quietly leaves this introduction to slow cities here weeks after this meme was posted, hoping like-minded people will find it and read it:www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7325856/
Kinda new to this sub but if you want the “fuck cars” perspective on this; when cars were first introduced to the US there was actually a moment of national consideration on the safety of speeding motor vehicles suddenly infesting our towns and cities and the associated injuries (some 94% initial increase in child fatalities, for example). Many people preferred improvements in public transport at the time and in fact there was a proposal in Cincinnati to require by law that cars be fitted with a device that would limit their speed to just 25 mph (this proposal would soon be stamped out by a well-funded “vote no” campaign). If cars themselves were to blame, then regulators would go after cars and those responsible for their creation, i.e. the auto industry.
The auto industry responded to pushback like this by banding together to manufacture consent for their products, thus creating a massive propaganda campaign that blamed individual reckless drivers and pedestrians (inventing the term, “jaywalking”. Streets used to be for people AND vehicles, so this was a massive culture shift. “Jay” being akin to the term “hick” at the time.) for the uptick in road deaths that, of course, wouldn’t exist if not for the phenomena of cars itself. This allowed them to then use road fatalities to argue in favor of increased accommodations for vehicles in cities.
Source: Slow Cities, Introduction: changing cultures of speed, Tranter & Tolley (highly recommend, it’s available to read for free here as part of the PMC COVID-19 Collection for some reason lol: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7325856/ )
Anyways, all in all, I’m not really sure how this fits here. Although a bit philosophical (read: Virilio, the original accident, “to invent the [car] is to invent the [car] accident”), the car itself is in fact partially to blame. There’s not many other ways for the common person to accidentally destroy buildings like that. If there was no car, or at least that person was not compelled to own it, that wall would still be intact.
Developments like this can spur the need for more transit options around cities, such as Trams/LRTs and trains. It can also keep business in the city and inside your neighborhood and make a city more walkable and enjoyable. Ultimately less car dependent.
The hard part for cities is to implement this well. Currently almost all new buildings in north america prioritize 1 and 2 bedroom units. Trying to find a well priced 3 or 4 bedroom in a “lively” downtown center, close to transit and work, with plenty of schooling in the area is almost impossible.
Here’s another good article talking about why developers don’t provide adequate family units.
If this same building technique was implemented in north america, together with rethinking zoning requirements it could push developers to create these “missing middle” communities.
I saw a stat going around a couple years ago that back at the streetcar peak, you could travel from like NYC to Madison,WI entirely by street car (I’m paraphrasing; can’t remember the exact cities.) Does anyone know the stat I’m talking about? Would love to find the source
I’ve always read that freeways are too steep and turns too sharp for rail, but Brightline says newer European trains are light and powerful enough to make it up the Cajon Pass in the median of the 15, so let’s stop screwing around with a single track for trains in the median. Just take the leftmost lane in each direction. Most of the cost is right-of-way acquisition; let’s use the one we already have. It’ll be better than nothing.
The interstate standard max grade is 6% and that’s only used when there’s no other option over mountains. The limit for standard passenger trains seems yo be 4-5%. So it’s not that different, the vast majority of the interstate corridor could support passenger trains. Not freight trains through, those need a much gentler grade.
The US has essentially built a railway network with the interstates, it’s just paved over and less efficient.
Also for the extreme cases, don’t forget cog railways. The steepest one is Pilatus railway with maximum gradient of 48%. Good luck trying something like that with a car.
It’s so depressing. Our city in Australia had such a good robust tram network and they ripped it all out because they hired an American urban planner that promoted cars is the future. Now instead we have a long car tunnel named after the Lord Mayor that was responsible for it.
We have light rail in Denver, but it's not really the same as a streetcar system. Buses aren't, either. Imagine if I could just walk to the grocery store without running a gauntlet of trucks and commuters. The unfortunate thing with where I lived was the light rail station was on the other side of one of the most ridiculously pedestrian-hostile intersections I've ever seen. I guess I could take an Uber there...
I think I was dealing with one of those situations where racist/classist people in the 60s built highways to separate areas of town. There were small Asian and Central American grocery stores near me, where I had to cross 1 or 0 large roads... but the wealthier, mainly white area of town, with the Post Office and bar district, Safeway and Natural Grocers etc? Good luck. Good news is they're currently redesigning it. For anyone familiar, I mean the interchange of I-25, Santa Fe and Alameda in Denver.
Denver also had a street car network until the 1950s. There are still spots around downtown where you can still see the trails poking through the asphalt. They didn’t even rip up the old rails. They just paved over them.
I used to live in a city in the northern Midwest that like many others had a street car network, until they took them out in the 30s for the usual bullshit “sell more cars” reasons. You could still go to a city lot and see the old street cars laying around, junked out. Such a regressive waste.
Traffic, pollution, and the cost of owning a vehicle wouldn’t be such big factors in day-to-day life. I’m sometimes floored at average commute times, it adds up to years of your life spent sitting in traffic. Not to mention car accidents.
A land value tax (LVT) is a levy on the value of land without regard to buildings, personal property and other improvements.[1] It is also known as a location value tax, a point valuation tax, a site valuation tax, split rate tax, or a site-value rating.
Land value taxes are generally favored by economists as they do not cause economic inefficiency, and reduce inequality.[2] A land value tax is a progressive tax, in that the tax burden falls on land owners, because land ownership is correlated with wealth and income.[3][4] The land value tax has been referred to as “the perfect tax” and the economic efficiency of a land value tax has been accepted since the eighteenth century.[1][5][6]
LVT’s efficiency has been observed in practice.[18] Fred Foldvary stated that LVT discourages speculative land holding because the tax reflects changes in land value (up and down), encouraging landowners to develop or sell vacant/underused plots in high demand. Foldvary claimed that LVT increases investment in dilapidated inner city areas because improvements don’t cause tax increases. This in turn reduces the incentive to build on remote sites and so reduces urban sprawl.[19] For example, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania’s LVT has operated since 1975. This policy was credited by mayor Stephen R. Reed with reducing the number of vacant downtown structures from around 4,200 in 1982 to fewer than 500.[20]
LVT is arguably an ecotax because it discourages the waste of prime locations, which are a finite resource.[21][22][23] Many urban planners claim that LVT is an effective method to promote transit-oriented development.[24][25]
It reveals that much of the anticipated future tax obligations appear to have been already capitalised into lower land prices. Additionally, the tax transition may have also deterred speculative buyers from the housing market, adding even further to the recent pattern of low and stable property prices in the Territory. Because of the price effect of the land tax, a typical new home buyer in the Territory will save between $1,000 and $2,200 per year on mortgage repayments.
That’s actually the beauty of LVT – the government already knows who owns what land (the landowner has the deed), and land can’t be hidden or offshored. You may try having shell companies, but the tax bill comes due regardless. The reason shell companies work for avoiding other taxes is because they can allow you to offshore your on-paper profits to tax havens. LVT doesn’t tax you on profits, so it doesn’t matter where the profits are on paper. Similar for income or sales taxes, income and sales can be done cash-only and hidden.
Off the top of my head I’m imagining the infinite loan scheme, but modified a bit, where the vast bulk of your wealth is in securities and then you “rent” a property from a company for like $1 a year. The company doesn’t pay its taxes, it goes bankrupt, a new company is created, and the process starts again. YOU never owe taxes, the COMPANY owes taxes and could get deductions on any number of bogus things and then worst case just declare bankruptcy and fold.
This could be addressed, but it’s similar to people saying Mac or Linux is immune to viruses. If they get popular enough, they’ll need antivirus software.
Similarly, no tax scheme is immune to loopholes, but as long as they’re addressed, it’s not a point against it.
Yeah nope. You have to understand the reason deductions exists for income tax is that they allow you to deduct your costs from the revenue you take in and are only paying tax on the profit.
Edit: I should add plenty of places that do have land taxes usually have a lot of exemptions like here, your primary residence is exempted as well as any land for primary production (land used for agriculture) but those exist for political reasons.
It really depends on where the land is as it’s based on value. If you are talking about replacing property taxes with land value taxes typically it’s just a rate on the value but in this case it’s just the land value so a higher rate but only applies to land. If you could figure out the total land value in your neighbourhood you could figure it out.
As for who is affected, single family homes on the outskirts probably see a drop in taxes while those in the inner city and vacant plots see a large increase.
The people who will be impacted first will be people who own vacant lots and parking lots in and around downtowns. If you’re concerned about people getting booted out of their homes, consider Estonia:
Estonia levies an LVT to fund municipalities. It is a state level tax, but 100% of the revenue funds Local Councils. The rate is set by the Local Council within the limits of 0.1–2.5%. It is one of the most important sources of funding for municipalities.[90] LVT is levied on the value of the land only. Few exemptions are available and even public institutions are subject to it. Church sites are exempt, but other land held by religious institutions is not.[90] The tax has contributed to a high rate (~90%)[90] of owner-occupied residences within Estonia, compared to a rate of 67.4% in the United States.[91]
In general, LVT should increase overall housing supply, improve affordability, and can be used to reduce other taxes such as property, income, and sales taxes. Most serious proposals I have seen have been to replace property taxes with LVT. These factors should make it easier on average households generally, and also allow them more flexibility to downsize (once your kids have moved out, do you really need a jumbo house all to yourself?), rather than locking you into the only place you can afford.
That was one concern. Another is our specific situation. Our foundation square footage is 972, our lot is 3,991 in total, none of it yard, half is all wild growth and weed trees, the rest is clover we planted to replace the grass and support pollinators. Our property tax is $3,750 this year, our land value is $46,400. I understand the calculation would be different on LVT but if I’d end up paying more on an LVT scheme then I wouldn’t want to have it in place.
I’d be more in favor if the county determined it’s annual budget costs and then divided that by the total acreage of privately owned land and you paid the percentage equal to your total land value.
I may be misunderstanding but it reads like .09 acres I have may be assessed as more valuable because of where it is than .09 acres 20 miles away in Tre same state and county.
You might live in a place which already has some form of land value tax. Although a key distinction is that LVT is a tax on just the value of the land, not the value of the entire property that includes buildings, landscaping, ect. …
At least give some kind of mention to Henry George for being the magnificent bastard that came up with this. His history is fascinating and most people don’t know who he is because he pissed off all the major landowners (ivy league colleges) who blackballed even mention of his name.
A fellow georgist, I see! But yeah, the legacy section on his wikipedia page is absolutely insane, and yet I had never even heard of him before about 2 years ago (which of course led to me promptly becoming georgist). Not a whole lot of people learn about the guy and about georgism without swiftly becoming a georgist themselves lol.
And move where? Why have retired people (who are most likely on a fixed income and have paid off their home in some cases) to move from a home they’ve paid off to an apartment/living center with obscene monthly payments? Or introduce another ever rising tax on something they should have been able to age peacefully in without as much financial worry? That seems cruel. I’m no fan of boomers, but damn.
I feel like best plan here would be to impose steeper taxes on second-plus properties. You can have your primary residence, but every home after that accrues a higher and higher tax. Especially on LLCs.
If tax goes up, it’s because the value of your asset has gone up. Either sell it or do a reverse mortgage. I have no pity for those profiting from the system, regardless of their age. Fuck you, Grandma, pay your taxes.
I feel like best plan here would be to impose steeper taxes on second-plus properties.
That’s definitely part of it, and more important than taxes on primary residence. But we should do both.
I feel like best plan here would be to impose steeper taxes on second-plus properties
I think we have that where I live, although after 20+ years of owning I still don’t really understand property taxes here.
Anyhow, the property tax has a basic definition but I believe you get a reduction in assessed value for primary residence. That effectively taxes second homes more
There won’t be any other taxes for them to pay, so they will have more purchasing power. Chances are, they’re still going to have the same place unless that retired guy decides to build a hotel or something on it.
We used to be a great nation… Invading… Murdering… Stealing… Imposing grass deserts… Now we have left the EU, are implementing government spyware and have no plans to make anything better…
I don’t remember what my point was, but England is shit and I don’t want to be here anymore.
Of course you probably mow and trim. So still pretty unnatural. Natural Flora tends to look better even without obsessive maintenance. A robot mower was critical for me to actually not mind having to have a grass lawn.
I don’t really care. As a lifelong apartment dweller; I hate people and want nothing to do with them. Get me a house far away from civilisation and I’ll be happy. Communal space, my arsehole.
This is the insanity of people who advocate for densified housing, IMO. I loathe apartments and attached dwellings. It’s like a dystopian future where you can’t own anything or have private space. If I never have to share a wall or floor with someone again, it will be too soon.
I’ve lived in 4 major cities including NYC, and several small cities. The small cities and green suburbs are light years better than the dense urban hellscapes, without exception. Apartment living is also universally awful. There’s nothing desirable to me about what you idealize.
I guess if I really wanted to scream at a wall, I’d make a c/fuck-fuckcars. These people are beyond help, but I hope they grow out of it so I don’t have to live in high density hell because infinite growth is just accepted as normal.
I suppose since my country is very low population but very large I don’t really see the problem. Everyone could have a house here and we’d still have plenty of room to space.
Sweden has a population of 10.5 million, ish, and an area of 447k square kilometres. Germany by contrast, has a population of around 80 million, and an area of 357k square kliometres.
That said, I believe low density can work just fine. You don’t need highrises to improve population storage efficiency. Simple two-three story buildings work just fine too.
You could also lower the population, something modern society is managing just fine right now anyway. I personally really don’t believe overpopulation is going to be a significant problem in the long run.
Everyone could have a house here and we’d still have plenty of room to space.
You may not run out of wildlands, but if everyone is in large enough houses, it becomes difficult to get to the wildlands (or anywhere else you need to go) without using a car. For various reasons, !fuckcars, is against designing cities around cars.
That said, I believe low density can work just fine. You don’t need highrises to improve population storage efficiency. Simple two-three story buildings work just fine too
I agree. The problem comes when you have large houses with big yards. If you instead have rowhouses, you have plenty of density to avoid car dependency (if the city is designed properly).
Italian here, from a small/medium city nearby Milan. Experience might vary, but generally speaking, Italy is not a very bike friendly country. In the cities you might have separated bike lanes, bike lanes which are part of the street and devided from it by, well, a strip of paint, or no bike lane at all. Outside of the cities, yeah, those are for hard core cyclists and, unless you are in the countryside, not safe at all. The point is, safety on a bike is not guaranteed and you should be aware that our streets are built for cars first. I live in the Netherlands and here the infrastructures are built FOR bikes rather than being an afterthought. Be safe, wear an helmet and hope no one abruptly opens a car door while parked next to a bike lane.
Little OT: mopeds and electric bikes are turning bike lanes in the Netherlands a nightmare too. I am of the idea that electric bikes (the non-assisted types) and mopeds should belong to streets, should have an insurance, a plate an require a motorcycle rated helmet. Sorry, delivery guys. You are danger to other cyclists.
Yes, helmet + fluorescent stuff. Try to take smaller roads, but not always possible. The difference was just striking between for example Alessandria (pretty much 0 cycling) and Lodi (lots) while infrastructure seems almost equally bad.
I am from Belgium, Speed pedelecs (45 km/h!!) are ruining our bike paths too… :( they shouldn’t be allowed on the cycling paths, the speed difference with a regular non electric cyclist (15 km/h?) and especially kids and old people on regular bikes is just too big, and the speed pedelecers (car brains on a fast bike) bring a very toxic behaviour to the cycle paths
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