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"What you can't do in Fairhope is buy land and wait for it to become more valuable. You cannot get a capital gain out of owning land there. So no one can become rich by owning land."

Couldn't you ? I have no idea if this is workable in Fairhope, specifically, but ... if this is the main feature of a land tax regime, it seems like you could fairly easily game this ...

You gain control of the land (either through purchase or 99 year lease or whatever) and then you create an option to buy (or option to assign lessee) that is transferable to a third party and then you can camp on that appreciating "asset" just like people now do with the land itself.

I'm sorry if it's a bit imprecise or hand-wavy, but you get the idea - you only need to create a derivative of the property (which should be trivially easy) in order to work around the inability to sit on appreciating land.

Am I mistaken ? Am I missing something ?

The corporation sets the rent based, as Henry George wanted, on the most productive use of the land.

So, a single unelected and unaccountable entity managing a centrally-planned economy? This is the utopian vision?

A corporation is implementing the taxation model described by George. Note that "corporation" is any incorporated body, and need not be a for-profit enterprise. In many parts of the US, towns are corporations ("incorporated") already. I'm not familiar with the governance of Fairhope's corporation, but incorporation need not require unaccountability.

As for central management of core elements of an economic system, look up the role of the Texas Railroad Commission (hint: it didn't regulate railroads) and prepare to have your mind blown.

Well the suburbs were made out of ticky tacky and they all looked just the same. Their adoption was also driven by racism.

As long as people are interested in eating, drinking, partying, culture, socializing and having casual sex - cities as most desirable places to live are inevitable.

The gentrification could be viewed as a very subtle form of segregation - that you could just price out people you don't want to mix with from the places you deem desirable.

> As long as people are interested in eating, drinking, partying, culture, socializing and having casual sex - cities as most desirable places to live are inevitable.

Eating, drinking, partying and casual sex are just that - culture. Culture is subject to change.

And this isn't what drives urbanization. More simple optimization with regards to commute time and employment opportunities dominate this preference, except maybe in very select areas with high density of youth with enough money to have post-materialistic consumption behaviours.

I think venomsnake was onto something a little more than you're giving credit for. I would rephrase it a little:

Diversity and plentifulness of nutrition, social/sexual opportunity, and economic opportunity are strong attractions of cities rooted in our core biological needs.

That more general form combines the ideas that the two of you present (I think efficiency is significantly enough intertwined with economic opportunity that it makes sense to treat them as a single factor). Different people may emphasize differing core attractions as reason for wanting to be in a city, but I think all of these factors are core to what attracts significantly large groups of people to cities, and I think you lose a large part of the attractions of cities by leaving out any of these factors.

edit: oops, originally cited the wrong commentor, also fixed a typo

You're right. To disambiguate, I was saying the pragmatic/economic effect "dominates", which economists use to imply being stronger, not even necessarily by much, but enough to override culture at the margin.

> all of these factors are core to what attracts significantly large groups of people to cities

And these things can change. Or more precisely, technological or social shifts may change these preferences drastically, which is why real estate and land ownership in general has a black-swan style long-tail risk, which is seldom mentioned.

Primary draws of the city may become weaker with better technology. And we might find [more striking and concrete evidence for] significant drawbacks, especially in term of health effects.

And certainly there are examples of individual cities that have become less desirable over time (e.g. much of Detroit)--as well as periods when there was net flight (at least among certain income groups) from many cities generally in the US.

Have economists flocked to Fairhope, AL to study if the claimed benefits (or otherwise) of George-style land tax come to pass?

I've got to say that I'm interested in it, having just learnt of it.

Me too. Are you a professional economist? What research hypotheses would you be putting to test in Fairhope, AL?

Amateur at this point. Majored in the topic at uni, and have maintained a significant interest.

As Cutler's article goes on to explore, George may have been on to a good point, but fettishising land over productive foundations may be an error. I found Cutler's mention of Carlota Perez to be of interest, I'm reading the cited book currently.

As for Fairhope:

1. How land values vary relative to comparable areas with different taxation bases.

2. Overal equity / equality. Comparing economic mobility for those of differing parental family wealth, for example.

3. Overall economic activity. Does Fairhope do better or worse than comparable regions.

I've got a hankering suspicion that differences may be too small to measure / matter.