Replying to a message of Bob Klahn to Bob Ackley:

 BA>>>> Plattsmouth, over a 29 year period my property taxes went
 BA>>>> up over 1,000 percent (from about $80/year to over
 BA>>>> $900/year, between 1976 and 2005); this on an 825 square
 BA>>>> foot hovel that was built in about 1880 on a lot that
 BA>>>> measured 44 x 150 feet (less easements).  The tax on the
 BA>>>> place is probably over a grand/year today.

 BK>  Wait a minute? Where is Plattsmouth?

About a mile south of the confluence of the Platte and Missouri Rivers,
on the Nebraska side of the Missouri.  The mouth of the Platte River,
as it were.

 BK>>>  A hovel? Then move to Ohio. I pay more than that, but I have a
 BK>>>  larger and better house. Except the portion where my computers
 BK>>>  are kept, my wife does have something to say about that.

 BA>> I moved to Iowa.  I pay lower property taxes (in dollars)
 BA>> on my place here - which is valued at more than twice that
 BA>> of the house in Plattsmouth, includes a house more than
 BA>> twice as big as the one in Plattsmouth, 3 outbuildings
 BA>> and 2 acres of ground - than I did on that house in
 BA>> Plattsmouth.  In point of fact

 BK>  Oh, I had thought that was the house you were living in now.
 BK>  Wasn't aware you had moved from there.

 BA>> the effective property tax rate in Plattsmouth was *five
 BA>> times* the effective rate here in rural Mills County.

 BK>  And does rural Mills county have the services Plattsmouth has?

AAMOF it does.  All of them.

The only problem I have is the fact that the fire department is five miles
away instead of five blocks away - and that hasn't been a problem, yet.  I
note that when needed fire engines seem to appear from all over.  Recently
a house burned in Emerson, and about five minutes after the Emerson department
had set up a big truck came blasting into town from Hastings (five miles west).
Several years ago a bigger fire in Emerson had four or five engines from Emerson,
Hastings and Red Oak.  In 2004 a soybean stubble fire north of me brought a
response (an 18-wheeled water truck, no hydrants out here) from Malvern (about
10 miles as the roads go), Malvern is where the county's rural FD is located.

FWIW the gravel road in front of my house is in better condition than many if
not most of the paved arteries in Omaha.

Mills County grades the road at least once a month and they just laid down a
couple of inches of new crushed rock.  The road is usually plowed free of snow
within an hour or two of the end of snowfall, and sometimes while it's still
falling.  In most of the city of Omaha, especially the eastern (older) parts of 
the city, snow is removed by solar heat, not city snow plows.

 BK>  Does it have the cost of living?

Except for property taxes.  State income tax is lower than Nebraska's, too
(they're trying to rectify that oversight); and Iowa has about 50% more people
than Nebraska.

 BK> The infrastructure?

Actually it's better than Nebraska's in general and Plattsmouth's in particular.

--- FleetStreet 1.19+