
Homevoters v. the growth machine: Who controls the development of cities? - jseliger
http://cityobservatory.org/homevoters-v-the-growth-machine/
======
nwah1
Left out the most crucial land reform. Shifting away from taxing improvements,
and shifting towards taxing land by value.

We must stop encouraging people to enclose valuable land for idle speculative
purposes. That land should be available at an affordable rate for those who
actually want to make productive use of it.

~~~
aetherson
My reading on this subject suggests that it's super hard to figure out the
unimproved land value of improved land. That seems like it's an important
hurdle.

~~~
bufordsharkley
That's an objection that many have raised (Hayek thought it made LVT
impractical), though there are schemes to make it better than the current
system (county-run assessors, whose values often bear very little connection
to reality)-- self-assessment of your land value being one.

~~~
dragonwriter
Self assessment doesn't really solve anything, especially if it's for
unimproved value (which is the tax basis in LVT), but all other important uses
(including, e.g., eminent domain) use as-is, improved value.

Self-assessment is arguably efficient for setting tax basis value for things
with ad valorem taxes when it serves as a firm and irrevocable offer to sell
at the price (e.g., if it were the firm, out upper limit, value for eminent
domain purposes.) But when the value taxed if definitionally different from
the price expected in any transaction, as it is worth unimproved land value
taxes, self assessment is trivially fallbacks to the point of uselessness.

In any case, I'm unconvinced that land value tax makes sense in a post-
industrial economy; in an agricultural economy out industrial economy, sure, I
can see the attraction.

------
ianbicking
Upzoning and downzoning are fairly different: upzoning often immediately
precedes building larger buildings. Downzoning puts an upper bound on growth,
but never results in a building being demolished (except in cases of a
derelict building, where downzoning makes it impossible to replace – though
even then it's usually possible to create replace a building with an
equivalent building regardless of zoning in the case of something like a
fire).

~~~
marssaxman
This would suggest that zoning codes represent a substantial constraint on
development, and form a substantial driver of rising rents.

------
ilaksh
[http://runvnc.github.io/tinyvillage](http://runvnc.github.io/tinyvillage)

~~~
mjevans
Limiting the vehicle size by weight is crazy. At 300lbs you're specifying
nearly the bulk of a normal American adult (we have a lot of obese and nearly
obese people; but a lot of strength trainers also qualify). The effort would
be better spent more directly attacking the desired result; short-medium
(intra small city) transit in extremely lightweight vehicles (bicycles are the
traditional solution, but electric scooters are another option).

Of course instead of those moving beltways might be a better use of one of the
pathways (and promote walking).

~~~
ilaksh
There aren't really a lot of people that overweight. Probably needs to be more
than 300 lbs, but what I am going for is for there to be a small enough amount
of force involved that people will almost certainly survive crashes. So the
vehicle has to be very light and that is what I was trying to go for. If the
person or vehicle is heavier then maybe it has to move slower to stay safe.

You say its better to make it a rule for people to use bicycles or scooters in
between towns. Well, I suggested in the same section to use bicycles or
velomobiles which is the same thing, except ideally since this is relatively
dense and mixed use you don't have to go very far to get to your store or
wherever and so its in the same town.

