Land Value Taxation

Jane Jacobs

[Reprinted from a transcript of the question and answer session
following a presentation at the National Building Museum, 27 March 2000]

QUESTION:
Miss Jacobs. My name is Bert Ely, I'm from across the river in Alexandria VA. I'm one of the leaders in a citizens group that is fighting against a plan by the highway engineers to build a new two billion dollar bridge across the Potomac River that is probably far too large. My question comes back to the issue of urban sprawl. As I look at sprawl, there are a number of financial and tax incentives that favor sprawl. One is the under taxation of land relative to the development of land, another is the under taxation of roadways again because of the land that they take up and other factors that influence urban development. If you could wave a magic wand and change one or two or three public policies, specifically tax policies, that effect urban areas, particularly tax policies, what changes would you make


JANE JACOBS:
Every kind of vicious circle, whether it is an individual's drug addiction, whether it's one of these great terrible things like the cod fisheries collapse, or whether it is urban sprawl, needs subsidies. They are driving to a dead end. And they are being artificially sustained and supported until they reach their dead end which they will eventually. No vicious circle lasts forever. You have mentioned several of the kind of subsidies that are supporting urban sprawl. If those subsidies could be figured into the costs that somebody pays for sprawl, sprawl would have priced itself out of the market quite a long time ago. Now, there is no use asking me if I could wave a magic wand what would I do. I can't wave a magic wand. If there was anything I could do, It's what I'm already doing. It's trying to get people to understand these things, because policies, even when they are supported by powerful interests, they only exist as long as people in a democracy allow them to exist. And when they learn better, these change. My only effort is to try to get people to learn better. That's the only solid foundation for changing these things, not waving magic wands. Nobody's going to save us except ourselves.