The principles of land value capture in the perspective of Georgist political economy

Owiti A. K’Akumu

Planning Perspectives, 2025, vol. 40, issue 2, 265-282

Abstract: This article tackles the question of unearned increment that accrues to landowners in urban situations in terms of uplifts in land values. Several public policy strategies including planning and tax instruments have been developed, applied, and debated overtime to appropriate this benefit from the hands of private landowners and return to the public in a practice known as land value capture (LVC). This article adds to the on-going debate by undertaking a taxonomic examination of LVC strategies and instruments to end a fragmentary understanding of the phenomenon. It pays particular attention to the tax-based strategy of LVC where site value taxation (SVT) is mainly associated with Henry George. Hence the review identifies Georgist and non-Georgist typologies of unearned increment using the concept of site, the theory of value, the concept of SVT, and the benefit principle of property tax. After defining the non-Georgist unearned increment also known as betterment, it goes ahead to draw conceptual distinctions between betterment taxes: planning gain levies and special assessment rates. This has helped to bring together all LVC strategies and all SVT instruments under one conceptual roof thereby contributing to the general theory of SVT.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1080/02665433.2024.2386685

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