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It's really unfortunate that we had 140 years to get this into law but that we only ever care about it when it becomes an issue, and once it becomes an issue it

It's really unfortunate that we had 140 years to get this into law but that we only ever care about it when it becomes an issue, and once it becomes an issue it's so entrenched we can't do anything about it. With that said, there are net-neutral transition strategies. One of them is for the government to simply give all land owners money equal to the value of their land, but that might create inflation. Another might be instead to give all land owners a tax credit equal to the value of the land that can be spent on their land tax. We can do this fast, we can do this slow. We can give aid, we can give tax credits, we can phase things in. If the LVT advocates, which includes many of the world's top economists, are right, then small transitions will quickly yield results that we can snowball into bigger transitions. The important aspect to me, is that eventually we reach a point where incentives align.

toss1 4y ago
Good thoughts. >>government to simply give all land owners money equal to the value of their land That is already in place - it's called eminent domain, and a SCOTUS case decided that it CAN be used for private development and not only for public works like roads. So, yes, govt could literally do a forced purchase of entire neighborhoods, and they would be required to pay current values, and then rebuild it at whatever density they want. The other thing that could actually reduce complaints is to actually compensate the owners for loss of value. E.g., if single-family tracts have a value of $100 due to quality of living (wildlife, low traffic, open spaces, etc), and someone wants to put up massive apartment units in the middle, eliminating wildlife habitat, increasing traffic and consuming the open space, that will make the single-family unit's value decline to maybe $50 right next door, and $70 500 yards away, $90 1000 yds away, and $95 between the location and the major highway. Pay them the $50/$30/$10/$5 loss of their value, maybe in tranches when the project is approved, built, occupied. It can come out of some combination of the developer's or the town's budget. That sort of appropriate compensation would go a long way towards reducing opposition. What the tantrum-people ignore is that they want to live in the nice places, but giving them what they want is literally doing to destroy the very thing they want.

toss1 4y ago

Good thoughts. >>government to simply give all land owners money equal to the value of their land That is already in place - it's called eminent domain, and a SCOTUS case decided that it CAN be used for private development and not only for public works like roads. So, yes, govt could literally do a forced purchase of entire neighborhoods, and they would be required to pay current values, and then rebuild it at whatever density they want. The other thing that could actually reduce complaints is to actually compensate the owners for loss of value. E.g., if single-family tracts have a value of $100 due to quality of living (wildlife, low traffic, open spaces, etc), and someone wants to put up massive apartment units in the middle, eliminating wildlife habitat, increasing traffic and consuming the open space, that will make the single-family unit's value decline to maybe $50 right next door, and $70 500 yards away, $90 1000 yds away, and $95 between the location and the major highway. Pay them the $50/$30/$10/$5 loss of their value, maybe in tranches when the project is approved, built, occupied. It can come out of some combination of the developer's or the town's budget. That sort of appropriate compensation would go a long way towards reducing opposition. What the tantrum-people ignore is that they want to live in the nice places, but giving them what they want is literally doing to destroy the very thing they want.