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Hoarding of inner city land occurs because inner city land is valuable and naturally scarce. It is valuable because it is possible to leverage it to effectively

Hoarding of inner city land occurs because inner city land is valuable and naturally scarce. It is valuable because it is possible to leverage it to effectively levy a privatized tax on others for its use (rent). Gold is also hoarded and not used because it is scarce and valuable, not regulation. It feels odd to have to point that out. There is basically one (good) solution to this problem: tax land values higher (e.g. raise property taxes). That doesn't eliminate scarcity but it reduces the incentive to hoard and it reduces speculation. Increased land value (which in cities is created by the community) would instead accrue to the community via taxes. Hoarding and not using land would lead to heavy losses. Property investment would become more of a normal business where high quality construction matters more than making lucky gambles (like the kind that made Trump rich).

mafribe 10y ago
tax land values higher If you don't also remove, or at least weaken, strict zoning laws, who would be able to pay high property taxes?
kmicklas 10y ago
> tax land values higher (e.g. raise property taxes). More specifically, taxing land irrespective of the value of what's built on top of it.
- crdoconnor 10y ago
  Ideally LVT, but it isn't necessarily prudent to spend political capital to set up an entirely new form of taxation. Property taxes are still a close enough approximation of LVT in cities like San Francisco, Vancouver and London where the majority of the value of a property is derived from its location.
Applejinx 10y ago
In Vermont USA we have homestead declaration. I declare the home I'm living in as my homestead, can only do it once, and the property taxes are less hardcore because it's my home. I approve of this arrangement. Why, just because land ownership CAN be a money sink for abstracted accumulation of wealth and power, MUST it be that rewarded money sink? Why is it sacrosanct that people should be able to hoard 'location' beyond what they personally use? Note that I don't think there's a real limit to how big of a property can be 'home'. Versailles? Knock yourself out. You figure you should own 12 Versailles, and keep 11 of them empty? Uh nope. There is only so much area on the planet.
- areyousure 10y ago
  Amusingly, even if everyone had their own personal Palace of Versailles, we still wouldn't cover the entire surface area of the Earth.
  - Arizhel 10y ago
    Not many people want a property the size of Versailles in someplace like Siberia or Antarctica. Only a small amount of the Earth's surface is land (30%), and of that, only a fraction is land that anyone wants to live on.
    - areyousure 10y ago
      I looked up some context out of curiosity. Siberia appears to be home to 40 million people (half a percent of the world) now, living at a population density of five Palace of Versailles per person. Antarctica isn't doing as well, with only 1--5 thousand people at a time. Millions of people live on land that was formerly water. For example, many people in the Netherlands live below sea level. A sixth of the current land mass of the Netherlands has been reclaimed. Of course, worldwide it seems that only slightly more than about 1% of 1% of land is reclaimed. Not many people literally live on water, but it seems that the worldwide total is at least 100,000 (or a small multiple thereof). Estimates of what portion of the land on Earth is "habitable" varies, but is usually about half of the land. At that rate, we would have to share each Palace of Versailles with all of 5 other people.
      - Arizhel 10y ago
        You're still equating all "habitable" land as equal. I'm sorry, but land in northern Canada or the Saudi Arabian desert is not equivalent to land in Hawaii. Only in one of those places can you enjoy being outdoors year-round; the other places will literally kill you if you stay outside for very long. That's exactly the main reason there's reclaimed land in places like the Netherlands. No one cares about reclaiming land in Siberia because very few people want to live there (and those that do, likely live there just because of work and because they have no easy way of moving someplace nicer). Finally, those people living in Siberia likely do not have that much living space per person, certainly nothing like the palace of Versailles. More likely, they live in mining towns or small cities, in small houses or apartments, with most of the land area being unused.

mafribe 10y ago

tax land values higher If you don't also remove, or at least weaken, strict zoning laws, who would be able to pay high property taxes?

kmicklas 10y ago

> tax land values higher (e.g. raise property taxes). More specifically, taxing land irrespective of the value of what's built on top of it.

crdoconnor 10y ago
Ideally LVT, but it isn't necessarily prudent to spend political capital to set up an entirely new form of taxation. Property taxes are still a close enough approximation of LVT in cities like San Francisco, Vancouver and London where the majority of the value of a property is derived from its location.

Applejinx 10y ago

In Vermont USA we have homestead declaration. I declare the home I'm living in as my homestead, can only do it once, and the property taxes are less hardcore because it's my home. I approve of this arrangement. Why, just because land ownership CAN be a money sink for abstracted accumulation of wealth and power, MUST it be that rewarded money sink? Why is it sacrosanct that people should be able to hoard 'location' beyond what they personally use? Note that I don't think there's a real limit to how big of a property can be 'home'. Versailles? Knock yourself out. You figure you should own 12 Versailles, and keep 11 of them empty? Uh nope. There is only so much area on the planet.

areyousure 10y ago
Amusingly, even if everyone had their own personal Palace of Versailles, we still wouldn't cover the entire surface area of the Earth.
- Arizhel 10y ago
  Not many people want a property the size of Versailles in someplace like Siberia or Antarctica. Only a small amount of the Earth's surface is land (30%), and of that, only a fraction is land that anyone wants to live on.
  - areyousure 10y ago
    I looked up some context out of curiosity. Siberia appears to be home to 40 million people (half a percent of the world) now, living at a population density of five Palace of Versailles per person. Antarctica isn't doing as well, with only 1--5 thousand people at a time. Millions of people live on land that was formerly water. For example, many people in the Netherlands live below sea level. A sixth of the current land mass of the Netherlands has been reclaimed. Of course, worldwide it seems that only slightly more than about 1% of 1% of land is reclaimed. Not many people literally live on water, but it seems that the worldwide total is at least 100,000 (or a small multiple thereof). Estimates of what portion of the land on Earth is "habitable" varies, but is usually about half of the land. At that rate, we would have to share each Palace of Versailles with all of 5 other people.
    - Arizhel 10y ago
      You're still equating all "habitable" land as equal. I'm sorry, but land in northern Canada or the Saudi Arabian desert is not equivalent to land in Hawaii. Only in one of those places can you enjoy being outdoors year-round; the other places will literally kill you if you stay outside for very long. That's exactly the main reason there's reclaimed land in places like the Netherlands. No one cares about reclaiming land in Siberia because very few people want to live there (and those that do, likely live there just because of work and because they have no easy way of moving someplace nicer). Finally, those people living in Siberia likely do not have that much living space per person, certainly nothing like the palace of Versailles. More likely, they live in mining towns or small cities, in small houses or apartments, with most of the land area being unused.