Do You Know Where You Live?

An anonymous submitter writes "Thanks to GPS, it seems quite a few people are discovering they don't live where they thought. Prior to GPS, state, county and city borders were part law, part measurement, and part guesswork. Now, they're able to go back and discover where actual borders should be, and it's making many people unhappy. Some familes in Rhode Island are finding out they may actually live in Connecticut. Each state, county and city wants as much land as possible, because it means more tax income. The people caught in the middle simply want to know where they'll send their kids for school."

Comments

well...

[Auckerman]

I suspect in the cases sited, which used rivers to determine boundries, you will see the old common law agreements sticks. When you are measuring within a few feet to find a spot that moves (a few yards) with the seasons, on both sides of the border no less), you're new "accurate" measurement has little value and one is still stuck with simple common agreement.

Would be an easy case to present, and keeping common agreed boundries is a no brainer. If one starts using fixed points on boundries, who's to say a narrow river that is used as a boundry will not just move entirely into another state or county...imagine the implications for water management...

No rational person wants that.

Old Land

[N8F8]

I bought a piece of peopery in Surry County Virginia a few years ago. I had a hell of a time because the recorded deed goes back more than a hundred years and refers to chops in trees for markers and distances measured in chains.

Most mortgage companies wouln't touch it without a recent survey. I finally found a farm credit company that would give me the mortgage. I've had the road frontage surveyed but I still have to survey the other 60+acres. Researching the sale was quite an education.

I could go down to the city office and pull up three different aerial surveys of the area, but no land surveys. Reaally sad because the county taxes me on 40 acres and acording to the surveyer I used for the frontage, I probably have 80+ acres.

Reminds me of Four Corners....

[wowbagger]

Last year, I went through Four Corners - for those of you not up on your US geography, Four Corners is the point at which Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah all meet, being the only place in the US where 4 states meet.

I was struck by the arbitrariness of this location - it was nothing but a meeting of fictional lines on a map. There was no magical property of this location - c was still 3E8 m/sec (to 1 significant digit), 9.8 m/sec^2 acceleration, no majestic peaks, poles, or pyramids rising from the ground. Save for a decision made by a bunch of beaurcrats there was nothing special about this location.

This article strikes me the same way. Due to a complete non-event (the changing of a line on a map), people's lives are going through upheaval.

So we are able to more accurately define these imaginary lines. Why do we need to change the location of the border - why not just more accurately define existing practice. Look at a map of Kansas - the state USED to be a simple rectangle, until somebody decided to use the river to define the northeast corner. Now we have the silliness of "Kansas City, Mo!"

It just seems so wasteful!

Re:use common sense...

[hyperizer]

the other things, such as taxes, etc, that's fine...they don't directly effect your day-to-day life...

What about the elderly lady whose amublance service (that she presumably pays for with her taxes) would be switched to a town much farther away? It's a situation that shows how important these borders (and your taxes) can be...

And what about voting districts? What if you're suddenly unable to vote for the school board for your child's district?

In the Southwest, water rights are a big issue. I wonder if GPS has been making any changes to who gets to water their crops.

Re:Related problem

[JUSTONEMORELATTE]

Blockquoth right back atcha:

It amazes me people can refuse access. Even if you believe in the virtual sancitity of private property you own, until the survey is done, you don't know you own it. Couldn't the state argue that, to know where your "denial" begins, they need to get on your land anyway?

In some parts of the county (Mississippi, to be precise) the state survey crews have been greeted by shotgun-toting farmers (ranchers? I've not spent a lot of time in MS) when the survey crews come to call. When I say they are refusing access, I don't mean some lawyer in a suit, I mean a very simple, literal (and effective!) refusal. In a very rural setting like this, the survey crew isn't going to get a lot of support from the local sherrif, and the state law enforcement has better things to do.

For that matter, say Farmer Johnson thinks the well is on his land. Can't he grant access for the survey team to walk the perimeter of his land, and then see where the well ends up?

In many cases, this is exactly how the state (dept of revenue in some places, dept of environmental quality in others) is getting the job done. Doesn't always work though, there may be several wells along the property line, some on each side. It's an agrarian Prisoner's Dillema!
What's always been funny to me is that the state agencies that care about well locations don't care at all about property lines. One of the most effective efforts involved establishing fixed points for differential GPS, then sending backpack-sized receivers in with the well maintenance crews. It's a nutty industry all around.

Re:Borders

[Citizen of Earth]

Who burnt down who's capital building buddy!

The British burned down the American's. Did they get the Capitol Building or was it just the White House and miscellaneous other buildings? (Not that any Americans would know, since they aren't taught about wars they didn't win.)