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computation further assumes that any new household would contribute the average amount of non-property tax revenues generated by existing residential properties, and takes as a benchmark the current property tax rate of 88¢ per $100. Based on these assumptions, the breakeven property value is computed to be just under $190,000. Discussion The results presented above provide answers to the two questions posed at the beginning of this report. As regards the public services provided by Gaston County, commercial and industrial land uses emerge as being the largest net contributor to local financial resources. In contrast, the value of public services provided to residential land uses exceed the property taxes and other revenues that they contribute to the county budget. This finding contrasts with claims that are sometimes made that residential development is a boon to county finances due to its expansion of the property tax base. It would appear that the very large footprint of the education and human services expenditures in the overall county budget plays a dominant role in explaining this phenomenon. Finally, agricultural lands more than pay their own way. This is true despite these properties being taxed on the basis of their current use (as opposed to their potential use were they to be transformed into commercial or residential uses). Qualitatively, these findings for Gaston County are consistent with the findings of nearly every Cost of Community Services study that has been carried out in other communities throughout the U.S. The degree of cross-subsidization of the residential sector—in particular, the extent to which the Gaston County's commercial sector pays for services provided to its residential sector—is somewhat lower than the median in other studies that have been conducted nationally. Closer to home, the relative balance of revenues and expenditures for the residential and commercial land use categories is qualitatively similar to that which was found in comparable studies conducted in Chatham, Wake, Alamance, Henderson, and Orange Counties. As was stressed at the outset, some degree of subsidization of certain land uses by other land uses is to be expected in virtually every community. The distribution of revenues and expenditures among various land uses in Gaston County that has been computed here is based on current land use patterns in the county. Determining whether or not this distribution is 6 G-4 Page 249