Some say racism was invented to try to justify displacing one group of people – Native Americans – from the land and enslaving another group of people to work it. Racism may be more complicated than that, but it has been closely connected to land… Read More »Racism and the Land
Kelly Doran, a prominent Minneapolis housing developer, argued in a recent op/ed that with the current economic shutdown, the city’s “inclusionary housing” regulations that require market rate developments to include a percentage of affordable units should be eliminated. He says that such requirements, along with the difficulty… Read More »Does economic shutdown allow a reset on policies to make housing affordable?
Nicolaus Tideman image: Daniel Thiele on Unsplash In ancient Sumer, it was customary for a new monarch, upon ascending his throne, to cancel the debts of farmers to their landlords.[1] (The debts of merchants to one another, however, were not canceled.) The Hebrew Bible establishes a similar economic… Read More »The Role of Debt Cancellation in Implementing Land Value Taxation
By Divya Singh In recent decades, significant increases in the rent-to-income ratios have worsened the affordability of living in cities across the world. A widely promulgated solution is to build more housing in cities. But if there is an excessive demand for housing in cities,… Read More »Property Tax Incentives for New Housing Spurred Gentrification in New York City
The earth is our common home. Most, if not all, people would agree with this principal statement, at least conceptually and in the abstract. But what could be a comprehensive practical implementation of this principal statement that would be of social and economic benefit to… Read More »The Commons
Imagine living in an indigenous, pre-modern and traditional community such as existed in the Amazon prior to the invasions by Brazilian miners and farmers. Would anyone in such a community be homeless? Of course not. Any capable member of the community would be able to… Read More »Housing Affordability
By Frank de Jong The many organizations around the world that work to popularize the work of nineteenth-century American economist Henry George have three goals: a just society, a green society, and a prosperous society. Collectively, these organizations constitute an interconnected think tank advocating financing… Read More »What’s So Special about Henry George Anyway?
On October 25, 2019, the Minneapolis City Council approved the “Minneapolis 2040” plan. City officials produced it to guide the development of Minnesota’s largest city into the mid-21st century. The plan focuses on a variety of developmental areas, such as jobs, education, the environment, and… Read More »The Minneapolis 2040 Plan Is Unlikely to Provide Affordable Housing
by Lindy Davies It has been generally assumed, for many years, that “the free market isn’t good at providing affordable housing.” If the free market can’t satisfy that basic, universal human need, then we can’t afford to trust the free market, can we? Oddly, the… Read More »Affordable Housing
