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> Big fan of land value taxes. They apply pressure to make the best use of the land rather than sitting on it. I like that Land Value Taxes hurt anyone hoardin

> Big fan of land value taxes. They apply pressure to make the best use of the land rather than sitting on it. I like that Land Value Taxes hurt anyone hoarding land to ride the rising assessments (which is a major problem today). But I don't like that LVT punishes people for productively using land. Land Value Taxes apply pressure to make the highest capital return on every piece of land, which is not the same thing as the best use of the land, and would hurt many good uses of land that are not profitable. > In a city, you're more dependent on the government to take care of things, and in most US cities, with single party control, it does not happen. Yep. And what's worse, most cities intentionally want to make all of these things worse. Cities are often intentionally destroying their infrastructure (tearing down useful-but-unloved infrastructure for useless-but-pretty replacements) and intentionally destroying their affordable housing (purposefully gentrifying areas of their cities, to drive out residents deemed undesirable) The cycle of driving people out of the city by attacking housing/transportation/services is not an accident, it's not happenstance. This is an intentional design goal baked into how they frame every problem and how they approach every change. It's not something anyone will admit to upfront, but if you travel through Urbanist circles long enough, you can get into the behind-doors conversations they have and see this in action. > I've seen this happen over and over again with coworkers who initially were big on city living, but eventually moved out when they got mugged or had kids. Yep. And if you escape the crime or the school problem, they'll hit you on housing or transportation instead. There's no escaping the never-ending list of problems forced upon residents. Suburbs are the place for affordable housing. Suburbs are for functional schools. Suburbs are for sustainable living. Suburbs are for decent infrastructure. Suburbs are for diversity, especially on the low-income/working-class side of things. Suburbs are the place you begin your startup in a garage, because Suburbs are the only place cheap enough that a regular person could have a garage at all. Cities aren't for people. Cities are for the conglomeration of capital, and capital alone. Humans need not apply.

clairity 8y ago
> "Land Value Taxes apply pressure to make the highest capital return on every piece of land, which is not the same thing as the best use of the land, and would hurt many good uses of land that are not profitable." (highest and) best use [0] is generally understood as maximizing economic return, so you're essentially arguing semantics here. with that said, i agree with the underlying sentiment that it's not the only "return" we should consider. maximizing economic return fails to capture the richness of the human experience in often obvious but not easily quantifiable ways, which is why we let economists get away with such unrealistic models. but your position on suburbs (vs. urbs) is baffling (and idealistic). suburbs externalize their costs to achieve that cheap living. implementing an LVT would (presumably) take that advantage away. [0] https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Highest_and_best_use https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Highest_and_best_use

clairity 8y ago

> "Land Value Taxes apply pressure to make the highest capital return on every piece of land, which is not the same thing as the best use of the land, and would hurt many good uses of land that are not profitable." (highest and) best use [0] is generally understood as maximizing economic return, so you're essentially arguing semantics here. with that said, i agree with the underlying sentiment that it's not the only "return" we should consider. maximizing economic return fails to capture the richness of the human experience in often obvious but not easily quantifiable ways, which is why we let economists get away with such unrealistic models. but your position on suburbs (vs. urbs) is baffling (and idealistic). suburbs externalize their costs to achieve that cheap living. implementing an LVT would (presumably) take that advantage away. [0] https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Highest_and_best_use https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Highest_and_best_use