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Make More Land

jefftk.com

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Re: Make More Land

#171

Post by leetcrew »

amalcon wrote: post #170
leetcrew wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you don't get to resell the land when you're done with it, so it loses its value as a speculative investment. also the government gets a window whenever the lease ends to decide to do something else with the land (eg, build a train station).

I guess it depends on the term of the lease. You do get to sub-lease the land when you're done with it. The terms could even include an up-front cash payment that looks not dissimilar to a sale. This creates some value as a speculative investment, depending on how long the lease is going to last.

> The terms could even include an up-front cash payment that looks not dissimilar to a sale.

that's an interesting point. whether or not they structure it as an upfront payment, there's still an opportunity for people to grab a ton of leases, do nothing with the land, and essentially arbitrage the government rent. I guess you couldn't really eliminate this behavior, but you could limit it by the shortening the length of the lease term. of course, if the term is too short and the government is free to pick a different lessee next, it might be uneconomic to actually build anything.

Re: Make More Land

#172

Post by davidw »

beerandt wrote: post #129
davidw wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, unfortunately, for values of 'working' that signify huge costs for people, cities and the environment.

What do you suggest? Houston has its own set of problems.

Houston, like many American cities, massively subsidizes sprawl and an auto-centric (or auto-only) lifestyle. They may not have zoning, but they do have things like parking minimums throughout much of the city. And in their favor, it is a place where many people can afford to live, something that can't be said of places like the San Francisco bay area.

Where I lived in Italy, I could walk to:

* My kids' schools

* A small grocery store

* A cafe

* A takeout pizza place

* Our doctor

* A tram stop

* A small park

With a bike, many more places were within easy reach. How many places in the US allow so many different things so close together?

Re: Make More Land

#173

Post by daxorid »

eru wrote: post #42
thedaemon wrote: post #15

Seems to me to be the usual un-environment friendly corporate drivel. We don't need more people in San Francisco. They are the 13th ranked city by density in the USA. "The world is very large, and cities are a very small portion of it. The land we set aside for animals should be outside of cities, where far more land is available at far less impact to people."

We do need more people in San Francisco. It's one of the most productive cities in the world. But there's plenty of space there already: upwards. It's just illegal to use.

GDP per capita is a poor measure of productivity, and doesn't consider externalities.

SF is pretty good at producing emotionally manipulative adtech to opt every Internet and smartphone user into a global panopticon, and also quite prolific at social media that turns our lives into perpetually distracting hedonic treadmills.

Time will tell whether the "productivity" of SF was a net benefit to Civilization.

Re: Make More Land

#174

Post by eranima »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #124
eranima wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're ignoring the fact that the water has to go somewhere . Where is it going to go? Are you willing to flood your neighbors? Are your neighbors going to let you?

The oceans are 1.35 billion cubic kilometers. If you dike off a square kilometer with an average depth of 10 meters you've added 0.01 cubic kilometers. Spread out over the ocean's 361 million square kilometers that will raise the ocean level 30 picometers. I don't think my neighbors would care.

That's not how water works. It doesn't magically spread out throughout the entire ocean immediately

Re: Make More Land

#175

Post by AtlasBarfed »

carapace wrote: post #128
smileysteve wrote: post #13

Cheaper solutions; - High speed rail through the mountains to places like Modesto, Keyes etc. - More building up in Oakland, Richmond - Allow more remote work - Second headquarters in other major cities

Or build things on anchored floating barges?

That will at least be earthquake proof (assuming we are still discussing SF bay)

Re: Make More Land

#176

Post by eranima »

pjscott wrote: post #121
eranima wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're ignoring the fact that the water has to go somewhere . Where is it going to go? Are you willing to flood your neighbors? Are your neighbors going to let you?

Suppose that SF became 20 meters under sea-level (!), and was protected by a giant sea wall. The city's area is about 122 square km, so the total volume of water displaced by it would be around 2.5e12 liters. The ocean's surface area now is about 362 million square km, so (if I'm calculating this right) the displaced water from SF can be expected to raise the water level by about 7 micrometers. I'm not sure I see the…

I'm not talking about global sea level, I'm talking about flooding outside of the dikes. This happens all the time in the Mississippi river.

Re: Make More Land

#177

Post by eranima »

beerandt wrote: post #149
eranima wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's simply false. There are many different kinds of marine habitats, and as the above comment points out, this one is rare.

The parent comment self-defined it as "where the land naturally meets the sea." That's called the coast. So all coastline is rare and off limits? If we create a new island, what about that new coastline? Is it worth preserving for the sake of it's "rarity"?

Are you intentionally missing the point?

Re: Make More Land

#178

Post by war1025 »

leetcrew wrote: post #160
war1025 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that exactly what property taxes currently are?

no? if you renovate your house in a way that increases the value of the structure, you will pay more tax. under LVT, you only pay more tax when the land itself increases in value. that's how the tax gets its name.

My property taxes are a combination of both land value and dwelling value. So property tax is a superset of land value tax (at least here in Iowa).

My understanding is that this is all screwed up in California because there are restrictions on how much your taxes can go up each year. So it's not an issue of needing an additional tax, it's just a matter of needing to un-break California's property tax system.

Re: Make More Land

#179

Post by raldi »

siruncledrew wrote: post #153
darksaints wrote: post #127

How about stop pretending like we don't have enough land in the Bay Area. The entire population of the bay area could live within the borders of San Jose, with room for a million more, if it were built at the density of Paris. Land Use is the problem, not quantity.

Yea, it’s pretty stupid that filling in 50mi^2 of water bodies with soil, retaining all of that land, and then building on top of it is the smarter thing to do than re-developing current land to fit changing needs. The Bay Area could also just build taller buildings with more living space on land they already have in a denser area. Also, I like that the article complains about how bad sprawl is, and then their soluti…

Or even allow apartments within existing height limits in the places where only 40' single-family houses are allowed.

Re: Make More Land

#180

Post by mc32 »

kelnos wrote: post #157
tony_cannistra wrote: post #94

"The world is very large, and cities are a very small portion of it. The land we set aside for animals should be outside of cities, where far more land is available at far less impact to people" Perform a thought experiment in which human systems are part of nature, not separate from it; that land isn't set aside for nature, but that nature is everywhere. This frame will encourage systematic thinking of the sort that…

Yeah, this was my first objection, and the article addresses it in a way that I find completely misses the point. I think it's a fantastic idea overall, but not at the expense of wetlands preserves. Then again, what would actually be a fantastic idea overall would be increasing density in existing areas, but clearly that's politically fraught right now.

I used to think, why not build in desert or unproductive land? Well, you need water and you need jobs.

There is a reason very few people want to live in Siberia (south of the tundra). Except for some mineral extraction, fur trappers and some science/military outposts there’s not much to attract people even when Putin promises free land.

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