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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We're in a world now where the value of Palo Alto's land is driven by many things outside its borders. Unfortunately, the governmental bodies with authority over land use are the least sophisticated, most selfish ones (local cities).
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Yeah but you can extrapolate that out all the way in to the universe. NV gets some value from CA, CA gets some value from the Pacific Ocean, which gets some value depending on how many nuclear power plants are falling in to it on any given day, etc.
That's a good argument to handle land use at the highest level possible. Japan does it nationally and builds sufficient housing for its citizens. California doing it at the state level would be a rough approximation of that.
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China does it best. You don't own land, you get a lease, we can buy you out at any time. For the greater good. Deal with it. I'm fine with that. Problem I have here is that instead of making it explicit and compensating victims, people try to force changes without compensation.
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