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Housing

Land and land value

Urban land is the resource that cannot be manufactured: its price depends on where it is and what the rules allow to be built. When a plan rezones a plot, its value multiplies without the owner doing anything. Who captures that gain —the owner or the city— is one of the central decisions of planning.

Henry George proposed in the nineteenth century to tax land rent precisely because the community, not the owner, creates it. Modern tools range from mandatory land contributions for affordable housing to public land banks. Without a land policy, housing policy arrives late.

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