My local newspaper has set up a facility to permit comments on articles and opinion pieces, and I frequently respond to what I read. Yesterday, I posted a comment to an article entitled Office owners strive to retain tenants whose thumbnail description says "In tough times, office building owners often look for other sources of tenants besides relocations to their properties." Today I went back and someone had posted the comment, " Your sole issue is land value tax. Am I right?"
Here's what I had written yesterday:
If landlords want tenants, they should be campaigning to eliminate or at least reduce the sorts of taxes which tend to burden the economy, and to rely more on the kinds of taxes which invigorate the economy.
The best example I can think of for invigorating the economy is a move to land value taxation. Landlords with modern, well-maintained buildings should be in favor of it, because it reduces the disincentives for keeping their buildings in top form.
The best candidates for reduction are those taxes which penalize productive activity, such as sales taxes, corporate income taxes and personal income and wage taxes that fall heavily on those who contribute to the economy.
Many people have an entrepreneurial dream, and many of those dreams depend on one or more of these factors:
(1) a good location, with abundant foot traffic;
(2) a good location, with plenty of available parking (not necessarily on-street, just available!);
(3) a pool of talented employees within a manageable commuting radius, which generally means well-served by transportation infrastructure, including good highways and public transportation systems with frequent service.If we set up our incentives to make such locations blossom with suitable spaces, we will have a vibrant economy. If we fail to do so, don't we deserve what we get -- a depressed economy that has lots of ups and downs?
Let's motivate the private sector to use our fabulously located downtown well. Let's produce the economic environment in which those who own our "hole-in-the-ground" and our other chainlink-fenced vacant lots find it in their best interests to do what benefits the entire community: develop their prime sites to their highest and best use.
It is unconscionable that we continue to have the "hole-in-the-ground. " Half of Stamford's citizens have been alive for fewer years than we've had to bear that eyesore and vacancy. We're sprawling to the north, and we don't need to.
Two quotes from Albert Einstein:
- Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
- A clever person solves a problem; a wise person avoids it.
What does a wise city do? If we can't be wise, can we please be clever, and start placing more of our tax burden on land value?
And here is my response to his or her question.
I'm concerned with poverty, sprawl, wages, job creation, greenhouse gases, demand for energy, food, urban blight, economic development and prosperity.
As best I can tell, the best way to reduce poverty, reverse urban sprawl, increase wages, cause the private sector to create jobs, reduce commuting distances, reduce the amount of energy we are forced to use, reduce the amount of pollution we create, permit farmers to produce for food rather than fuel, nudge the private sector to redevelop our cities and generally share the wealth justly among us -- is enacting land value taxation.
Other than fixing those problems, it has little to recommend it.
Except that it will also allow us to reduce our reliance on dumb taxes, which burden the economy, burden the poor, produce sprawl ... you get the idea!
If any ONE of these issues seems to you to be worth pursuing, please look into the virtues of LVT, and then tell me what you think is wrong with the idea!
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