site value tax

Sharing the Land – an idea whose time has come

Even with a Site Value Tax covering developed land and a Land Value Tax covering all the rest, access to land is important. The taxes recognise land as a commons shared by all but resilience requires that its use is widely spread amongst the population. Distributed landownership is needed to protect against large landowners lobbying to remove the LVT and also to spread the knowledge of carbon building, biodiversity protecting, sustainable food growing methods amongst the widest groups of people. Here is an interesting article in shareable.net about emerging land share systems in the US and UK.

Why Pittsburgh real estate never crashes: the tax reform that stabilised a city’s economy

by Dan Sullivan, from Fleeing Vesuvius. Pittsburgh and Cleveland have adopted diametrically opposed strategies, with dramatically different results. In Pittsburgh, foreclosure rates are low despite the downturn, home prices are climbing slightly and construction rates are increasing. Cleveland, meanwhile, is struggling to stem a complete collapse of its housing market. The difference lies in the fact that Pittsburgh has had a site-value tax, which steadies the market, and Cleveland has not.