If you go back to read the early classical economists -- Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Robert Malthus (who didn't just talk about births and food), John Stuart Mill (and his father), etc., you'll find a that much discussion is given to the price behaviour of certain economic goods and services, in ways that sounds odd today: commodities, wages, stock, interest, and rent.

Wages and rent most especially.

The reason for the discussion is that the price behaviours are, well, interesting. Economic rent (not quite the same as what you pay for an apartment) in particular, rises to absorb surplus value, whilst wages fall to the bare minimum necessary for survival (if that -- Smith's story of economic decline is bleak).

https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations

There's an added dynamic -- one I've only just realised, though I'm sure it shows up in the literature, of the tendency for those holding any given economic asset (some store of value) to do what they can to see that its value increases. And why not: free money!

This becomes quite problematic where those assets are themselves productive, or worse, Maslovian (that is, essential) goods:

https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/608w97/asset_p...

The upshot is that the prices of such goods, including housing, tends to increase.

(This applies as well to professional certifications and licenses, taxi medallions (viz: Lyft, Uber), guilds, educational access, etc. etc.)

The classic response suggested has been a land tax: a tax which applies to the unimproved value of a given lot.

The economic notion is that the supply of land is inelastic (that is: suppliers cannot provide more of it, and won't withdraw from the market). The tax increases the costs of carrying unimproved land, or occupying land below its full utilisation. By tweaking the rate of tax reduction as land value falls (based on income-earning potential), it would be possible to encourage or discourage sprawl (slightly underpace value decline to concentrate development, overpace value decline to encourage wider development).

The idea is most associated with Henry George (who came up with the idea ... faced with skyrocketing rents in San Francisco), but is absolutely grounded in classical economics and economists.

What I'm slowly coming to realise is that what's almost certainly required is a joint policy which targets wages, on the one hand, and rents (or land value) on the other (and probably a few others). In addition to a land tax, some sort of employer of last resort which would pay at least a minimum living wage (possibly then bidding out labour to other entities, or utilising it for itself). Some form of UBI or needs-based support (children, elderly, disabled, students) would cover other cases. Without a land tax, this income is simply pocketed by rentiers. The combination of EoLR/UBI and Land Tax puts the income back into flow within the real (that is, commodities and services) economy.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_tax

I've also learnt just earlier today that the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy started as a Georgian Land Tax advocacy organisation, though I'm not sure if they continue to pursue this interest.

http://www.lincolninst.edu

And yes, California's Prop 13 legacy is one hell of an albatross.

https://ballotpedia.org/Article_XIII_A,_California_Constitut...