Bakery in a retail slot in the ground floor of a 5-story apartment building is by definition not charming. It's cookie-cutter (pardon the pun). It's the sort of place that opens, struggles for nine months, and goes bankrupt.

We see so much about wanting "walkable" neighborhoods where we have shops and markets all steps away from our door. Well, if the land is so valuable that it will only support dense apartment towers, small businesses like that will not be able to afford to be close by.

The idea behind the LVT is that the tax is based on the best and highest use of the land. But zoning is a component.

If the market is begging for a 100-floor tower on a piece of land, but the zoning says you can only build a single house, the LVT would be based on a house sitting there.

So, if you had a historic or otherwise significant structure, you’re going to have to downzone the land to prevent the loss of the structure. Naturally, that’s going to be abused. Connected people are going to get their property zoned for smaller structures, while unconnected people will get their property zoned for huge structures.

As a counterpoint, Manhattan has plenty of charming street-level shops in an area where multi-story apartment buildings are the only reasonable thing to build.