[mjmahone17]

On the parks/“natural land”: would you rather land exist as an empty razed dirt field for speculators to wait to sell, or given back to the city?

Taxing the land value means there’s no incentive to own land that won’t be productive. The city or municipality can guarantee land it owns can have natural growth on it, whereas when private individuals own it the state can’t really stop the land from transforming into a parking lot.

As to how to value the land: the market decides. What is the price for the land, if you took away all existing improvements on the land itself? There is usually enough vacant similar land around where this is pretty easy to figure out.

The government can charge for services like upgraded electricity and keep the land value low, or they can bring the electricity to the land and count “lots of electricity available” as part of the value of the unimproved land.

[_heimdall]

> On the parks/“natural land”: would you rather land exist as an empty razed dirt field for speculators to wait to sell, or given back to the city?

That seems to be jumping to an extreme end, that someone owns an empty plot of land that has been cleared and destroyed to bare, dead dirt. My concern is that the same incentive pushing one to sell a pile of dirt would exist for someone owning an undeveloped, natural plot of land. My earlier caveat still exists, maybe this isn't a concern in dense areas though it would add some blockers for anyone interested in turning developed land back into a park.

> Taxing the land value means there’s no incentive to own land that won’t be productive.

One concern I have is the expectation that all land should be optimized for productivity. That goes against my own view on land, I don't think we humans have some innate right yo extract all available value. I also don't like that this likely goes against concerns of environmental impact.

> The city or municipality can guarantee land it owns can have natural growth on it

I can't quite put my finger on a better way to describe this, but it just feels off to me that only the state would be able to allocate land as parks, natural space, sanctuary, etc. Obviously what you are proposing wouldn't block anyone from doing this, but it would create incentives that make it unlikely.

> As to how to value the land: the market decides.

The market only decides on my land's value when I sell it. Until then, is the land valued at what I paid for it? If so that is at least predictable I suppose, that would be helpful so I know what my future tax burden would be.

> The government can charge for services like upgraded electricity and keep the land value low, or they can bring the electricity to the land and count “lots of electricity available” as part of the value of the unimproved land.

I wasn't just asking about how enough power gets to the land - not sure why the government would be responsible for that unless government and industry merge. I was meaning to ask with regards to the environmental impact angle. Taxing to create incentives to build as high-value improvements as possible would inevitably lead to a drastic increase in a locality's energy requirements. Where does it come from, and how do mitigate the environmental impact?

[crooked-v]

> That seems to be jumping to an extreme end

If anything it's not extreme enough. Consider how much area in city downtowns is given over to paved-over parking lots that are just left to sit there rent-keeping for years. That's worse than just dirt fields, because at least the dirt fields can support life!

> My concern is that the same incentive pushing one to sell a pile of dirt would exist for someone owning an undeveloped, natural plot of land.

...if the taxes are high enough to incentivize them to sell.

If you have an undeveloped plot of land in a city where land taxes are high, you should be incentivized to either sell that to someone who will make use of it, or donate it to the city to serve as a public park, rather than getting to have your own private green space somewhere that space is at a premium for everyone else.

[_heimdall]

> If you have an undeveloped plot of land in a city where land taxes are high, you should be incentivized to either sell that to someone who will make use of it, or donate it to the city to serve as a public park

Why must land goes used? Is the assumption that we must fully utilize every inch of land in a city, regardless of what people living there or the land owner wants?

Building on as much usable space in an already high density area can and has had downsides that seem to get overlooked in this thread. Higher density means more traffic, higher demand on infrastructure and utilities, and the need to bring in even more resources from outside the city and send out even more waste for someone else to deal with (to name a few).

This assumption that taxing land high enough to make sure that none of it is left undeveloped unless the city owns it is begging for runaway problems, unless these other considerations are factored in. Doing so almost certainly means not having the tax, as the goal of more dense development competes with the other concerns.

[ufocia]

I'm aware of areas where real estate taxes are high and large swaths of land are owned by private non-profit conservation organizations.

[lmm]

> That seems to be jumping to an extreme end, that someone owns an empty plot of land that has been cleared and destroyed to bare, dead dirt. My concern is that the same incentive pushing one to sell a pile of dirt would exist for someone owning an undeveloped, natural plot of land. My earlier caveat still exists, maybe this isn't a concern in dense areas though it would add some blockers for anyone interested in turning developed land back into a park.

If you're not doing anything with land in an in-demand area then it creates an incentive to sell it, yes - that's pretty much the point. Realistically, undeveloped lots in in-demand areas (i.e. cities) are not nice natural landscapes - they're dirt yards at best. It takes a lot of work to maintain a park, and frankly putting a tax on land is more likely to return some of those unused lots to the city who could then open a public parks there, than discourage someone who was maintaining a park privately.

Even in the country, land that's completely untended is rarely pleasant, although in places where land isn't worth much, a tax like this won't make much difference either way.

> One concern I have is the expectation that all land should be optimized for productivity. That goes against my own view on land, I don't think we humans have some innate right yo extract all available value. I also don't like that this likely goes against concerns of environmental impact.

The idea that someone owns land like chattel and can do whatever they want with it is surely worse from that point of view. If you're taxed on the value of your land, you're incentivised to use as little as possible, and leave the rest for the public or nature - e.g. if you can build a factory in half as much space, you've halved your tax bill.

> The market only decides on my land's value when I sell it. Until then, is the land valued at what I paid for it?

No, there would need to be an assessment process, although perhaps backed by a market mechanism (i.e. if you think the assessment is too high you can ask the government to buy you out at that amount, or some such).

> Taxing to create incentives to build as high-value improvements as possible would inevitably lead to a drastic increase in a locality's energy requirements.

It doesn't create a new incentive to build more unless the more you're building is valuable. You can densify by building more in the same space yes, but you can also densify by building the same in less space, and that's what saves you money so presumably that's what people will do (after all, if building more was profitable, wouldn't people already be building more)? For the same amount of economic activity, you'll require the same amount of energy, just in a smaller space, which again is likely to be more efficient and better for the environment (the same number of factories in half the space means fewer cables, less transmission losses etc.).

Now of course if you make business more efficient then maybe you end up with more business, but isn't that a good thing? Again it only makes sense to build more if there's demand for it - otherwise you're better off staying small and cutting your expenses. Land value tax might even help encourage people to not expand prematurely - if doubling the size of your warehouse means paying more tax, maybe you'll put it off a few years until you're actually going to use that space.

[_heimdall]

> frankly putting a tax on land is more likely to return some of those unused lots to the city

This seems like a really dangerous justification, and frankly one that would be a complete no-go for me. You just made it clear that the goal, at least in part, is to make a tax so high that it more often goes unpaid and the city can take the land away from the land owner. They might as well skip the game and claim eminent domain.

[lmm]

> You just made it clear that the goal, at least in part, is to make a tax so high that it more often goes unpaid and the city can take the land away from the land owner.

Have you ever lived near an empty lot or abandoned building in a city? Yes, I want those going back into circulation, whether via the owner doing something with them, selling them to someone who will, or it falling to the city. You do know we're in a housing crisis? There simply isn't enough space to go round, something has to give; I'd rather see those absentee landowners who don't care enough to do the minimum lose their stuff than have hard working people living n to a room like we do now.

[ufocia]

> The city or municipality can guarantee land it owns can have natural growth on it

Only if the city/municipality has money to do so. A degenerate example is where the city/municipality own all of the land and thus has no real estate tax base. You may think that this is ridiculous, but check out some blighted areas around the US and you'll see plenty of local governments that have a very shallow real estate tax base reminiscent of the "ridiculous" argument.