In the US, it's common for local governments to focus on tax revenue produced by a property, without considering the costs it adds to the city's budget. This is like measuring how far a car can drive without considering how much gas it uses to get there. Different properties create different long-term cost burdens for the city. One of the biggest contributors to that variance is the amount of infrastructure they require, which correlates with...

One thing I like about Georgist land taxes is they reflect a deep-seated intuition many people have that land should be owned by the community, while still employing markets to ensure efficient use of this limited resource. People feel that land is special and should serve the collective good and reflect community interests. This intuition manifests in behaviors like NIMBYism, where residents oppose changes to their neighborhood and try to st...