> The jobs are becoming increasingly concentrated in a few metro areas, but the home-owning class constrains the supply of housing and drives up the price of their own assets. Disincentivizing this sort of rent seeking behavior is precisely the kind of thing property taxes accomplish.
There are two solutions to that problem. Governments could either make it easier to rent in the increasingly concentrated metro areas, or reverse the trend of increasingly concentrated metro areas.
During Covid there were quite a few government created incentives for remote work. If government started to use tax law to further incentivize remote home, maybe we can start to cut out all those officer workers from needing to live in metro areas, only keeping people tied to cities who need to physically be in the city.
The difference of domestic emissions caused by city vs non-city residence is quite minor, about 10% per person looking at UK numbers. In comparison, a single flight by plane can double a person emission.
It also not clear if using existing numbers of rural living makes sense since most people do not work from home. If the norm is to travel to work, the further people live away from said employment the bigger the footprint will be. Existing numbers reflect that culture.
Looking at CO2 per capita, does the very high density cities of japan have better numbers than say India? No. Japan has 10 times higher than India. Of course we all likely know that that wealth influence emissions, which mean it not that simple to just say that concentrated metro areas are better for the environment than sprawl. Emission rates depend on multiple factors.
I think we are both saying the same thing. And 10% difference is not negligible.
My point is that we should do everything we can to keep densification naturally happening, as it is better. This densification is not a permit to allow ourselves to pollute, consume more.
Reversing the trend of jobs concentrating in metro areas is not exactly feasible. How would this be done?
Prohibiting companies from hiring more than X employees? What keeps them from just setting up another company and hiring them as consultants?
Or is there going to be a fixed cap on the number of people who are permitted to be employed? If someone moves to the city, and it's already at it's max number of workers they're just prohibited from working?
Jobs becoming concentrated in certain hubs is natural emergent phenomenon. You're not going to legislate your way out of it, at least not without resorting to oppressive systems like hokou.
One option is building for remote work. Up the definition of "broadband" to include something people can actually use for work, and mandate that employees are allowed to work remotely, with full pay, unless employers can demonstrate the job cannot be done remotely. Workers who have to be local should either get the same tax break, or the company should have to pay those taxes instead. It might also require simplifying (or at least simplifying the administration of) state/local taxes. There are a lot of people, myself included, that live in dense areas for work rather than by choice. My hangup is that I want to live in a nice house, but don't want the risk of buying/building a nice house that I have to sell at a loss because I have to move for work.
Another option is to add population density as a factor on taxes. Raise taxes and then offer a discount for people in low population density areas. Or you could tie the discount to the median income.
Anecdata, but a lot of the people I know don't really want to live in urban areas so much as that they have to because of jobs. We either need to decouple workers from physical proximity, or force companies to disperse. The first option decouples workers, and the second incentivizes companies to disperse.
The first step a government could do is to encourage remote work. Good Internet infrastructure is an essential first building block, one which is slowly start to be a reality even in rural areas.
My government currently have tax reduction programs in place to enable people to commute to work. The same program could be applied to work from home, giving people tax reduction if they do not travel to work and thus lighten wear on the road system and reduces the pressure on mass transport systems.
In the transportation sector there could be government programs to further incentives technologies that enable direct-to-customer delivery. During the pandemic we saw how reducing crowded stores had some very positive effect on reduced transmission rates, how viruses other than covid also saw a strong reduction. It is possible also that by improving direct-to-customer delivery we end up with less waste, fewer middle men, and possible less impulsive purchases.
We don't need to impose quotas. Make it easier, cheaper and convenient to live outside of large cities and a lot of people will jump for the chance to do so.
> Reversing the trend of jobs concentrating in metro areas is not exactly feasible. How would this be done?
Strange question to ask, given we've been seein the decentralization of jobs happening pretty strong for two years now. Jobs are remote now, wheneve possible, and people are moving to areas they want to live instead of being chained to the commute to an office.
Concentrated metros are more economically productive, not to mention environmentally friendly and better for quality of life. Government discentivizing them leads to a less efficient economy that provides for less of people's needs.
>There are two solutions to that problem. Governments could either make it easier to rent in the increasingly concentrated metro areas, or reverse the trend of increasingly concentrated metro areas.
That would require both negative interest rates and a land value tax because both are intended to neutralize liquidity preference. Negative interest rates prevent the build up of financial capital by overproducing "elites" which means people in rural areas will have those earning opportunities instead.
There are two solutions to that problem. Governments could either make it easier to rent in the increasingly concentrated metro areas, or reverse the trend of increasingly concentrated metro areas.
During Covid there were quite a few government created incentives for remote work. If government started to use tax law to further incentivize remote home, maybe we can start to cut out all those officer workers from needing to live in metro areas, only keeping people tied to cities who need to physically be in the city.