As usual, a quick search for the word “land” turns up a disappointing number, in this case, 0.
As Congress argues over the size of the infrastructure bill and how to pay for it, very little attention is being devoted to one of the most perplexing problems: Why does it cost so much more to build transportation networks in the US than in the rest of the world?
Flip the question around and ask why China and Japan and various countries in Europe have built out their transit networks and compare their land use/ownership policies to those in the US. Private land ownership as a vestige of feudalism is one of the issues this country needs to address, not through expropriation but through recapturing the value through a ground rent/land value tax.
I do not propose either to purchase or to confiscate private property in land. The first would be unjust; the second, needless. Let the individuals who now hold it still retain, if they want to, possession of what they are pleased to call their land. Let them continue to call it their land. Let them buy and sell, and bequeath and devise it. We may safely leave them the shell, if we take the kernel. It is not necessary to confiscate land; it is only necessary to confiscate rent.
