[taffer]

If people only cared about land area, the distinction between urban and non-urban land wouldn't even exist. What makes urban land special is the infrastructure, schools, workplaces, restaurants, cafés, theaters, libraries. These things make a city a city. These things promote density because people cluster around them.

As I explained in another comment[1], a property tax discourages density and encourages sprawl. A land value tax, on the other hand, does not have these adverse effects on density because it taxes only the fixed supply of land, not the variable supply of buildings.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28423428