Everyone likes the idea of carrots. But I prefer sticks.

Landowners get windfall gains from surrounding development and government services. We should have a high land value tax, to tax these unearned gains, which would ensure that only people able to make productive use of prime land will hold onto it.

For instance, a subway stop will boost the surrounding land value of every property by hundreds of thousands of dollars, yet everyone else is footing the bill for it. And worse, if the taxes are low enough, landowners can, in effect, hold that prime land for ransom, and do nothing with it. https://vimeo.com/32548658