Kiaochow, a German leasehold territory (1898-1914) where a single tax, a LVT of 6% on the selling price of land, was implemented.
An experiment in soliciting public input using Polis “to draft a constitution for an AI system.”
Interesting observations on micro-retail and “living on top of the shop.” The article claims that Toronto’s “property tax structure makes small retail unaffordable, which is why so much of it is being converted to residential.” I wonder how property tax structures in cities I am more familiar with compare to Toronto’s, and if they similarly disincentivise micro-retail? What other things, beyond tax structures, are at play?
On the topic of micro-retail, I found the chapter on “yokocho” in this book about Tokyo especially interesting.
This article got me thinking about the Korzybski “the map is not the territory” aphorism.
This article on the history of Houston’s land-use policy, which appears to have been largely succesful in provisioning affordable housing. The mechanism by which “Houston’s [opt-out] system places the cost of additional regulations on the people who want them imposed” was particularly interesting to think about.
This article on something I have been thinking about for a while: representations of cities on digital platforms, and the effects of such representations. As an aside, the article references this article, which comments on how location-based services are “gentrifying neighborhoods” by making making services more “visible to upper-income patrons in other parts of the city”; it seems trivially true that such services have changed consumptions patterns, but I am not entirely convinced of the degree of causality that seems to be attributed to them, nor of the ethics — beyond the bounds of the piece — of restricting urban information flow.
The FF XIV housing crisis. Eorzean officials might have beniffeted from Zipcarring a DeLorean time machine and travelling to Kiaochow.
This article on the affordances — and sacrifices — made by cities when hosting F1 races.