The others that benefit are the nearby condo developers, that take photos of cool retail in the area to put into their brochures in order to help sell their product. They benefit from the land speculation and the work from others.
I don't really have a solution except that I can see that the landlords benefit from scarcity, and their leverage and ability to raise rents would be lessened if there was more viable retail spaces to take advantage of.
So the city could help retailers by dramatically liberalizing retail zoning and allowing more competitive high streets to develop. This could take the edge off being forced to move by a landlord jacking up rent.
For various reasons it’s extremely rare for retail businesses to own the buildings they operate out of.
Just like saving a (healthy) life is a good thing, even if you can spin some stories about the dignity of death or whatever.
Using all kinds of regulations to ignore the market signals usually points out that you're doing something wrong (not _always_).
If you have a great retail idea, then you need to get investors behind you so that your company can outright own the stores. Otherwise you will be leeched on endlessly. It's incredibly hard to get on top if you're depending on the good will of landlords.
Solution: Online shopping until the bubble collapses.
- I like to shop IRL, and the opportunities to do this pleasurably are going extinct
- I live right by Hayes valley, which they start out with.
- I'm also a member of "The Commons" which they mention at the end. I love what it's trying to do: creating a new social 3rd space in SF.
Next you'll find that you also need to do the same for schools. But schoolteachers won't be able to afford living near the areas that they serve. So you need subsidized housing for them.
Oh, and the same for kindergarten. But what about at-home childcare? And so on.
And no, "land value capture" won't fix it. You'll just move the complexity from giving out subsidies into assessing the value of kindergartens and schools.
It's somewhat complicated to understand, but I think this is an opportunity for strong communicators to present to a public that is much more receptive toward these ideas.
I don't think that any of the suggested solutions would work, as they all involve the government and taxation - which can only destroy value, IMHO.
Creating a cool vibe certainly has value and can contribute to price appreciation in the community, but ultimately capitalism is not based upon creating vibe but upon selling products and services.
The government and taxation, which provides the police, the courts, the roads, the sewers, the power, etc?
No, they wouldn't. That is why property tax rates (and hence land value tax rates) have so many laws capping them and otherwise limiting them for all the important voting blocs (old people, military, big business, etc).
See California prop 13, that voters passed. See Oregon measure 5 and 50, also passed by voters. And politicians wouldn't dare touch these.
>In American cities, there is an issue with value capture. One party creates the value (in this case retailers), another party (landowners or homeowners) captures it.
This phenomenon is not restricted to American cities. It will broadly exist in all human societies with flattened or top heavy population age histograms. The old are the most populous and knowledgeable (and motivated) to structure society so that the non working (themselves) can capture the most value. Hence, the popularity of earned income tax instead of marginal land value tax rates. The goals of the wealthy and the old (and the ones with aspirations to be wealthy) align to support rent seeking policy.
Obviously, there is pain for the current players, but long term, the landowner should not be able to extract so much profit margin without also providing sufficient utility, such as operating an in demand business.
And for that couple hundred in upkeep maybe they pay a year, my landlord clears probably between 150k to 200k in rent doing nothing at all. I think they actually own a couple more similar properties so its more than that.
So here is this couple in this city, that has found for themselves a way to pull out at least 200k from the local economy, and contribute basically nothing back at all. They don't otherwise work. They just cash checks pretty much and text the handiman when an tenant texts them. Imagine how cheap my rent would be not having to pay for these vampires considering actual costs of this building. Probably like $50/mo each between all of us tenants would be plenty to cover typical yearly overhead. I'd certainly go out to eat a ton more and heavily support local economy if I was only losing $50 a month of my pay to rent. I'd probably get away only having to work 10 hours a week. But no I work 40 hours and give them like 30% my gross because my landlord needs 200k to do nothing. Literally all they do is suck my blood. Their whole existence based on sucking my blood.
How does switching to a land value tax, which only taxes them on the value of the land, help at all ?
Easiest example is having an empty lot or a detached single family homes taking up 0.2 acre lots in the middle of a city that could house 10x as many people on the land. Right now, leaving it underutilized makes it a cheap savings account for the landowner. Developing it is work. So let's incentivize the development taxing the land only (can be the same or more), so that the only way it makes sense to control that land is to do something sufficiently useful with it.