[clairity]

i’d vote enthusiastically for a superlinearly-escalating tax on impervious surface area as a percentage of lot size to counteract runoff and groundwater issues, as well as flood control. we have entirely too much concrete and entirely too little permeable ground with trees and plants in cities like houston and LA.

[giantg2]

That's interesting, but I'm missing how that will help. Most people want their house, driveway, and patio. I don't know that the tax would change any behavior.

[clairity]

it would encourage developers to minimize those things. in LA, for example, the city had a subsidy to replace thirsty lawns with drought-tolerant landscaping. many property owners replaced lawns with fake plastic grass... that requires a concrete substrate. so we got more heat-concentrating surface and worse water/drought management. this kind of tax would have encouraged property owners to consider better alternatives.

[giantg2]

It seems that's more of a poorly thought out policy that is being subsidized. It's focusing on removal of an attribute (grass) rather than an outcome (drought tolerant native plants replacing lawns to manage water requirements, tempature management, and rain water). A better option would be to fix the poorly implemented subsidy program to set specific criteria that creates a beneficial environment.

[clairity]

it's one example of a swath of problems that can be discouraged in one go, rather than having to mitigate each poor policy one at a time.

natural ground cover is beneficial in many ways over impervious surfaces so incentivize the former and disincentivize (rather than prohibit) the latter. if you want to cover your whole lot with concrete, go for it, but expect to pay for the negative externalities of that.

[giantg2]

I really don't see a benefit to creating conflicting/competing policy. You have people who would rather keep their lawn than go to concrete based on the tax being more than the subsidy (assuming one time subsidy vs yearly tax). The policies undermine each other. You can't just slap a single policy over a multitude of others and think that's more beneficial, right? You have to look at it from a systems thinking perspective, which would require evaluating the interactions and n-order effects between that one police and all the others. If you're doing that work already (clearly politicians don't, based on the existing poor policies) then you might as well fix the underlying issues since it will allow the policies to function more effectively.

"but expect to pay for the negative externalities of that."

But what do you think that money will actually do? Is it going to prevent issues? I don't think so. It won't even cover the costs of actual damages in many cases.