An LVT addresses the incentives underling zoning. The LVT imagined by Georgists would very probably result in radically altered zoning rules. Zoning, after all, exists primarily to prop up the finances of homeowners.
A Georgist LVT is based on the value of the bare land, which is constrained by permitted uses. Adopting it without first removing zoning restrictions would increase the incentive for homeowners to defend the existing zoning rules, since the removal of the rules would increase the scope of alternative uses of the land in ways which would make it economically impossible for most existing single family homeowners to afford the taxes on the property.
On the other hand, once you remove the zoning restrictions, the existing economic incentives will produce densification without LVT, tbat's the whole thing the zoning restrictions exist to stop.
I mean, I agree with you about zoning; we're fourth and inches from eliminating SFZ in my muni, and an LVT isn't going to happen anywhere, so the rest of the debate is kind of academic.
An LVT results in new McMansions getting built on quarter acre lots and being taxed at the same rate as SFHs and trailers on quarter acre lots. It's the perfect way to allow rich people to buy out poor people and pay the same tax as poor people. Welcome to unintended consequences. Institute an LVT if you want, but don't expect low cost housing to spring up.
That is an irrelevant counterargument, since the idea of dense housing leans towards tall apartment buildings, not trailers. No one should have to live in a trailer.
The idea of what should happen is irrelevant, because we have not seen this "dense housing" actually materialize in US LVT jurisdictions any time in the past 100 years.
The township of the Fairhope Single-Tax Corporation near Mobile, Alabama was originally conceived as an artist's colony but is now occupied by families with a median income of $95K. Density is almost exactly 1 housing unit per residential acre. The feds have built 140 Section 8 subsidized units, but there do not seem to be any privately built high density tall apartment buildings of the type you want to see.
Can you point to an LVT place in the US where developers have chosen to build large numbers of actual NON-LUXURY high rise apartment buildings for the benefit of non-rich people? That would be a big newsworthy success story if it actually happened.
There are developers that make their money building high rise apartment blocks. Are any of them lobbying for an LVT so they can build more low cost housing?
> but there do not seem to be any privately built high density tall apartment buildings of the type you want to see.
There exist plenty of old buildings in urban centers that meet this criteria. There is nothing in principle that is stopping their construction. It's in the same imaginary league as LVT for that matter, meaning that if one can manifest, so can the other.
Luxury buildings are made because of a profit motivation. Even so, once the supply is increased by 10x or 20x, their prices too will come down. China is a supreme example of having cheap apartments.
