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*Land Use

A Radical Vision of Equality: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Economic Plan to Eliminate Poverty

There are few figures in 20th century American history more roundly beloved than Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr – and, as an unfortunate consequence, few whose legacies have faced more colossal efforts at appropriation. This is ironic, since of course in his own lifetime Dr King was among the most polarizing figures in American politics. This transformation has been facilitated in no small part by the snipping of his most broadly agreeable remarks and views and a great deal of ignorance about Dr King’s sophisticated – but more controversial – economic views. 

Economics were fundamental to Dr King’s career, and the ultimate goal of his economic thought was the elimination of poverty. It was to this end that King promoted the Freedom Budget of All Americans, which had as its goal the “determination that in this, the richest and most productive society ever known to man, the scourge of poverty can and must be abolished—not in some distant future, not in this generation, but within the next ten years!” King endorsed the budget and threw the support of the Southern Christian Leadership Council behind it.

Squandered Opportunity: The Social Cost of Underutilized Land

In our previous article describing speculation on vacant urban land, we pointed out that the attention paid to vacant housing often overlooks another type of pernicious vacancy: housing units that aren’t even built in the first place. Sometimes this looks like plots of land lying vacant for decades, even in the face of exorbitant rents, earning juicy speculative profits for the owner as their land rises in value. But speculative profiteering doesn’t only occur on wholly vacant land. It also occurs on underutilized land. In this article, we examine the social harms that arise from underutilized land, consider ways of measuring it, and propose policies to discourage it.

Everybody Works But The Vacant Lot: How Speculators Profit From Our Thriving Cities

As academics, advocates, and pundits scramble to explain the rising burden of housing costs in American cities, much has been written about the specter of vacant housing. A symptom of wealthy speculators, vacant units indicate that many investors are happy to park their wealth in real estate and profit from growth in land values without the hassle of actually having to build or rent-out empty units.


This narrative is often paired with calls for a tax on vacant units, which is expected to push these units into being made available for use by tenants. While there are merits to this argument, it misses the forest for the trees, as it entirely fails to identify and fix two other ways in which scarce space within our cities is wasted: through vacant and/or underutilized urban land. Just like vacant dwellings, vacant and utilized lots are held out of use by speculators when they could instead be housing many more people. 


In this article, we will summarize the existing research on the causes and consequences of urban land, which primarily centers on the existence of blighted land in struggling cities.

From Eternal to Extinguished: The Reform of Municipal Ground Lease in the Netherlands

“On a Sunday afternoon, the city council of Amsterdam flushed 100 years of progressive policy down the drain,” says journalist Hans de Geus. “Melancholy, disappointment and a fighting spirit” prevail in the green progressive party (GroenLinks). “A historic blunder,” according to Marjolein Moorman, currently alderman for the social-democratic party (PvdA). The reactions to the most recent change in the Amsterdam ground lease system were quite severe. The tenor of these reactions was that in 2016, the system was so fundamentally changed that it was de facto abolished. In contrast, there was a euphoric mood among homeowners and right-wing parties. “It’s done,” tweeted a supporter of the liberal party (VVD) enthusiastically.

The system change had been a fervent wish of the liberals, who traditionally stand up for the interests of homeowners. Remarkable, because it had also been a liberal, alderman Treub, who had stood at the beginning of the Amsterdam ground lease system. By no longer selling municipal land, and instead giving it out on long lease, the municipality at the end of the 19th century wanted to get a grip on the uncontrolled growth of the city, stimulate the construction of houses, fight speculation, and make sure the growing value of the land would benefit the community, instead of the individual land owner.

Citadels of Privilege: How LLCs Funnel Land Rents Into the Pockets of Wealthy Investors

As housing costs continue their inexorable climb upwards in cities across the US, concern is mounting about the role played by corporate investors. Referred to as the ‘financialization’ of housing, real estate is being hoovered-up by massive investment funds with names like BlackRock and Blackstone.

While attention is often paid to the institutional investors, one overlooked component of this shifting economic quicksand is the growing presence of limited liability companies (LLCs) in the real estate market. This legal structure is favored by investors looking to profit by grabbing land, avoiding the tax collector, and dodging the ire of the public eye.

In this article we’ll describe how the LLC legal structure became a favorite weapon for real estate speculators, explain how they widen inequality, present our own research into their presence in New York City (NYC), and suggest some policy tools to uproot this pernicious weed ensnaring our cities.

LVT on the Ballot in New Zealand

New Zealand is suffering many of the same ills that afflict American cities. Tenants facing ever-rising rents, young people and ethnic minorities being priced out of homeownership, widening inequality driven by soaring land values, sprawling cities and congested streets. A long and bitter debate that blamed land use regulations for these problems has largely been won by ‘YIMBYs’, with several waves of upzoning producing a budding building boom for townhouses and apartments. While there are some signs that rents may be easing as a result, these problems are far from solved, and public attention has begun to look for alternative solutions. 

Who Says You Can’t Have a State Property Tax?

Well, okay. Lots of people. One of the crowning strategies to rouse the rabble is to ream the property tax. Fair enough. But in some states like New Jersey, the property tax is unpopular, likely because the property tax is just as high as the state income, business, and sales taxes.

But some states have a lifeline for tax efficiency, equity, and progressivity. Yet because we live in strange times, state governments get the shakes regarding property tax. So instead, they throw themselves upon regressive, volatile, or inefficient taxes. Not surprisingly, these taxes hit parts of society that are powerless or don’t vote.

The property tax can trace its unpopularity to simple (and fixable) quirks in most states: the bill comes due once a year. There are legitimate concerns over what happens to people on a fixed income. The house’s value may go up, but there’s no cash flow to pay for a tax bill that goes up.

Zoning Has Been Weaponized

Low-density housing typically refers to residential areas occupied primarily by single-family homes or buildings with a limited number of dwellings. There is no set definition, but one characteristic of such an area is that the inhabitants start complaining about any housing development that is too… Read More »Zoning Has Been Weaponized