Twenty Square Miles

I decided on it tonight. Twenty square miles is the difference between rent and taxation. In a video of mine I propose a factor test, and yes I do think that the upward limit on the amount of land that can be possessed without disparities of power being steep enough to call coercion cannot be accurately described without very nuanced language and can only be approached in a very nuanced way. But I also believe that legal definitions must be obvious to laypeople, comprehensible by laypeople, and easily predictable. Landlords and DROs/PDAs aren't going to have much direction in how much contiguous land they may claim jurisdiction over when the question of whether they have a legitimate claim to such'n'such plot of real estate is a question that can only be settled in court or arbitration. The near-endless list of factors can be made a lot shorter if everyone agrees that contiguous jurisdictions have to be 20 square miles or less.

Why arbitrarily pick 20 square miles, you ask? Well, the land area of Santa Clara is 18.4 square miles, the land area of Malibu is 19.87 square miles, and both towns are small enough for only one aspect of the typical suburbanite's day to be contained in it - you either drive in for work and then drive back home, or you live there and spend only your evenings there. If you want to move, you can easily move to a neighboring town without drastically affecting your life. San Jose, on the other hand, is so big that all parts of a person's day can be contained in it, and moving to a neighboring town may be more difficult. I know, it sounds totally arbitrary. But it's a lot easier to say "20 square miles" than to go down an ever-expanding list of factors that contribute to the difficulty of moving to a different jurisdiction.

The 20 sq. mi. limit assumes, of course, that people have the means to get around quickly - that there are free or cheap roads and every adult has a car or a bicycle, or that there's public transport accross the whole city. Without the infrastructure for this level of mobility, the upward limit should probably be much lower.

And the 20 sq. mi. limit does not address entrapment, which can still occur when jurisdictions adhere to the 20 sq. mi. limit.