It seems contradictory that large, powerful landholding capitalists, accustomed to activating the state’s capacity in enormous profit-enhancement projects, such as water development, would relinquish acres to the state. What was in it for them? First, they sell land—often the worst—that would otherwise be idle and more often at an inflated price (CCPOA n.d. [1996]; BRC 1990). Second, the state improves the land, and those improvements, coupled with the promise of employment, in the short run increase nearby land values. These two goals were summarized by a former head staffer of the JLCPCO concerning a dispute between the CDC and a site where the owners had surreptitiously extended the state-owned infrastructural improvements—at state cost—onto an adjacent parcel they intended to develop into a shopping mall: “They have all this land, and they are trying to bring up the values so they can develop it. That’s how they hope to save their town.”