Progress and Poverty, Volumes I and II: An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of WealthGeorge, Henry
General
Progress and Poverty, Volumes I and II: An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth
George, Henry
Economics; Single tax
The same thing may be seen in every rapidly growing city. If the land
of superior quality as to location were always fully used before land
of inferior quality were resorted to, no vacant lots would be left as
a city extended, nor would we find miserable shanties in the midst of
costly buildings. These lots, some of them extremely valuable, are
withheld from use, or from the full use to which they might be put,
because their owners, not being able or not wishing to improve them,
prefer, in expectation of the advance of land values, to hold them for
a higher rate than could now be obtained from those willing to improve
them. And, in consequence of this land being withheld from use, or from
the full use of which it is capable, the margin of the city is pushed
away so much farther from the center.
But when we reach the limits of the growing city—the actual margin
of building, which corresponds to the margin of cultivation in
agriculture—we shall not find the land purchasable at its value for
agricultural purposes, as it would be were rent determined simply by
present requirements; but we shall find that for a long distance beyond
the city land bears a speculative value, based upon the belief that it
will be required in the future for urban purposes, and that to reach
the point at which land can be purchased at a price not based upon
urban rent, we must go very far beyond the actual margin of urban use.
Or, to take another case of a different kind, instances similar to
which may doubtless be found in every locality. There is in Marin
County, within easy access of San Francisco, a fine belt of redwood
timber. Naturally, this would be first used, before resorting for the
supply of the San Francisco market to timber lands at a much greater
distance. But it yet remains uncut, and lumber procured many miles
beyond is daily hauled past it on the railroad, because its owner
prefers to hold for the greater price it will bring in the future.
Thus, by the withholding from use of this body of timber, the margin
of production of redwood is forced so much farther up and down the
Coast Range. That mineral land, when reduced to private ownership,
is frequently withheld from use while poorer deposits are worked, is
well known, and in new States it is common to find individuals who
are called “land poor”—that is, who remain poor, sometimes almost to
deprivation, because they insist on holding land, which they themselves
cannot use, at prices at which no one else can profitably use it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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