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Watch Los Angeles get built, one building at a time (1880–2026)

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Re: Watch Los Angeles get built, one building at a time (1880–2026)

#141

Post by MarkusQ »

lokar wrote: post #122
MarkusQ wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes it sound like the increase was due to some inexorable natural force. California's per capita budget is over twice Arizona's, and they're running a huge deficit on top of that. If taxes are too high, cut taxes. If that means you need to cut spending, cut spending. But don't play "hey, let's tax the other guy!" games and expect that to work.

Prop13 was a big tax cut. The people behind it were minimal government conservative libertarians. And the state did slash spending in the years following. In particular funding for the university system was hit very hard.

They did not slash spending. At most the rate of increase slowed down for a year or so before continuing to rise at an even faster rate.

https://dof.ca.gov/about-us/history/state-budgets/

Re: Watch Los Angeles get built, one building at a time (1880–2026)

#142

Post by fatcatsbestcats »

isubkhankulov wrote: post #84
syspec wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you own your home? Here in Ca? You know that property tax is 1.4ish % and goes up by 2% a year, pretty much no matter what? On a 1.5M house, that's starting at 17K a year and each year it goes up 2%, so it compounds. That's 17k a year Just to stay in your own home. People who don't pay property taxes here in ca, act like prop 13 means zero property taxes

Yes, your property tax is high ($17k) because of prop 13 - you are effectively subsidizing others who have sat on their residential and commercial property for 20-30+ years who are paying 25-50% of what you pay for any similar property in the same calendar year! Your property tax goes up by 2% of your , guessing (relatively recent?) purchase price, and theirs goes up 2% of a much smaller base due to prop 13. They hav…

I agree with everything you’ve said, but one clarification: you don’t even need a trust to pass the tax break down to your kid when you die. Sure, a trust can streamline that process, but it’s not required. At least everyone lucky enough to inherit benefits, not just those whose parents had the foresight (and the means) to create a trust.

Re: Watch Los Angeles get built, one building at a time (1880–2026)

#143

Post by kristopolous »

3RTB297 wrote: post #140
kristopolous wrote: post #34

This is more like the construction date of buildings that have survived. Some early neighborhoods (like palms) have been completely replaced building by building so they really appear as dark here when they weren't. It had a downtown in the 1890s but all those buildings are gone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palms,_Los_Angeles#/media/File... it's basically this data: https://portal.assessor.lacounty.gov/ through thi…

Also noticeable as the first buildings show up - each one isolated and miles from anyone else? Generally not how human habitation clusters up, even if it was all farms to start.

this is the best resource I know of

https://mil.library.ucsb.edu/ap_indexes/FrameFinder/

It genuinely is much more sporadic then you think. 1 or 2 houses, then empty blocks with streets there, then 1 more, then some building ...

For a modern version, look up california city - modest suburban homes respectably maintained with cars in the driveway surrounded by endless nothing.

I have to presume there's some people that look at this and say "wow, this is perfect".

Re: Watch Los Angeles get built, one building at a time (1880–2026)

#144

Post by tzs »

tikhonj wrote: post #128
lokar wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure why people are downvoting (without commenting), but I agree. The main selling point of prop13 was a real problem: rapidly increasing values were driving up taxes so fast that long time residents (of modest means) were being forced out. I don’t think it’s entirely unreasonable to have some policy that attempts to protect people living in their primary residence from rapid tax increases they can’t afford.

It really isn't. You could—and we did!—solve that problem by letting people defer property tax payments or borrow against their equity. California literally has a property tax postponment program for seniors. If we just wanted to keep people from being pushed out of their homes by rising house prices, we'd just expand that program. The point of Prop 13 is to let people have their cake and eat it too: you get to keep…

With postponement you then can get the opposite problem of people getting stuck in their houses because if they sold they would have a huge deferred tax.

The approach in Washington works well. There is a senior property tax exemption based on age and disposable income. To qualify in King County (where Seattle is) in 2027 you need to be 61+ and have a household disposable income under $101k.

That gets you (1) a freeze on the assessed value for taxes equal to the current assessed value, and (2) an exemption from the statewide school tax and from "excess levies" (basically city and county levies that are voted on).

If income is under between $76k and $89k they also exclude from tax 45% of your assessed value or $70k, whichever is larger, but not more than $200k.

If income is below $76k they exclude 80% of your assessed value or $80k, which is larger.

The income levels are based on median county household income so vary from county to county.

Disposable income is basically everything that goes into AGI plus a list of other things (like any Social Security that is not already in AGI). There are also a bunch of deductions, mostly medical including Medicare premiums, with a $7500 deduction you can elect to take instead of taking any of those specific deduction. Income includes all adults living in the house.

In my county the levies that are not "excess levies" are county roads, sheriff, conservation, mental health, veterans relief, fire district stuff, public utility district stuff, and regional library. The "excess levies" are a couple of school district levies. Overall the excess levies are about 28% of the property taxes in my county. The statewide school levy that is exempt is another 10%, so the bottom line is that the property tax rate for seniors under the income limit is about 60% of the non-senior rate.

Re: Watch Los Angeles get built, one building at a time (1880–2026)

#145

Post by axionbraid »

rustywasm wrote: post #2

I joined the county's 2020 lidar building footprints (LARIAC) to the assessor roll, so every one of the 1,129,558 buildings inside the City of LA has a footprint, a height, and a year built for 98% of them. (All public info, but kind of a pain to grab.) The page extrudes them in 3D and plays the city filling in from 1880 to now. Colors are by decade, or switch to height and fly to downtown. Hover any building for its…

[flagged]

Re: Watch Los Angeles get built, one building at a time (1880–2026)

#146

Post by pjerem »

slg wrote: post #86
epistasis wrote: post #28

It's amazing how little has changed in recent years in LA. The massive downzoning of the 1980s had its effect: prevent efficient land use, and channel money into the hands of landlords and homeowners from all newcomers. LA is a ridiculously unaffordable place to live, not because it's nice, but because of an artificial shortage of built space, due to a monopoly on the permission to build.

>The massive downzoning of the 1980s... To put numbers to this for those who aren't aware, LA was zoned for roughly 10 million people in the 1960s and by the 1980s it was zoned for roughly 4 million. It's part of the reason the city has had population growth slow to a crawl. It was decided some 40 plus years ago that LA should stay under 4 million people, so it has even til today. But the number of people who want to…

My impression of LA when I got there was that I would never live there, even in the nicest spots. Which confirms my intuition that the richest have no taste.

Also it’s an American city made for cars so it doesn’t help me to like it.

Re: Watch Los Angeles get built, one building at a time (1880–2026)

#148

Post by golem14 »

lokar wrote: post #107
golem14 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is also a completely unreasonable shortage of water for a much bigger city.

CA has droughts, but not water shortages. Most of the water goes to highly inefficient and low value farming.

Sure, but without that farming, how would we get our almond milk lattes?

Re: Watch Los Angeles get built, one building at a time (1880–2026)

#149

Post by [deleted] »

jedberg wrote: post #110
syspec wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you own your home? Here in Ca? You know that property tax is 1.4ish % and goes up by 2% a year, pretty much no matter what? On a 1.5M house, that's starting at 17K a year and each year it goes up 2%, so it compounds. That's 17k a year Just to stay in your own home. People who don't pay property taxes here in ca, act like prop 13 means zero property taxes

> Do you own your home? Here in Ca? Yes and yes. And I pay 10K less a year than my neighbor for the same value house. And I pay 10K more a year than my other neighbor. I get a huge advantage from Prop 13, but I still think it needs to get replaced with a much fairer system.

[deleted]
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