California subdivision mysyeriously sinks away . pictures

[tularetom]

2. There's a lot of pressure on local government bureaucrats to approve new development

It creates Jobs, jobs, jobs.

The politicians all run on a platform of economic development and even though residential development has bee proven over and over again to be a net drain of governmental services (as opposed to commercial or industrial projects that actually create jobs and generate sales taxes) the elected officials will usually jump backwards through their own assholes to approve any project that some fly by night developer puts before them.

The staff is between a rock and a hard place in situations like this. They generally try to insist that certain standards be met but they always meet with resistance from the developers (it costs them money to do things right) and skepticism from the politicians (they want to keep their phoney baloney jobs and they love those developer campaign contributions). So the staff recommendations often are ignored when projects are approved.

But later on when the shit hits the fan, you can be certain of where the politicians who overrode the staff will be. Right out in front of the mob pointing fingers at the staff and demanding to know how the fuck such an outrage was allowed to take place.

I've seen it a hundred times. Heads will probably roll over this but it won't be the heads of those who allowed the problem to happen.