“Roads are made, streets are made, railway services are improved, electric light turns night into day, electric trams glide swiftly to and fro, water is brought from reservoirs a hundred miles off in the mountains — and all the while the landlord sits still... To not one of those improvements does the land monopolist as a land monopolist contribute, and yet by every one of them the value of his land is sensibly enhanced.”
Problem
For decades, the United States has treated land not as a finite natural resource essential for life, but as a speculative financial asset.
Across the country—from booming metropolises to rural communities—the unearned value of land has detached completely from the real economy. By allowing private interests to monopolize location values created by public investment and community growth, we have engineered an affordability crisis that stifles economic dynamism.
This structure is pre-programmed to drive inequality. When land acts as a vehicle for speculation rather than a site for living or working, it extracts wealth from productive laborers and businesses and funnels it to passive landowners. This creates a parasitic drag on our economy, where rising rents devour wages, innovation, and capital investment.
Below, we detail the ways that privatized land rent and unchecked speculation underlie and perpetuate a broad range of social problems and injustices.
Land Speculation:
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In high-demand markets, the soaring cost of housing is driven almost entirely by the price of the land underneath, not the structure itself. Supply not meeting demand is driven by the speculative nature of land.
Land prices have skyrocketed relative to wages. Land values in major U.S. metros have appreciated faster than he cost of construction and median household incomes.
Speculation restricts supply. By holding prime locations vacant or under-utilized to wait for future appreciation, speculators artificially constrain the supply of available housing, driving up costs for everyone else.
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As land values rise, the ladder to the middle class is pulled up, turning a nation of owners into a nation of renters.
Investors outbid families. Institutional investors and private equity firms, leveraging cheap capital, are purchasing single-family starter homes in bulk. In Q2 2024 alone, investors bought one in six homes sold in the U.S., rates at record highs (Redfin, 2024).
Down payments are insurmountable. Because land value appreciation outpaces savings rates, the barrier to entry for first-time buyers grows steeper every year, locking millions out of the primary vehicle for American wealth creation.
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Large-scale developers and corporate landlords are shifting strategies to exploit land scarcity, effectively monopolizing the American Dream.
The "Build-to-Rent" pivot. Major homebuilders are increasingly abandoning the model of selling homes to families. Instead, they speculate on suburban land tracts, wait for public infrastructure to increase the value, and build entire communities exclusively for rent.
Monetizing trapped demand. By controlling the land supply in high-growth areas, these corporations bet on "induced demand"—knowing that families need to live near jobs and schools—to drive up rents across their diversified portfolios. This model transforms housing from a consumer good into a perpetual revenue stream for shareholders.
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The current land economy exacerbates the racial wealth gap, creating a systemic barrier that historic discrimination built and modern policy maintains.
The legacy of exclusion. Because land ownership is the primary driver of intergenerational wealth, centuries of redlining and exclusion have left Black and Brown communities with a fraction of the land wealth of White families.
Disparate impact. Housing market appreciation has explained 70% of the increase in the median White-Black wealth gap over the past several decades.
Speculation targets minority neighborhoods. As land values rise in gentrifying areas, long-time minority residents are often displaced by rising property taxes or rents, while outside speculators capture the value created by the community’s culture and resilience.
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Our tax system incentivizes the waste of prime urban land, forcing development outward and damaging our climate.
Leapfrog development. Because it is cheap to hold valuable urban lots vacant (due to low taxes on land), developers are pushed to build on the cheaper periphery of cities. This "sprawl" destroys farmland and natural habitats.
Increased reliance on cars. This artificial spread of development forces workers to commute longer distances, significantly increasing vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and carbon emissions. Transportation is now the leading source of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. (EPA, 2025).
Solution: Land Value Return
“As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce.”
For too long, we have allowed the value created by our communities to be privatized by a few, while the costs of maintaining those communities are socialized onto the many. Securing economic justice in America means addressing the root monopoly that underpins all others: the monopoly of land.
The way forward is Land Value Return: a commitment to capturing the value of nature and community growth for the public good, rather than letting it accrue to passive speculators. By returning land values to the community that created them, we can lower taxes on labor and production, making housing affordable and the economy dynamic.
There are two primary vehicles to achieve this:
Lease the Land: Governments can retain ownership of land and lease it to private actors for long terms (e.g., 99 years). This allows the public to capture the rising value of the location (ground rent) while private individuals own and profit from the buildings and businesses they create.
Tax the Land: For privately held land, we can shift the tax burden off of productive labor and capital and onto the value of the land itself.
Property taxes are the number source of revenue for local governments. While land leasing is a powerful tool for new developments and public lands, the most pragmatic and immediate path for the majority of American cities is reforming property taxes.
The Policy: Shift Taxes to Land
Our current property tax system is broken. It punishes development and rewards stagnation.
Every time a homeowner renovates their kitchen, or a business expands its factory, their property taxes go up. We literally fine people for improving their communities. Meanwhile, a land speculator who buys a vacant lot in the city center and leaves it empty—contributing nothing while waiting for the neighborhood to improve around him—pays a pittance.
We must find a way to align incentives, so landowners are encouraged to build and discouraged from idleness.
The solution is shifting taxes to land value.
While keeping total revenue neutral, municipalities can implement property tax policies which result in a shift. This includes a split-rate tax, where the city implements:
A lower rate on improvements (buildings, renovations).
A higher rate on land value.
Land is valued solely based on location—its proximity to jobs, schools, and infrastructure. Improvements are valued based on what the owner builds.
By shifting the tax burden from the buildings to land, we flip the economic incentives of the city.
For the Homeowner and Builder: The penalty for improving a property disappears. If you build a new apartment complex or fix your roof, your taxes barely budge because the land value hasn't changed.
For the Speculator: The cost of holding valuable land out of use rises. Vacant lots and boarded-up buildings become expensive liabilities rather than profitable assets. The only way to pay the tax is to put the land to productive use or sell it to someone who will.
