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0 pointsCharlieDigital7d ago0 comments

Laws are voted on by the people. And if the municipal elections are scoped to current residents, they will vote to not expand in almost every case.

At the state level, we have housing laws that mandate ratios of affordable housing. Many townships faught this in court (and lost) because schools and infrastructure are capital projects. Bonds are secured today against some future tax base.

Don't forget that developers and investors are voters too (and lobbyists) who are going to vote against the municipalities.

My point: it is a nuanced situation and not as simple as "Got mine FU" or "just build more". Build where? How do you pay for it fairly?

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jltsiren7d ago

People often vote to support new housing, as long as the entire system works reasonably well.

My solution was to widen the tax base to make the system work better.

The incentives around property taxes do not support significant new construction. If housing becomes more affordable, tax revenue per capita goes down, while local government spending stays the same or increases. Local governments should therefore not rely too much on property taxes.

Income taxes, on the other hand, are good. You are taxing things you want to grow, and you get more tax revenue when your policies are good to the people. Local governments might want to collect more income taxes and less property taxes.

When the demand for housing is high, zoning creates significant windfall to the landowner. Some of this windfall can be taxed to support infrastructure construction.

CharlieDigitalOP7d ago

Unfortunately, municipal policies here in the US rarely has an effect on income. Income is by and large affected by state and national level policies. Very few people work where they live so municipal income taxes do not make sense to me.

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