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I personally advocate things like urban density, mixed use zoning, walkable cities, human sized homes, urban forestry, but I don't think LVT's are the right too

I personally advocate things like urban density, mixed use zoning, walkable cities, human sized homes, urban forestry, but I don't think LVT's are the right tool. I live in a city with "market value assessment" for property taxes, and it profoundly lacks transparency, and is a very dodgy regime altogether. The main thing a LVT creates is constant churn as (retired) people cease to be able to afford to live in their homes, incentivizes being a landlord, and punishes family wealth creation via home ownership (which is a barrier to class mobility), as if you own property, you now need to generate revenue from the land to pay the taxes on it. The LVT isn't for services either, it's punitive by definition. Sure, it would get rid of some vacant buildings, and we do need a way to discourage land and property banking that turns hot money into high prices for home buyers, but taxes are what you impose when you have a policy that nobody would win re-election on voting for. It's literally what nobody wants. Nudging taxes are inferior back door policymaking by regulators (in their own interest) who can't get the political traction for an actual policy. Who is nimby'ism a problem for? Arguably, people who want to impose unwanted experimental policy, and in-effect loot the wealth that cohesive local communities and their cultures invested in and built. Nimby'ism as concept is a slur that makes a villain of anyone with a home and investment in their local community, and who may be skeptical of centralized policymaking. I'd question the underlying values behind advocating an LVT, as they tend to be within a degree of some other very technocratic impositions that mainly benefit their administrators.

xxpor 4y ago
>who may be skeptical of centralized policymaking. Oh, we're talking about zoning? >The main thing a LVT creates is constant churn as (retired) people cease to be able to afford to live in their homes, incentivizes being a landlord, and punishes family wealth creation via home ownership (which is a barrier to class mobility) Yes, this is in fact literally the point. You can't have a growing population, and then depend on land ownership to generate wealth in perpetuity. There's only so much land. The class mobility point is especially hilarious. Yeah, Joe the Waiter is really going to be able to afford the $1.5 million 2000 sq ft house in Seattle to move his family up the ladder.
- motohagiography 4y ago
  Joe the Waiter buys a house in a rough neighbourhood with his partner Lance, who works a hospital caregiver job, and together, their relationship becomes a community fixture that makes that neighbourhood a little more desirable for other families, who move in, and leverage their property to send their kid to college, who in turn become engineers and lawyers, etc. Eventually, Lance dies, and Joe lives on his remaining pension in the house they had together, in a neighbourhood they invested their lives in and made it desirable and safe. This hypothetical couple took a risk by moving into an area that was blighted by related naive policymaking the OP was advocating, and a LVT just penalizes them for their rapacious capitalist gentrification of a progressive policy failure.

xxpor 4y ago

>who may be skeptical of centralized policymaking. Oh, we're talking about zoning? >The main thing a LVT creates is constant churn as (retired) people cease to be able to afford to live in their homes, incentivizes being a landlord, and punishes family wealth creation via home ownership (which is a barrier to class mobility) Yes, this is in fact literally the point. You can't have a growing population, and then depend on land ownership to generate wealth in perpetuity. There's only so much land. The class mobility point is especially hilarious. Yeah, Joe the Waiter is really going to be able to afford the $1.5 million 2000 sq ft house in Seattle to move his family up the ladder.

motohagiography 4y ago
Joe the Waiter buys a house in a rough neighbourhood with his partner Lance, who works a hospital caregiver job, and together, their relationship becomes a community fixture that makes that neighbourhood a little more desirable for other families, who move in, and leverage their property to send their kid to college, who in turn become engineers and lawyers, etc. Eventually, Lance dies, and Joe lives on his remaining pension in the house they had together, in a neighbourhood they invested their lives in and made it desirable and safe. This hypothetical couple took a risk by moving into an area that was blighted by related naive policymaking the OP was advocating, and a LVT just penalizes them for their rapacious capitalist gentrification of a progressive policy failure.