Why is it assumed true that individuals do not contribute to the increasing appeal of their neighborhood?

What if I voted for pro-theme park politicians? Or what if I volunteered my time to clean up the community parks and shared space? What if I helped improve the reputation of my child’s school by volunteering and donating to the music department?

My taxes fund the maintenance of public infrastructure and services, and my actions support the civic good. If I vote to be cheap or generous with taxes, or choose to be lazy or ambitious in community support, that all contributes to the desirability of the land around me.

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hahahacorn a day ago | parent [-]

> Why is it assumed true that individuals do not contribute to the increasing appeal of their neighborhood?

Two things are true: 1. I should have been more precise in my language. "You didn't do anything to make that happen" is a useful generality and not a prescription of every single individual in the community. In this case, we're talking about fairness - which I don't actually care much about myself, but is a point that people most often can emotionally identify with. But, to continue, if you're carrying all that water on behalf of your land value, then good for you! You likely have an existing stake in the community, other than the land that you own (maybe the businesses or houses or other property built on that land or you own a local services business). That is great! The fairness comes from owning the finite resource of land, and not something others can provide (housing, businesses, etc.). I hope you do continue to contribute to your local community and increase its appeal!

2. Your fixation on this point reveals a very fundamental misunderstanding of the goal of an LVT (surely partially my fault). It has to do with efficient taxation. Dollar equal, it's better that your taxes come from the value of the fixed resources of your community rather than things that can be increased. Because then you don't have a depressing effect on productivity and the things, other than land, that make your community nice. It's better that you keep more money from the things you _do_ for your community instead of the monopolies you hold in your community.

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vineyardmike a day ago | parent [-]

I disagree with the fundamental premise on both parts.

> "You didn't do anything to make that happen" is a useful generality and not a prescription of every single individual in the community.

In fact, everyone does contribute, positively or negatively, to their community. Either through involvement or absenteeism, or somewhere in between.

> Your fixation on this point reveals a very fundamental misunderstanding of the goal of an LVT

The goal is obvious and not a misunderstanding. The goal is a bad goal, precisely because it punishes positive involvement in the community. To improve the community means to increase your own cost of staying.

Imagine someone wants to avoid displacement due to their taxes increasing beyond their ability to pay. I don’t know why they would want to stay in their economically “inefficient” house, but perhaps it’s because home is where the heart is and they have sentimental attachment to their home.

If they want to keep your housing costs down, the best thing to do is poison the ground (metaphorically or literally) because it decreases the “productivity” of the land. Box stores in America famously pay low property taxes because building a box store actually decreases property values - they’re expensive to demolish and limited in utility, while being an eye sore that makes the neighborhood higher traffic and less undesirable. Mississippi as a state is cheap because the voters used the government to destroy public services - it’s in someone’s best interest to do this in a Georgism world if they don’t want to be regularly displaced.

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hahahacorn a day ago | parent [-]

Quite the contrary, it rewards positive involvement in the community and it punishes anti social involvement in the community (leaving your lot empty, letting your neighbors create a vibrant community you do not contribute to, and then selling at a large profit anyway). The reward is the taxes you're not paying on the positive productivity you're bringing to your community (which is how we're currently punishing those who make their communities nicer).

Please just look at the pictures and decide if it peaks your interest enough to read the post: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/does-georgism-work-five-yea...

Link with highlighted text (It's a single paragraph): https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/does-georgism-work-five-yea...

> If they want to keep your housing costs down, the best thing to do is poison the ground (metaphorically or literally) because it decreases the “productivity” of the land

Yes, if you collapse multi-dimensional problems into a single dimension you can find many logical oddities. If I wanted an easier time finding a doctors appointment, I should murder every non healthcare professional in my local area until all of their calendars are totally clear. Wanting cheaper healthcare is evil! You're really saying things for the sake of saying them and I'm not going to engage further or explain to you when you're saying irrelevant things.

> it’s in someone’s best interest to do this in a Georgism world if they don’t want to be regularly displaced.

Under the majority of proposed LVT policies (and the ones I support) the vast majority of American housing would see a decrease in net property taxes paid since the majority of American's Building / Land value ratio is orders of magnitude higher than the average parking lot, land speculator, etc.

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vineyardmike 19 hours ago | parent [-]

> I should murder every non healthcare professional

Crazy comparison to Walmarts lowering their own property tax because building a Walmart makes future land use less attractive.

(Same thing applies to gas stations which do literally poison their own land)

> I'm not going to engage further or explain to you when you're saying irrelevant things.

Don’t engage that’s fine, but I gave a specific example of a common way to use land (box stores), which explicitly breaks the LVT model. People today use land for many economic activities that are expensive to repurpose, or impose negative externalities.

	▲	hahahacorn 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The box store argument is pro LVT. Read the article.