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Make More Land

jefftk.com

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Re: Make More Land

#221

Post by nybble41 »

leetcrew wrote: post #159
bluGill wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is what we already have. Land values are the price to change the lease from one person to another.

you can certainly look at it that way, but the cost to change the lease is way bigger than the "rent". I'm also implying that you shouldn't be taxed on improvements you make to the land (like building a house). you pay for occupancy of the land itself and for any services consumed.

I'm perfectly fine with the idea of a "land value tax" so long as the value of unimproved land is properly assessed: it is only use by humans that gives land economic value, so the value of unimproved land is zero. Feel free to multiply that by whatever rate you see fit.

Re: Make More Land

#222

Post by leetcrew »

nybble41 wrote: post #221
leetcrew wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you can certainly look at it that way, but the cost to change the lease is way bigger than the "rent". I'm also implying that you shouldn't be taxed on improvements you make to the land (like building a house). you pay for occupancy of the land itself and for any services consumed.

I'm perfectly fine with the idea of a "land value tax" so long as the value of unimproved land is properly assessed: it is only use by humans that gives land economic value, so the value of unimproved land is zero. Feel free to multiply that by whatever rate you see fit.

imagine you have a single acre of dirt in the middle of the financial district in Manhattan. even if you aren't using it yourself, you really think the value of that land is zero? the fact that you aren't currently using the land for anything doesn't mean someone else couldn't use it for something extremely valuable. you are keeping that land idle at a massive opportunity cost. on the flip side, if you have a huge plot of land out in North Dakota, the tax may well be close to zero.

Re: Make More Land

#223

Post by pas »

seiferteric wrote: post #35

> 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. Wetlands in particular are pretty rare and environmentally valuable places though. The fact that you would fill them in and "set aside" some probably less valuable land somewhere else is not very reassuring.

The idea is sound though.

Calculate how much that particular wetland is worth ecologically and find a low-price equivalent somewhere, buy that.

The Bay gets more space to sprawl their ugly single family madness and the wetlands (or more precisely the wetland equivalents) are safe too.

Furthermore, it's possible to simply incrementally move the wetlands toward north by filling in a southern patch and wetland-ifying some of the southern parts of the Bay's open water.

And ... this modest proposal is very much the mirror that the Valley needs. Not that it will help much, but still. It would eradicate the wetlands and the Bay itself before allowing proper high-density development and mass transit.

Re: Make More Land

#224

Post by Liron »

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…

I suspect you're suffering from status quo bias. Try flipping the situation around: imagine we have this same area as undeveloped land, with a button that magically converts it into the current Bay. Would you prefer to develop the land or not?

Re: Make More Land

#225

Post by ricardobeat »

tasuki wrote: post #191
thewarrior wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer : I have only seen SF and NY in the US. Netherlands is one of the best countries I've been to. Its squeaky clean throughout with excellent infrastructure. Most of the roads, public transport systems look spanking new and are not overloaded. Its also quite green. The long distance trains are also pretty fantastic compared to the ones you might find in the UK or US. Amsterdam is one of the most liberal citie…

Futuristic, why not. Squeaky clean throughout - now that must be a different Netherlands than the Amsterdam I lived in! Particularly after Koninginnedag or the New Year's Eve it would take days of wading through a thick layer of mush before it got cleaned. I've never seen such a mess anywhere else! (And I kind of enjoyed it. It felt... alive?)

Are you japanese by any chance? Amsterdam is considered a messy place even by the Dutch themselves, especially inside the canal ring, but compared to most european capitals it is as clean as a shopping mall. Those festivities are special days, and there aren't many throughout the year.

Re: Make More Land

#226

Post by ridewinter »

jefftk wrote: post #209
driverdan wrote: post #60

> 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. Absurd. Just because a city happens to be there doesn't mean we should destroy the surrounding environment with impunity. Want to increase available housing in the bay? Get rid of NIMBY zoning that prevents building up.

(author here) I'm also strongly in favor of abolishing the restrictive zoning that prohibits building up, but in many ways it's less politically practical to increase density in built-out areas than build new dense areas. If we don't use small amounts of land close to cities to build new housing we'll continue with our default of using large amounts of land far from cities. This destroys more of the environment, poll…

Nice, concise & persuasive article. Do you think the political environment in the Bay Area is ripe for it?

Re: Make More Land

#227

Post by davidw »

taurath wrote: post #200
davidw wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most downtowns were built up before they got zoning laws: that's part of why they tend to be a bit better from that point of view. Also, where I lived in Italy was a suburban area and it still managed to have all those amenities.

Towns and villages in Europe are almost always highly compact compared to the US - I put it to that auto ownership was a bit lower and trains could be more efficient. Plus the relatively homogenized cultured meant there was less of a need to have sub enclaves on things other than economic class.

> Towns and villages in Europe are almost always highly compact compared to the US

That's a political choice. I mean, yes, the US has a lot of land and fewer people, but there are plenty of places that might be more compact if it were legal.

Re: Make More Land

#228

Post by dragonwriter »

davidw wrote: post #227
taurath wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Towns and villages in Europe are almost always highly compact compared to the US - I put it to that auto ownership was a bit lower and trains could be more efficient. Plus the relatively homogenized cultured meant there was less of a need to have sub enclaves on things other than economic class.

> Towns and villages in Europe are almost always highly compact compared to the US That's a political choice. I mean, yes, the US has a lot of land and fewer people, but there are plenty of places that might be more compact if it were legal.

> That's a political choice.

Well, yes, in that, among other things, many European towns and cities are shaped by political choices made when population to length of enclosing wall ratio was an important political consideration.

Re: Make More Land

#229

Post by nybble41 »

leetcrew wrote: post #222
nybble41 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm perfectly fine with the idea of a "land value tax" so long as the value of unimproved land is properly assessed: it is only use by humans that gives land economic value, so the value of unimproved land is zero. Feel free to multiply that by whatever rate you see fit.

imagine you have a single acre of dirt in the middle of the financial district in Manhattan. even if you aren't using it yourself, you really think the value of that land is zero? the fact that you aren't currently using the land for anything doesn't mean someone else couldn't use it for something extremely valuable. you are keeping that land idle at a massive opportunity cost. on the flip side, if you have a huge pl…

> the fact that you aren't currently using the land for anything doesn't mean someone else couldn't use it for something extremely valuable

That (speculative) value is based on how they propose to use the land. In other words, their improvements. That acre of dirt in the middle of the financial district might as well not exist, in economic terms, until someone actually builds something on it or otherwise starts using it to satisfy human needs or wants.

Put another way, say that acre of land is on the other side of an impassable barrier. It's exactly the same land, but no one can get to it to make use of it. What is its value now? The value comes from how the land is used, not the land itself.

If you're proposing to base the tax on what others would be willing to pay for the land (the market value) then this is no longer a land value tax but rather a property tax.

Re: Make More Land

#230

Post by jefftk »

romwell wrote: post #219
darth_avocado wrote: post #169

How about instead of trying to create land, use the land we already have in a less wasteful manner? Most of the bay area is horizontal and refuses to build vertical. And most of bay area also refuses to participate in public transit reform. Just those two items can fix most of the problems with a much less economical and ecological cost.

No way the thing that works literally in every other country on Earth will work (or is possible) in the Bay Area. No, we should fill the Bay, build more single-family units, and hope that whatever reasons we have for not having functional transit magically won't apply in the newly-minted suburb.

I'm very much not proposing building single-family units. See the discussion about density starting at "Wait, how many people are you saying would live there?"
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