In real life it’s far more complex to administer than a straight property tax, that’s why it will never be popular. It also creates bizarre outcomes where where it rewards some land uses and punishes others and creates weird incentives about land topology and parcelization.
Who is going to assess the value of the land as distinct from improvements? Geologists? Environmentalists? Different parents will presume different values and push those values. Property taxes are assumed basically based on other similar properties on the market, in terms of size, age, and space. But 2 parcels of 2 acre right next to each other could be radically different values depending in there topology and environments. I lived on a 2 acre parcel once, and our neighbors had 1/4 acre plots, but our 2 acres was mostly swampy low lying land that was not adjacent to the part the land our house was on that was regular. It was also weirdly shaped and the ‘access’ to it was a narrow 10ft corridor. It was essentially… useless land attached to our parcel, we couldn’t even develop it because in order to clear it you’d have to get permission form your neighbor to drive construction equipment across their driveway/lawn and destroy it. The extra ‘land’ in our case added 0 value to our property and in fact removed value, as houses around us were often selling for more due to the extra liability our extra land came with.
It introduces just as many problems as it those it claims to solve. It makes sense in some limited contexts, like say, urban land use across small and regular parcels, but not all land is urban land.
You forget that George was writing when society 70% agricultural and rural and working off a model of undeveloped land.
in 2026 only 17% of the USA population lives outside of cities.
I worked for 5 years to promote LVT.
In real life it’s far more complex to administer than a straight property tax, that’s why it will never be popular. It also creates bizarre outcomes where where it rewards some land uses and punishes others and creates weird incentives about land topology and parcelization.
Who is going to assess the value of the land as distinct from improvements? Geologists? Environmentalists? Different parents will presume different values and push those values. Property taxes are assumed basically based on other similar properties on the market, in terms of size, age, and space. But 2 parcels of 2 acre right next to each other could be radically different values depending in there topology and environments. I lived on a 2 acre parcel once, and our neighbors had 1/4 acre plots, but our 2 acres was mostly swampy low lying land that was not adjacent to the part the land our house was on that was regular. It was also weirdly shaped and the ‘access’ to it was a narrow 10ft corridor. It was essentially… useless land attached to our parcel, we couldn’t even develop it because in order to clear it you’d have to get permission form your neighbor to drive construction equipment across their driveway/lawn and destroy it. The extra ‘land’ in our case added 0 value to our property and in fact removed value, as houses around us were often selling for more due to the extra liability our extra land came with.
It introduces just as many problems as it those it claims to solve. It makes sense in some limited contexts, like say, urban land use across small and regular parcels, but not all land is urban land.
You forget that George was writing when society 70% agricultural and rural and working off a model of undeveloped land. in 2026 only 17% of the USA population lives outside of cities.