Forces Shaping Urban Development

Book excerpt: This paper presents an examination of the impact of the property tax on several dimensions of urban structure. Those dimensions considered are blight, capital density, and leapfrogging. For each dimension previous research is reviewed, and theoretical models of the relationship between the tax and the impact are constructed. Both the level of the property tax and assessment practices were examined in the models dealing with urban blight. It was found that assessment practices that used depreciated value rather than market value as the basis for assessment would encourage urban blight. Similarly, the level of the tax could also be detrimental to the level of housing services that are offered. A model of individual entrepreneurial behavior was used in examining the impact of the property tax on capital density. It is shown that the level of the property tax has no bearing on capital density, but the composition of the tax (tax on land versus capital) can have important effects. The various causes of leapfrogging are discussed. It appears that any impact of the property tax is overshadowed by other forces at work in the urban environment. In fact, some of the research reviewed implies that the property tax may actually inhibit leapfrogging.