Traditional views of fiscal policy focus on the role of government in providing benefits like safe and efficient transportation options, good schools, and public safety, financed through the collection of taxes, bonding, and other means of collecting revenues from members of the public. What is often overlooked, however, is that the beneficiaries of these investments are private: the developers, businesses, and homeowners who see their projects greenlighted as a result of infrastructure extensions, their customer bases swell because of new transit stops, or their property values soar as a result of enhanced public schooling.
Value capture strategies focus on reclaiming the incremental increase in private land values (not improvements like homes or businesses) that results from public investments and returning it to the public coffers. In this way, they close the fiscal loop, making those who benefit most from public investments pay the most to support them.