There's plenty of land. More land than anyone knows what to do with.
But the land that matters is land that has been developed; cities, towns, highways, quarries and factories, to name a few.
Show me just one Utopian with an engineering degree. What Utopian can actually plan a community that functions? Tell me how this community is any different than anyone else's. How is their electric grid any different? What about their manufacturing base? Do you think materials just fall from the sky? What will you use for money? Who will do the building, given that any utopian I've ever met has no clue how to build anything? What about crime? Are you just going to think nice thoughts and hope that everyone else does, too?
This has been talked about before, tried before, and failed every time.
OK. I'll want to see that they did it with no capitalist produced products.
Certainly, people can and do form communes and do things more or less off the grid. If it's what they want, I'm for them doing it. That's just not Utopia to me.
Geoism and utopianism in one post. No, thank you. Private property and good protocols, please. Our emergent cities will beat your grand plans any day of the week.
Georgism IS private property. But you’re right, emergent cities are able to do even more where they own the property outright and I am very for that too. What other protocols would you like?
Georgism is NOT private property. It becomes quasi-private because people have to pay state proxies rent for the land they purportedly own. Protocol design, clear rules around prices, private property, profit/loss, and attention to externalities and injuries by or against other landowners -- all allow landowners to create their own Utopias, which differ from one person to the next and from one community to the next. The character of emergent cities as compared to planned cities is striking. And the idea of natural land rents is dubious at best.
Why, in a series called "Let Cities Build Utopias," should I have to point to a non-Utopian (emergent) city? Why, in a post called "Land should be a public good—not just private property," are you arguing that Georgism is private property and also a public good? (So you agree that it becomes quasi-private?) In any case, there are only continuua of cities that currently exist -- planned to emergent. Now, I admit Hong Kong and Singapore are fairly good examples of long-term land-lease models. Brazilia is an unimpressive planned city, too, as is Milton Keynes. But Tokyo is enormously dense, and is an emergent city. And it's more accessible for buyers relative to income, with lower price-to-rent ratios and better mortgage affordability.
You said emergent cities with private property beat land rent models any day. I was just asking how they beat them? By what metric? What makes them better?
That's why I asked for your ideal emergent city so we could compare and see what makes it better. I guess I didn't think of Tokyo as an emergent city but a well established metropolis.
Did you not read this? "But Tokyo is enormously dense, and is an emergent city. And it's more *accessible* for buyers relative to income, with lower price-to-rent ratios and better mortgage affordability." Affordability is an important consideration, particularly for the least advantaged. Many a well-established metropolis is an emergent city because they weren't designed by town planners--which is rather the point. It's anti-Utopian. And my objection is more to the planned utopia piece than the long-term leases, but I have reservations about those, too.
I would also argue that Georgism is not exactly the same as long-term leasing. Georgism, historically, was simply a land-value tax, which in the digital age is an increasingly regressive tax. Google might use less land than a farmer, for example, but the farmer might be taxed relatively more, despite less revenue. Long-term leases are George-ish, to be sure. But...
Quasi-private property also politicizes property, creating a greater imbalance between the people and the powerful who award those leases. Once you politicize property, you create frictions and unintended consequences that invite further interventions and unintended consequences (ad nauseam). And increasingly, government authorities make centralized decisions, effectively picking winners and losers. It's an unnecessary corruption vector.
There's plenty of land. More land than anyone knows what to do with.
But the land that matters is land that has been developed; cities, towns, highways, quarries and factories, to name a few.
Show me just one Utopian with an engineering degree. What Utopian can actually plan a community that functions? Tell me how this community is any different than anyone else's. How is their electric grid any different? What about their manufacturing base? Do you think materials just fall from the sky? What will you use for money? Who will do the building, given that any utopian I've ever met has no clue how to build anything? What about crime? Are you just going to think nice thoughts and hope that everyone else does, too?
This has been talked about before, tried before, and failed every time.
I'll show you several utopians who built functional communities throughout this series.. 🤓
OK. I'll want to see that they did it with no capitalist produced products.
Certainly, people can and do form communes and do things more or less off the grid. If it's what they want, I'm for them doing it. That's just not Utopia to me.
Every successful utopian city has capitalist produced products. Cities need an economy!
As I've written before, I am very anti-commune. I don't think that's utopia. This series is not about communes. It's about cities.
We already have cities. We already have capitalism.
I'm not understanding what distinction you are making.
Some cities are good places to live and some are not. This series explores how we can create the best possible city for residents (the most utopian).
OK. I'm interested in seeing your views.
Geoism and utopianism in one post. No, thank you. Private property and good protocols, please. Our emergent cities will beat your grand plans any day of the week.
Georgism IS private property. But you’re right, emergent cities are able to do even more where they own the property outright and I am very for that too. What other protocols would you like?
Georgism is NOT private property. It becomes quasi-private because people have to pay state proxies rent for the land they purportedly own. Protocol design, clear rules around prices, private property, profit/loss, and attention to externalities and injuries by or against other landowners -- all allow landowners to create their own Utopias, which differ from one person to the next and from one community to the next. The character of emergent cities as compared to planned cities is striking. And the idea of natural land rents is dubious at best.
Land rents aren't the only way to do it. Give me an emergent city you think is the ideal. I bet they have a lot of control over their land....
Why, in a series called "Let Cities Build Utopias," should I have to point to a non-Utopian (emergent) city? Why, in a post called "Land should be a public good—not just private property," are you arguing that Georgism is private property and also a public good? (So you agree that it becomes quasi-private?) In any case, there are only continuua of cities that currently exist -- planned to emergent. Now, I admit Hong Kong and Singapore are fairly good examples of long-term land-lease models. Brazilia is an unimpressive planned city, too, as is Milton Keynes. But Tokyo is enormously dense, and is an emergent city. And it's more accessible for buyers relative to income, with lower price-to-rent ratios and better mortgage affordability.
You said emergent cities with private property beat land rent models any day. I was just asking how they beat them? By what metric? What makes them better?
That's why I asked for your ideal emergent city so we could compare and see what makes it better. I guess I didn't think of Tokyo as an emergent city but a well established metropolis.
Did you not read this? "But Tokyo is enormously dense, and is an emergent city. And it's more *accessible* for buyers relative to income, with lower price-to-rent ratios and better mortgage affordability." Affordability is an important consideration, particularly for the least advantaged. Many a well-established metropolis is an emergent city because they weren't designed by town planners--which is rather the point. It's anti-Utopian. And my objection is more to the planned utopia piece than the long-term leases, but I have reservations about those, too.
I would also argue that Georgism is not exactly the same as long-term leasing. Georgism, historically, was simply a land-value tax, which in the digital age is an increasingly regressive tax. Google might use less land than a farmer, for example, but the farmer might be taxed relatively more, despite less revenue. Long-term leases are George-ish, to be sure. But...
Quasi-private property also politicizes property, creating a greater imbalance between the people and the powerful who award those leases. Once you politicize property, you create frictions and unintended consequences that invite further interventions and unintended consequences (ad nauseam). And increasingly, government authorities make centralized decisions, effectively picking winners and losers. It's an unnecessary corruption vector.