over the long run land-leases have proven effective e.g with Shenzhen.
the people that need the land - lease it first - develop it. if you don't develop it - you don't realize any gain from it. thereby removing speculation.
the people that need the land - lease it first - develop it. if you don't develop it - you don't realize any gain from it. thereby removing speculation.
That isn't the case in Shenzhen.
Long term government land leases are a good thing. The only thing that they inhibit is dynastic wealth which seems like a bonus to me!
There is still speculation with these long-term leases, and the article even mentions that the leases themselves became marketable assets, very similar to a land deed.
Building something from scratch whether it be a city, company, or even just an area of a city is often a risky endeavor. ROI horizons are long so there generally needs to be significant compensation for that risk.
Perhaps part of the problem in the US is it is not profitable enough to found new cities. We've capped the upside with things like statewide rent control and strict countywide zoning while also increasing costs with endless environmental reviews and the number of ways in which developments can be sued into oblivion.
If we encouraged more speculation and rent seeking we might have vibrant new cities.
However... speculation on the underlying land, which is not fungible and one of the few things on this planet earth that is actually completely inelastic with a totally fixed supply, is bad. I won't say this is a popular tax, but it's not unheard of.
I think a really great example here is Singapore, which effectively doesn't have private land ownership and has been pretty spectacularly well developed in the last few decades.