[gottorf]

> Build a town, not a subdivision.

I would really love to see a billionaire tackle this. There's loads of empty, or nearly empty, space in this country. Heck, take over a town if you really want! Sink a few million dollars into kickstarting small-scale urbanism.

I'm not usually much of a billionaire-hater, but today's lot for the most part seems to be uninspired, when it comes to projects like this.

[01HNNWZ0MV43FF]

First institute a land value tax. If you have a regular property tax you are going to get speculators, and then eventually vacant lots

This is part of the housing supply mystery. It's not very profitable to build housing when you are punished for building upwards and making good use of the land

[seanmcdirmid]

Some states are biasing property taxes more toward land value to get some trade off. The problem with a pure land value tax is that you can be forced to sell your home ir redevelop (if you can afford it) if your land value appreciates over time (this should happen eventually, but will happen perusals too quickly with an LVT). Also, services (schools) rendered with property tax money scale as more people live there, and if you go for pure land value, you wind up with some whacky rates to support schools.

[gottorf]

I'm a big proponent of LVT, and even bigger of gradually replacing most taxes with LVT, but the great thing about being a billionaire is you can just buy up a whole town and develop it as you see fit and not have to worry about speculators engaging in rent-seeking behavior.

[mingus88]

I don’t think you’ll ever see a billionaire tackle this. To become a billionaire, you have to have a complete lack of empathy.

This is why the only solution we see are maximized profit vehicles. The qualities that would make someone want to create a lovely place to live exclude them from making billions of dollars in the first place.

[reducesuffering]

Did you both not see the project that is trying to do exactly this in Solana County CA and has had immense criticism at it, far more than positive coverage...

Damned if you do, damned if you don't

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Forever

[gottorf]

Looks like it's stuck in the typical hell of environment impact reviews and local politicians seeing how many sinecures they can obtain through the project. I wish the project well and will follow up on it.