alt Hacker NewsOf course it is — unproductive land use creates negative externalities that affect the entire surrounding community. It's like saying "a factory dumping waste into a river doesn't pollute the commons if the river runs through their property".
The article explains this well:
> The office, filled with workers and transactions, generates far more in economic activity and value creation than its land value and, therefore, rises the highest. The apartment, where dozens of residents live, stands nearly as high. The rowhomes add steady, smaller value. But the parking lot does something different. It dips below the surface, shown as a red bar sinking into the ground.
> Why below ground? Because in economic terms, a parking lot doesn’t simply fail to add value; it actively subtracts value. Every year it sits idle, it consumes some of the most valuable land in the city.
> When valuable downtown land lies idle, it blocks the housing, jobs, and amenities that could exist there. The costs ripple outward: higher rents, longer commutes, fewer opportunities nearby. What could have been a productive part of the community instead becomes a hole in its fabric.
Replies
> Of course it is — unproductive land use creates negative externalities that affect the entire surrounding community.
By definition “commons” means public land. So if they buy the land, it’s no longer commons.
And the claim that unproductive land use affects the commons is not a very informative statement.
Everything affects the commons, it’s inevitable of a world with more than 1 persons.
>Of course it is — unproductive land use creates negative externalities that affect the entire surrounding community. It's like saying "a factory dumping waste into a river doesn't pollute the commons if the river runs through their property".
Pretty damn rich to say such a thing when exactly this sort of hand wringing that brought this whole crap about.
"oh no, think about how the commons will be polluted if we don't compel people to build parking space". -some karen in 1970, probably
The right thing go do is back off the regulation. Let land owners do what they please. If that's a parking space (it almost certainly won't be in the overwhelming majority of cases) so be it. And then when there's enough demand parking garages will go up.
The river dumping analogy is so bad it's laughable. Obviously you don't own the entire river when the river merely runs through your property nor do you own the ocean or the watershed, and property values surrounding yours go down by a measurable amount when you dump things in the river. What negative externalities does a parking lot create that an empty lot does not? Minimal noise from people pulling in and out? Extra walking time between lots that are built up? Some pollution from the cars? These are normal externalities from literally any building that might be there as well. You can see how this is a different class than a polluted river, and is literally immeasurable.
With regards to the argument presented in the article, it's arguable that parking lots create value by making places accessible to more people. As such, a parking lot raises the property values and economic output of neighboring properties. I didn't see anything about that covered in the article, nor did I see any actual data. This is why chambers of commerce and the like support parking mandates, because they actually have positive externalities, not negative ones.
> generates far more in economic activity
The LVT focus on profit above all else is why it is an unsatisfactory solution.
If the most important goal for every plot of land is to maximize its economic activity & tax revenue, that's going to be a miserable place to live.
All of the space uses that make a town nice to live in, are also underutilizing the land if the sole goal is to maximize economic activity.
Open space with native vegetation, parks, playgrounds, sports fields of all kinds like soccer fields, community pools, hiking trails.. all of that is wasted land if viewed through the lens of LVT maximization. All that space should be crammed full of high rise offices and apartments.