[article] Detroit wants to be the first big American city to tax land value

https://www.economist.com/united-states/2023/10/05/detroit-wants-to-be-the-first-big-american-city-to-tax-land-value

cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/Neoliberal/t/524431

If you tax blight, will you get less of it?

61 points · 4 comments · view on lemmy.world

4 Comments

HubertManne@kbin.social · 13 pts · 2y (2 replies)

This seems great actually as I would think it would incetive high density construction. The less land to building ratio the less tax.

Fried_out_Kombi@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 2y (1 reply)

Exactly, and it also discourages speculative landholding, rather encouraging people to actually use their land appropriately. Detroit especially has so much vacant land -- much of it owned by the Illitch family -- that you can clearly see it from google earth:

As well as a crapload of downtown parking lots:

Everybody works but the vacant lot.

HubertManne@kbin.social · 2 pts · 2y

I could see some sort of land discount if its either forested or well maintained and open to the public.

Fried_out_Kombi@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 2y

Non-paywalled link: https://archive.ph/Y3OAM