Suburban sprawl, urban density, and property taxes

There are many good points raised in this video by @justineunderhill.bsky.social about urban vs. suburban development and property taxes. But ultimately I don't think it's "a scam" and I think a good solution is far more complicated than just "tax the land".

Does a house on an acre of land really use much more resources than a house on a 1/5 acre lot or less? That's the situation where I live where we have old homes from the 1940s and 1950s with a whole acre, newer ones with a 1/4 or 1/5 of an acre, and tract homes with barely 1/10th of an acre. I would say almost certainly "no" and certainly not, say, 4, 5, 10 times as much.

The low density home might be much larger in terms of square footage (although in my city the old lots often have smaller homes than modern McMansions on tiny lots) but could have the same size family, or maybe a household with no kids. They probably have the same amount of sewer, water, electricity hook ups: all of which are usually paid for separately from property taxes. The low density reduces needs for transit, emergency services, and education per acre. There are some issues with distance from the population center - busing kids from remote areas costs more than local communities, but not all "big lots" are remote lots. I think ultimately it is up to municipalities to decide where and how much development they allow.

On the issue of roads - developers pay for the initial cost of roads to their land being developed (unless they get a specific agreement not to) then private gated communities will continue to pay for their own roads, but non-gated developments will give their new roads to the municipality for future maintenance. Remember that municipalities can maintain roads much more cheaply than home owners because they typically have their own maintenance crews or contracts at far lower rates than any home owner could find.

Also remember that we don't generally tax property based on what resources they actually use - people with no kids still subsidize everyone else's kids schools. It's considered a public good and I've never begrudged paying for that - except where the schools are poorly run and maintained, just like when the roads have potholes, and the police never respond.

I think the "tax the land" argument is an opportunity cost argument - someone who consumes an acre of land in downtown is occupying valuable real estate that could be utilized by the community for dense urban development. There could be development of 5 homes on an acre lot, or 100 in an apartment building or condo, or some other valuable civic resource. But land in cities is typically privately owned and it's up to the owner to decide if they want to sub-divide it, re-develop it, or sell it, not the municipality. In China I've heard all the land is owned by the State - they could literally force you off your land (and technically in the US too with eminent domain, but that's quite rare and generally only for major public infrastructure projects).

But miles from an urban center I don't think this argument applies, at least until growth catches up with you and your formerly remote home is surrounded by new development. That's progress for you.

As best I can tell most areas do have separate land based and property value based components to their property taxes - undeveloped land is usually taxed at a low amount. Stick a $1M home on it and there's $10K to $20K a year you'll be paying. I think the value based part (maybe 0.5 to 1.0%) is a nod to taxing the desirability of occupying that land. An acre of land in downtown Manhattan with a $50,000 prefab home on it would have a huge value, tens of millions of dollars, just because of the land and it would be paying a lot of taxes because of that. Meanwhile out in the boonies of Upstate New York the land might be worth much less than the home. There's also the issue of what happens to the fixed income household in a small home on an acre of land and then one day you tell them they have to pay a fortune in taxes because of that land? Put them out on the streets, force them to sell up to developers who will put 10 homes on it? This stuff is complicated.

Where I live they have a system where property taxes are higher for new developments to compensate for the new infrastructure they require - roads too them (maybe), schools, police, etc. etc. Over a longish period (I think it's something like 20 years) those taxes slowly decrease. So new tract home owners might be paying 1% annual property taxes for their shiny new McMansions, and I'm paying under 0.25%. Their homes are on tiny lots - sometimes less square footage than the homes on top of them but mostly remote from the City center, my home is on a larger plot of land but close to the city center.

I will say that seeing the valley where I live with hundreds of thousands of single family homes sprawled out makes me sad - I do think there's value to density but we have almost none of it. However those things are largely a result of zoning. The municipalities involved made conscious decisions to allow this sprawl. They could have zoned areas for multi-family dwellings and mixed used development vs. suburban sprawl. But they didn't. And they continue to do so. So when you see areas with high tax per acre yield you have to ask yourself why the low tax density development was allowed in the first place?