Odd, no mention of driverless cars, which are sure to wipe out the taxi industry entirely.
The Tyranny of Taxi Medallions
151–160 of 219 posts
Re: The Tyranny of Taxi Medallions
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's far from obvious that demand has outstripped supply. The population of Manhattan was significantly higher in 1937 than it is now 1.9 million vs. 1.6 million. On a population basis it would seem that we would need fewer rather than more cabs. What drives the demand for cabs is the the price of a ride versus the alternative. If the regulated fare is low relative to subways & buses and the overall price level, cabs…
What I don't get is why a city as dense as NYC supports any transportation method that puts a few individuals above the public good. Cars in a dense urban area epitomize the tragedy of the commons. Buses and delivery trucks are the only vehicles that must have access to the street. Everyone else should be walking, taking public transportation, or bicycling. Not having to wait on a street corner for a crosswalk signal…
> What I don't get is why a city as dense as NYC supports any transportation method that puts a few individuals above the public good.
Well, for one thing, NYC is answerable to NYS. Lots of people commute into NYC from its suburbs, they like to drive, and they do vote.
Re: The Tyranny of Taxi Medallions
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've brought this up in another thread, but over in the UK, due to a lack of property taxes, its possible to purchase a home, yet stil have to pay a yearly ground rent to a private party. The cost to own land in nothing, so there's little incentive to ever sell it, and instead lease it out. People may complain about property taxes in the USA, but it prevents this very practice from happening. It would be better for e…
I don't understand .. why would you purchase a home without the land it rests on? In a free market, perhaps there is some lower price where you would do this, but there is also a higher price where you could purchase the land as well.
I used to live in a city with a community land trust. You can buy the house and get a long-term lease on the land but the land trust (a non-profit organization) retains ownership of the land. They also have a right to buy the house back when you sell it, limiting you to 25% appreciation.
The intention is to keep house prices affordable. (Sort of an upscale trailer park, now that I think about it). If you had the means to buy elsewhere, you probably would.
Re: The Tyranny of Taxi Medallions
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
In practice, though, it's not that different to property taxes, just that the land is owned by some lord instead of the central government. The effect is just the same. Nobody really owns their land, whether leasehold or freehold. Ownership is really just a right to exclusive use in the best case. As the old saying goes, if you want to know who really owns your land, stop paying taxes and find out.
The cornerstone of democratic philosophy is that there's a huge difference between a central democratic government and some lord.
In theory, yes. In practice, not so sure. As a little guy I still owe someone money even though I "own" the property. There is also mineral rights and such that make it complicated. Then zoning. At the end of the end of the day someone comes and slaps me for not paying them "rent".
Re: The Tyranny of Taxi Medallions
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
People buy Condo's all the time. Also, in the United States, you very often give up mineral rights. So you may own the "ground" your home is on, but you don't own whatever comes out of it.
Condominium owners usually own a proportional share of the land that the building rests upon and the common areas of the property.
That seems almost like a scam. Kind of like time shares.
Re: The Tyranny of Taxi Medallions
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, argumentum's point is that presumably there is some cost at which the ground holder would sell the land. Like, if the ground rental brings in $10,000 per year to the owner of the title, and I came along and said, "I will pay your $1,000,000 for the title," well... I'm offering you one century's worth of ground-use fees up-front. Presumably all but the most irrational actors would sell their ground.
I suspect you'll find the economics are such that most home owners wouldn't be able to afford to buy the land their house is on.
So what happens. Presumably there is a completely parallel market for land. Land owning elites presumably buy and sell land all the time and homes are bought and sold all the time as well. The two rarely intersect? Or maybe those that can buy land can easily buy the house as well? Very confusing. In US effectively the local government and the state "own" and you are just leasing it. There is not parallel land market unless jurisdiction lines get redrawn for some reason or a states secedes from the Union or something like that (you can imagine some negotiations then where the city say, this land with homes brings in $45M in property taxes/year, we wish to sell it for $1.3B cash...) of course this is all hypothetical...just to make a parallel.
Re: The Tyranny of Taxi Medallions
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't understand .. why would you purchase a home without the land it rests on? In a free market, perhaps there is some lower price where you would do this, but there is also a higher price where you could purchase the land as well.
Once there are separate owners (for whatever reason it happened), it's not that easy to arrange that - since the land owner usually does not want to sell.
What if they do sell? Can land owners do whatever they like to the home owners? Like kick them out? Start drilling tunnels through the land, extract oil in the back yard?
Re: The Tyranny of Taxi Medallions
#158Medallions exist for a very good reason: they prevent a tragedy of the commons from creating gridlock and pollution in major cities by limiting the number of cars circling around doing nothing on city streets. Most of the time, cabs just drive around waiting for a fare. This is because cabs are often hailed when they are seen, but even if a cab is summoned by a phone call (or smartphone) the closet cab to the fare is…
While that may be a benefit of medallions (or not), it's almost certainly not, historically, why they exist.
I can't speak for all medallion programs, but NYC medallions were created to solve a surplus of taxis and associated congestion, low wages, and poor service, at least according to the NYTimes:
http://www.nytimes.com/1996/05/11/nyregion/medallion-limits-...
Re: The Tyranny of Taxi Medallions
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
Driving taxis isn't a crime against humanity. Your argument is that requiring medallions to drive a taxi (which I agree has become an inefficient and slightly corrupt situation) is in any way comparable to slavery is an insult to anybody who's ever read any history.
> Driving taxis isn't a crime against humanity The problem here isn't some people "driving taxis", its that these people, and organizations associated with them, lobbied for and bought into a system that prevents, by force of government, anyone else from driving taxis. And of course, even that is not a crime against humanity. If it was, I'd be advocating the use of military intervention if it was serious enough, such…
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Re: The Tyranny of Taxi Medallions
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've brought this up in another thread, but over in the UK, due to a lack of property taxes, its possible to purchase a home, yet stil have to pay a yearly ground rent to a private party. The cost to own land in nothing, so there's little incentive to ever sell it, and instead lease it out. People may complain about property taxes in the USA, but it prevents this very practice from happening. It would be better for e…
That and the fact that the US is 1/7th as densely populated as the UK (UK is 260 people per km, the US is 34/km). The US is #179 on the population density list country wise. If someone won't sell you a piece of land, there's a vast supply of other land to look at. The only place you'll run into a problem is in a few high density metros like NYC.
I think there's definitely something to this, because land taxes aren't common in Australia, either, and yet almost all houses there are freehold house and land.