This is great, and it also feels like a great way to answer the question "Where should I buy a house if I want to be close to the center but not in the expensive area?".
> Let’s play a guessing game. How much more valuable is land in Manhattan than in the Bronx? Take a guess, then scroll down for the answer.
As someone who has never been in New York and doesn't live in the US, I knew beforehand that I would fail this test very hard, haha.
Manhattan is where basically everything you might associate with New York is (Empire State building, World Trade Center, Times Square, Central Park, etc.). The Bronx is where Jennifer Lopez reminds us that she came from as she keeps it real.
> "1. People have wildly incorrect intuitions about where land value is concentrated"
Fwiw this sort of land value gradient has been studied in economics for ages. See papers on monocentric city model, going back to Alonso (1964), Muth (1969), and Mills (1967). Or even further back, von Thünen was talking back in 1826 about how land values spike as you get closer to the marketplace.
> I was waiting to read about what these "wildly incorrect intuitions" were, but it's never explained. The maps correctly matched my own intuitions.
If you are into land value tax discourse maybe, but from my experience at least there is a big lack of awareness of the impact of economic activities on land values as they are not reflected by anything that people get in contact with. That's especially true because neither rents nor property taxes (the one thing people might have exposure to) fully capture it.
Author here. Our blog generally concerns property tax reform for our regular readership which is admittedly less clear to a new reader coming in cold: the intuitions I’m referring to is the average homeowner kind of assumes any tax reform (such as shifting taxes off buildings and onto land) is designed to impoverish them personally. The purpose of these maps is to show such people where land value in cities is really concentrated - Ie, not the m the suburbs. Mono centric city value might be intuitive to academics, but it’s not among regular everyday people.
Do you mean people underestimate how steep the gradient is, or they don't know it at all?
It seems kind of dubious to me that "everyday" people don't understand that land in cities is worth more than land in suburbs. It seems very transparent that you get a smaller lot size for the same price.
Both. They do understand that it’s worth “more” in the city but they vastly underestimate the magnitude, and they vastly underestimate what that means in terms of where the total bulk of land value is concentrated, and therefore what the distribution of winners and losers will be in any tax shift scenario.
But I'm not a fan of these particular maps because the use of 3d makes them harder to read. The isometric view and rotation away from north at the top break conventions that people use to orient themselves in the map and connect it to their lived experiences on the ground. I'm reasonably familiar with NYC geography, and I could not immediately recognize the landscape I was looking at in these maps. Ironically, it was only because I already knew the answer to the question that I could do so: "oh that huge green spike must be Manhattan".
I think a 2d choropleth map with a diverging color scale centered on the mean value would work better.
The main purpose of the 3D is to communicate the extreme differences in scale of value, which chloropleth alone doesn’t always get across as it flattens the magnitude disparity. Keeping true north to avoid confusion is a good point.
Is "land value" the right term here? The NYC example uses assessed property value, which I think is a function of both the land under a property and the building itself. In that case, these "taller means more valuable" graphics are at least partially reflecting the fact that a tall building is probably more valuable than the short one next to it?
Land and "improvements" are assessed separately, and I believe this is plotting just the assessed land values. In the small text about each map, it says to use the settings to switch to full assessed value or improvements. But still, it's very hard to actually assess land value in an area like Manhattan where there are basically no land-only transactions
A minor thing - I know that article is part of a broader body of work and is not meant to solely present your ideas by itself. But nonetheless, since you linked to it, I had to scan down quite a bit to answer the question that was immediately on my mind: "tax reform for what purpose and why?"
And, an aside, I'd personally recommend getting rid of the emoji bullet-point additions: in this day and age, well, you know.
Note that the site that generated these does not support any San Francisco Bay Area cities. I learned this only after being forced to "Sign in with Google".
This is great, and it also feels like a great way to answer the question "Where should I buy a house if I want to be close to the center but not in the expensive area?".
> Let’s play a guessing game. How much more valuable is land in Manhattan than in the Bronx? Take a guess, then scroll down for the answer.
As someone who has never been in New York and doesn't live in the US, I knew beforehand that I would fail this test very hard, haha.
Manhattan is where basically everything you might associate with New York is (Empire State building, World Trade Center, Times Square, Central Park, etc.). The Bronx is where Jennifer Lopez reminds us that she came from as she keeps it real.
> "1. People have wildly incorrect intuitions about where land value is concentrated"
Fwiw this sort of land value gradient has been studied in economics for ages. See papers on monocentric city model, going back to Alonso (1964), Muth (1969), and Mills (1967). Or even further back, von Thünen was talking back in 1826 about how land values spike as you get closer to the marketplace.
I was waiting to read about what these "wildly incorrect intuitions" were, but it's never explained. The maps correctly matched my own intuitions.
> I was waiting to read about what these "wildly incorrect intuitions" were, but it's never explained. The maps correctly matched my own intuitions.
If you are into land value tax discourse maybe, but from my experience at least there is a big lack of awareness of the impact of economic activities on land values as they are not reflected by anything that people get in contact with. That's especially true because neither rents nor property taxes (the one thing people might have exposure to) fully capture it.
Author here. Our blog generally concerns property tax reform for our regular readership which is admittedly less clear to a new reader coming in cold: the intuitions I’m referring to is the average homeowner kind of assumes any tax reform (such as shifting taxes off buildings and onto land) is designed to impoverish them personally. The purpose of these maps is to show such people where land value in cities is really concentrated - Ie, not the m the suburbs. Mono centric city value might be intuitive to academics, but it’s not among regular everyday people.
Do you mean people underestimate how steep the gradient is, or they don't know it at all?
It seems kind of dubious to me that "everyday" people don't understand that land in cities is worth more than land in suburbs. It seems very transparent that you get a smaller lot size for the same price.
Both. They do understand that it’s worth “more” in the city but they vastly underestimate the magnitude, and they vastly underestimate what that means in terms of where the total bulk of land value is concentrated, and therefore what the distribution of winners and losers will be in any tax shift scenario.
The overall claim is true - yes put it on a map.
But I'm not a fan of these particular maps because the use of 3d makes them harder to read. The isometric view and rotation away from north at the top break conventions that people use to orient themselves in the map and connect it to their lived experiences on the ground. I'm reasonably familiar with NYC geography, and I could not immediately recognize the landscape I was looking at in these maps. Ironically, it was only because I already knew the answer to the question that I could do so: "oh that huge green spike must be Manhattan".
I think a 2d choropleth map with a diverging color scale centered on the mean value would work better.
The main purpose of the 3D is to communicate the extreme differences in scale of value, which chloropleth alone doesn’t always get across as it flattens the magnitude disparity. Keeping true north to avoid confusion is a good point.
Is "land value" the right term here? The NYC example uses assessed property value, which I think is a function of both the land under a property and the building itself. In that case, these "taller means more valuable" graphics are at least partially reflecting the fact that a tall building is probably more valuable than the short one next to it?
Land and "improvements" are assessed separately, and I believe this is plotting just the assessed land values. In the small text about each map, it says to use the settings to switch to full assessed value or improvements. But still, it's very hard to actually assess land value in an area like Manhattan where there are basically no land-only transactions
It is a good question. The author seems to use the field "assr_land_value", and there is also an "assr_impr_value". So it very well may be correct.
> Show an elected official
What is the problem this visualization seeks to make obvious? Is it just neat to think about and make?
Author here. This is the problem we are seeking to solve, we are property tax reform activists:
https://open.substack.com/pub/progressandpoverty/p/enacting-...
A minor thing - I know that article is part of a broader body of work and is not meant to solely present your ideas by itself. But nonetheless, since you linked to it, I had to scan down quite a bit to answer the question that was immediately on my mind: "tax reform for what purpose and why?"
And, an aside, I'd personally recommend getting rid of the emoji bullet-point additions: in this day and age, well, you know.
Good points! Thanks.
Was cool to see a few of the cities, and then cross reference with some searches on pricing to get a better understanding of the actual cost.
Nice idea, except the actual mapper site requires a google login to view.
Author here: it’s a cheap rate limiter and something we are looking to remove soon.
Probably fun to make but harder to read compared to a bar chart.
Note that the site that generated these does not support any San Francisco Bay Area cities. I learned this only after being forced to "Sign in with Google".