Land Speculation in the Jade District Leaves a Gleaming Structure Empty

It's related for sure. Our current property tax system kind of conflates the land value with the value of the buildings on the land--that's why a house will be assessed as going up in value even though it's physically deteriorating a bit as it ages, and even if it's likely to be torn down and replaced by a new buyer. The idea of land value tax is that you revamp the assessment system to reflect that most of the value is actually in the location of the property, and you tax the property based only on that value, but at a high rate. This significantly discourages leaving a lot vacant, because your income on that property will be low, but your taxes will be as high as if you had built it up. It basically does away with "land banking." This is why there are currently so many lots in most downtowns that are barely improved--parking lots, storage companies, that sort of thing: because of the lack of significant buildings, they'll have low property taxes, and the owner can just hold them while they wait for the value to inflate. Land Value Tax does away with that. It incentivizes the efficient use of land, and basically eliminates the use of land as simply a hoarding spot for wealth.

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A Land Value Tax would help with this. Henry George was on to something with that.
- This is what "property tax" is, isn't it? You pay a specified percentage of your property's assessed value in tax.
  
  It's related for sure. Our current property tax system kind of conflates the land value with the value of the buildings on the land--that's why a house will be assessed as going up in value even though it's physically deteriorating a bit as it ages, and even if it's likely to be torn down and replaced by a new buyer. The idea of land value tax is that you revamp the assessment system to reflect that most of the value is actually in the location of the property, and you tax the property based only on that value, but at a high rate. This significantly discourages leaving a lot vacant, because your income on that property will be low, but your taxes will be as high as if you had built it up. It basically does away with "land banking." This is why there are currently so many lots in most downtowns that are barely improved--parking lots, storage companies, that sort of thing: because of the lack of significant buildings, they'll have low property taxes, and the owner can just hold them while they wait for the value to inflate. Land Value Tax does away with that. It incentivizes the efficient use of land, and basically eliminates the use of land as simply a hoarding spot for wealth.