> When you start instructing landowners what to do with their property
Nowhere is anyone instructing anyone else. Requiring landowners to internalize the opportunity costs they externalize onto everyone else is not unreasonable.
> If land owners should be taxed for owning land they don’t use
They should be taxed for land period, whether they're using it or not, since all land ownership inherently entails the externalization of opportunity costs on everyone else. And if they're using it for something productive, they'll have a much easier time paying that tax.
> we should also have a child tax
That's already built into a land value tax. Land's value - like the value of anything else - is a function of supply and demand. The supply of land is fixed, and demand is a function of population (more people in the world = more people needing places to live and work and play = more demand for land). So, as more humans enter the world, the value of land goes up, and therefore so does the tax on that land's value.
> people who own property don’t contribute to suburbs and rural sprawl.
They literally do, be it by owning the land encompassing that sprawl or by owning the land within urban centers and refusing to develop it into denser residential spaces. This is the mathematical reality. If you want a reduction in humanity's carbon footprint, a land value tax is one of the most effective levers to drive that reduction.
Nowhere is anyone instructing anyone else. Requiring landowners to internalize the opportunity costs they externalize onto everyone else is not unreasonable.
> If land owners should be taxed for owning land they don’t use
They should be taxed for land period, whether they're using it or not, since all land ownership inherently entails the externalization of opportunity costs on everyone else. And if they're using it for something productive, they'll have a much easier time paying that tax.
> we should also have a child tax
That's already built into a land value tax. Land's value - like the value of anything else - is a function of supply and demand. The supply of land is fixed, and demand is a function of population (more people in the world = more people needing places to live and work and play = more demand for land). So, as more humans enter the world, the value of land goes up, and therefore so does the tax on that land's value.
> people who own property don’t contribute to suburbs and rural sprawl.
They literally do, be it by owning the land encompassing that sprawl or by owning the land within urban centers and refusing to develop it into denser residential spaces. This is the mathematical reality. If you want a reduction in humanity's carbon footprint, a land value tax is one of the most effective levers to drive that reduction.