People who are wistful over countryside and rural farms don't often realize that the property tax is a major engine driving congestion and urbanization. It's not always possible to hold on to property that is constantly increasing in value while you sit there.

Where I live near Silicon Valley was all orchards fifty years ago. The lot on the other side of my back fence was a field when I moved here, including a run-down chicken shack. It's row houses now.

A tiny farm in my area was a popular place in the middle of the urbanization which sold pumpkins at Halloween, Christmas trees in December, and fresh produce in the summer. A little scale railroad carried happy kids around in a circle during pumpkin and Christmas tree season, and farm animals were there for petting. The original owners, stubborn types, eventually passed on, and while their heirs held on as long as possible, taxes drove them away, and soon the same tiny rat-warren row houses that occupy so much of the hideously expensive land here will grow in the farm's place.

One farmer struck a pretty good deal recently. Half his cherry orchard is now a fancy mall with upscale stores, but on one corner of the property, in a nice, new little building, is his little produce shop selling fresh cherries from the rest of his orchard and other fruit and nuts from around the area.

Of course, I imagine that many farmers liked the money more than the land. Maybe in their place, I would, too. Most of my older relatives were farmers, and as they got older, I suspect that a comfortable retirement with a few sea cruises thrown in would have started looking pretty good compared to driving a tractor. Unfortunately, my relatives did not have the foresight to pick farmland near a growing city.

I suppose it would probably be a lot rougher here without Prop 13, but I don't actually know how that applies to land instead of houses.