremes is the middle class, struggling to pay the rapidly increasing costs of living. In this area, housing costs are forcing many out of communities that were once affordable, ethnically and culturally diverse. A recent protest by residents of the Mission District in San Francisco highlighted the expulsion of long time residents of the area due to the influx of young wealthy techsters. This new wealth is raising rents so high that the people who provide the culture that makes the Mission District attractive have to leave, taking with them the benefits of the community that money can’t buy.
Another way to look at housing inequality is from a carbon footprint point of view. I believe that the excessive use of resources required to build a 15,000 square foot home with 3 or 4 people living in it is a flagrant violation of our responsibility to leave a livable planet for our children. Yet we worship the “successful” people whose dollars are able to buy their neighbors homes so they can tear them down and build enormous compounds for themselves.
I know planning departments in wealthy communities struggle with trying to keep home sizes reasonable. They are rarely effective. Wealth buys lawyers who can outspend small municipalities who do not want to get involved in costly lawsuits arguing against the sanctity of private property. The whole concept of private property is becoming dysfunctional as currently manifested. As guests on this amazing planet, our time here needs to be lived lightly and respectfully if we hope to leave a livable planet for future generations. Our desire to own ever more and more is actually criminal behavior in relation to the future. I understand that our laws do not reflect this sentiment. We humans need to move in the direction of lightly using the services the biosphere offers so that we can lead warm hearted, happy lives while leaving a footprint small enough to assure a future.
To move us in a direction that can give the future a chance, I would like to see a “community tax” levied on homes over a certain size. This tax would be substantial and would be used to fund community centers, public transportation, low income housing, education and other services that benefit the majority. If someone really wants a 15,000 square foot house then they will have to want it badly enough to pay a premium based on the cost per square foot of construction for everything over, say for example 6,000 square feet. For illustration’s sake, let’s us a figure of $400.00 per square foot which for many of the homes around here, that is not an unreasonable number. So, 9,000 square feet (the size in excess of the maximum allowed) times $400.00 per square foot comes out to $3,600,000.00. Now that’s real money! Imagine the benefits that could be provided by this kind of additional funding into community projects. The homeowner could even increase their sense of status by not only having a huge house but also by contributing substantially to the betterment of the community. I know that this is very “pie in the sky” but until programs like this become institutionalized, there is little hope of our species evolving beyond the “greedy self” model that currently dominates and is destroying our chances for a future.