Toward a Green and Pleasant Land
Even victors are by victory undone. — John Dryden
*Land Use
Restoration of a Two-Party System
The Republican Party as it was once constituted by certain principles and beliefs has ceased to exist. From the time of its founding by Lincoln in 1854, it had always stood for certain principles and beliefs, even when these changed. The Republican Party was initially… Read More »Restoration of a Two-Party System
A Land Value Tax Can Decrease Residential Crowding, Alleviate Epidemic Disease
It is always a fraught exercise to try to anticipate the overall impact of an event before that event has even concluded, and so it is with COVID 19. However, this has not stopped plenty of people from trying. A growing chorus seems to be… Read More »A Land Value Tax Can Decrease Residential Crowding, Alleviate Epidemic Disease
Rebuilding After Riots
The two weeks after a Minneapolis Police Department officer killed (and three others charged in killing) George Floyd, it feels like the summer of 1914 in fast forward. A single death cascaded into nationwide protests, arson, looting, police attacks on journalists, and then a presidential… Read More »Rebuilding After Riots
Racism and the Land
Some say racism was invented to try to justify displacing one group of people – Native Americans – from the land and enslaving another group of people to work it. Racism may be more complicated than that, but it has been closely connected to land… Read More »Racism and the Land
Does economic shutdown allow a reset on policies to make housing affordable?
Kelly Doran, a prominent Minneapolis housing developer, argued in a recent op/ed that with the current economic shutdown, the city’s “inclusionary housing” regulations that require market rate developments to include a percentage of affordable units should be eliminated. He says that such requirements, along with the difficulty… Read More »Does economic shutdown allow a reset on policies to make housing affordable?
What is Rent?
The current attitudes toward government and its accompanying fiscal malaise can be explained in good part by the groundswell of resentment people feel about paying taxes. The dilemma has its roots, I believe, in the economic paradigm dominating public thought and discourse for the past… Read More »What is Rent?
The Role of Debt Cancellation in Implementing Land Value Taxation
Nicolaus Tideman image: Daniel Thiele on Unsplash In ancient Sumer, it was customary for a new monarch, upon ascending his throne, to cancel the debts of farmers to their landlords.[1] (The debts of merchants to one another, however, were not canceled.) The Hebrew Bible establishes a similar economic… Read More »The Role of Debt Cancellation in Implementing Land Value Taxation
