Georgism

Land is a gift of nature whose value is created largely by community and location, so its rental value should go to the public. A tax on land value would be hard to avoid, would not reduce the supply of land, and could replace taxes on labour and capital.

Henry George's Progress and Poverty (1879) argued that rising land rents explain why poverty persists alongside progress, and proposed a "single tax" on land values. The "Henry George theorem" (Arnott and Stiglitz, 1979) shows that under idealised assumptions aggregate land rent equals optimal spending on public goods in an optimally sized city.

• George finished second in the 1886 New York mayoral race, ahead of Theodore Roosevelt.
• Fairhope, Alabama (founded 1894) held land in a corporation that issued 99-year leases and paid tenants' property taxes from rent.
• Pittsburgh taxed land at twice the rate of buildings from 1913 and at more than five times from 1979–80, until the system ended in 2001.

Valuing land separately from buildings is difficult, a land tax may not raise enough revenue in all economies, owners who bought at prices reflecting future rent may argue they are treated unfairly, and the claim that one tax suffices is disputed.

Georgist ideas live on in land value tax proposals and in related designs such as Harberger taxes. Evidence from Pittsburgh is suggestive but hard to separate from other factors.