What's wrong with that?
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How is it harming people? What's wrong with the world having some places with more expensive and less dense housing than other places?
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Those places shouldn't be in the middle of one of the regions that are simultaneously among the most productive and experience the most displacement of anywhere in the country
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Correct. Palo Alto's privileged place in the world is not because its residents are so savvy or its local government so brilliant. It's because of a large number of factors, some within but most outside the city's control, that lead to an economically strong region.
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Palo Alto has the dumb luck of being located next to a world-class university and directly in the middle of Silicon Valley. It's very reasonable for society to expect PA to behave responsibly as part of having that luck. The city has not and has instead indulged selfishness.
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Or is it the world-class university that has the dumb luck of being next to Palo Alto? Whether it was luck at one time doesn't mean it's been luck for the existing set of real estate owners/investors who priced in the land, the laws, zoning rules and proximity to good stuff.
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The value of a piece of land is largely outside the control of the landholder and is instead created by the community at large. This is why a land value tax makes economic sense.
This billboard is sarcastic but Palo Alto acts the same way, unironically:
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I'm all for land taxes. If we could 10x the taxes connected to the holding, protection, maintenance & use of land while eliminating income taxes, we'd be 100x better off.
I'd love that. And Palo Alto would not exist as the segregated country club that it is under that world. Landholders wouldn't be able to afford market-rate taxes and would instead sell to developers who would build condo and apartment buildings instead.
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There's no path to an LVT in California right now, but we could get some of the benefits of it with looser zoning.
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