wealthandwant theme: New York City

New York City

Charles B. Fillebrown: A Catechism of Natural Taxation, from Principles of Natural Taxation (1917)

Q52. In old cities, it is not nearly all the land in use?
A. About one half the area of New York and Chicago is classed by the assessors as vacant. In Boston the proportion is: occupied, 45 percent; vacant, 43 percent; marsh, 12 percent. ... read the whole article

Jeff Smith: What the Left Must Do: Share the Surplus

During the 1920s, New York City taxed land but not new buildings put on it. Construction more than tripled while in other big cities it barely doubled. There were more jobs and higher wages for construction workers, and more business for merchants who sold goods to the employed workers. There were more buildings for new businesses that hired help. (“How New York Solved Its Housing Crisis,” Charles Johnson Post, 1934?) Read the whole article

New Yorkers benefited before from geonomics. After World War I, the city lacked housing. Borrowing a page from former mayoral candidate Henry George, the council exempted new buildings but not underlying sites from taxation for the next ten years. During the first half of the Roaring 20s, new construction more than tripled while in other big cities it barely doubled. Economic good times came to an end when owners in 1928 began to anticipate the expiration of the exemption. Stalled housing starts helped trigger the Great Depression.

Lindy Davies: Land and Justice

Wealth — products, widgets — these things are made by human beings. If customers are willing to buy more of them, then manufacturers will make more of them. But human beings can't make land. The supply of land cannot be increased. If the demand for land increases, only one thing can happen: its price will go up.

The owners of land see population and production go up, up, up — and no more land. So, they will only put their land to use if they have an immediate need for the cash. If they can afford to wait, they will wait, because they expect the land's value to increase with time.

That, in a nutshell, is the key to the land problem — the problem of poverty.

That is why millions upon millions of people who are willing and able to work cannot find work, even while millions upon millions of acres of useable land (city land, industrial land, farm land, you name it) are held idle.

This leads to no end of problems. In the United States, it brings urban blight and suburban sprawl, which disrupt communities, and waste energy and resources. You don’t think under-use of land is that big a deal? Consider the fact that in the five boroughs of New York City, 7.5% of its land, or 18.6 square miles, is vacant. That’s buildable land, not parks or streets. And, of course, a great deal more land in New York, as in every other city, is used somewhat, but far less than the local economy would support. New York City has about 80 people per acre of residential land. That means that New York’s vacant land could house another 956,000 people at current density levels, without even starting to use its vast stock of under-used land. ... read the whole speech

Mason Gaffney: The Taxable Capacity of Land

How does one come to so startling a finding? Wisconsin is not a backward state. It prides itself on the high quality of its public administration. What I did was study sites on the eve of demolition.

When you buy an old junker to tear down and replace with a new building, you (the market) are obviously recognizing that the building has no residual value. All the value is then in the land. However, in Milwaukee in 1969 the Assessor was saying the building was worth about three times as much as the land, just before tear-down. That is a good way to measure to what extent land is underassessed.

Try that in Manhattan. When the visitor first gapes at its skyline from afar, it looks like one big modern high-rise. If you poke around on foot much, though, you soon realize those are the exception. Most of the lots are covered with obsolete junk, some of it tumbledown, commanding rents mainly for their location value.

Check the Empire State Building. Old as it is, it is still nearly the tallest building in the world. As to its site, it is in a so-so reach of 5th Avenue (34th Street), many blocks from the 100% location (57th Street, I would guess). Even so, when the site and the building sold in separate transactions a few years ago, the site represented 1/3 of the total value. What does that say about the land fraction on neighboring parcels, covered only with the remains of ordinary old structures? What does that say about the land fraction nearer the 100% location? ... Read the whole article

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