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UID:Indybay-18860385
SEQUENCE:19026829
CREATED:20231114T223000Z
DESCRIPTION:Join an on line gather of those who love what APEC has brought San 
 Francisco:  clean streets with the unhoused housed.\n\nAPEC is proof San 
 Francisco can be a model city\nby David Giesen (info [at] 
 TheCommonsSF.org)\nMon, Nov 13, 2023 4:30PM\nSan Francisco needs APEC type 
 events every week of the year in order to house the poor and keep the 
 streets clean.\nSo much of downtown San Francisco is easy on the eyes this 
 week during which the city hosts the Asian Pacific Economic Conference 
 (APEC). Market Street is rinsed several times a day. The unhoused have been 
 provided shelter. The hungry have been fed. The sidewalks are 
 pedestrian-friendly for the first time in years. The city belies the nasty 
 (but accurate) press Fox News et al shovels the rest of the USA regarding 
 San Francisco. By gum, this APEC week aspires to rival the glorious rebound 
 of The City after the earthquake and fire of 1906. \n\nWhy not give APEC a 
 permanent home in San Francisco? Or host world events every week of the 
 year? Life is good this week for the poor and the wealthy in San Francisco. 
 Somebody's paying to put the household clean and kempt, and it's working! 
 The problem, of course, is who, in fact, is going to foot the cleaning bill 
 for all those weeks of the year this week's Potemkin Village isn't called 
 for in the name of US honor? This past Sunday's New York Times (11/12/23) 
 holds an answer. It's not an answer most readers have gumption for, sadly, 
 but it's the Mother of All Answers. Treat the Earth as a commonwealth. 
 \n\nThe Times article is poorly edited. It lures us in by suggesting a 
 great fix is in the works for restoring derelict Detroit. The fix is land 
 value taxation LVT): a public policy that would socialize 99% of location 
 value, thus abolishing land speculation and thereby driving market optimal 
 use of land. Full implementation would terminate unearned income and 
 vaporize debt related to nature values. It's only liability is that 
 everyone who stands (or wishes) to gain privately from ownership of 
 location won't vote for it. The NYT article draws us by the prospect of a 
 city actually taking public ownership of land value (not ownership of land, 
 mind you, but of land value), and then dashing the brains out of the idea 
 by highlighting the quirky nature of its most devoted advocates. There are 
 a few hard to dismiss real estate voices introduced in the article, but 
 after presenting the wholesome effect of even a milquetoast edition of LVT, 
 the article goes off on a needless survey of mom and pop personalities who 
 are cult-like committed to socializing land values. The reader interested 
 in what LVT actually is and how it works is left in the dark. \n\nAll it 
 takes to illuminate LVT's social perspective is a short paragraph telling a 
 story. Imagine a townhouse or condo or business location in Manhattan or 
 San Francisco. Now move that habitation or business to Paducah, Kentucky. 
 The rent changes, doesn't it? All but a smidgen of that difference is land 
 rent. Land rent is not a value created by the owner of land, but instead is 
 generated by the presence of community. LVT would socialize all the 
 location rent differential that falls between Manhattan/SF and the sage 
 brush barrens of Nevada. In short, LVT holds that the economic value of the 
 Earth belongs to society, not to individual land owners. \n\nWe're talking 
 trillions of dollars per year aggregate across the USA, and tens of 
 billions per year in San Francisco. That's where the annual heap of dough 
 can come from to replace the APEC week's show-town with a year-round great 
 place to live for everyone. The currently landless most of all.\nFor more 
 information: http://www.TheCommonsSF.org\n 
 https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2023/11/14/18860385.php
SUMMARY:Cheers to APEC for showing SF is the city that can!
LOCATION:on line at a google meet:\n\nmeet.google.com/yyq-fqvf-xdm
URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2023/11/14/18860385.php
DTSTART:20231115T030000Z
DTEND:20231115T040000Z
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