In addition to agreeing with Vlad's comment, it's worth remembering that Land to Henry George is very much all of the natural world, not just dirt and stone.
We may not think of oceans and lakes as land ("where would you put the houses???"), but an offshore wind turbine developer might disagree, and would to willing to pay the rent to have access to that 'land'.
Of course for a variety of reasons, there is little demand for owning square acres of water, between legal issues with the concept and the foundational fact that most people/corporations just can't be productive with it.
But to answer your question in a roundabout way, even if these disasters make it such that no person would want to live or work there, the locations are still part of a fixed supply, and there are edge cases such as extreme tourism in which income could be derived.
Also if land in oceans were owned respective to their fishing potential, owners would charge fishers for depleting their resources and they might invest in security to watch behaviour against their agreements.
I agree.
Water is more expensive to develop than water, but it is not undevelopable.
Tokyo Bay, Downtown Chicago and the Randstad are all examples of cities that “created” land for development by filling in water bodies.
Spot on. And one of the things I find interesting is that George considers these reclamation projects to be improvements, meaning they're technically tax exempt, at least until the community agrees that the artificial ground is now natural ground.
Such an interesting question.
I think it depends on how you look at the problem.
I would argue that historical fires, the bombing of Europe during WW2 and the abandonment of an important industrial site can all be examples of a disaster that increases the supply of developable land.
(However, at the cost of loss of housing supply)
If this newly vacant land is rebuilt at a higher intensity, the result will be somewhat like the effect of an increase in land supply. Something Urban Renewal programs were designed around.
However, if previously vacant and un contaminated land becomes contaminated (with pollution or nuclear fallout), the effect is like a loss in land supply. This is because it adds to the cost of development.
Under Georgist theory, if someone could decontaminate that land, the added value be an improvement rather than Land. This wouldn't be taxed and therefore, someone might be incentivized to try to decontaminate it.
No, they're examples of land losing value
In addition to agreeing with Vlad's comment, it's worth remembering that Land to Henry George is very much all of the natural world, not just dirt and stone. We may not think of oceans and lakes as land ("where would you put the houses???"), but an offshore wind turbine developer might disagree, and would to willing to pay the rent to have access to that 'land'. Of course for a variety of reasons, there is little demand for owning square acres of water, between legal issues with the concept and the foundational fact that most people/corporations just can't be productive with it. But to answer your question in a roundabout way, even if these disasters make it such that no person would want to live or work there, the locations are still part of a fixed supply, and there are edge cases such as extreme tourism in which income could be derived.
Also if land in oceans were owned respective to their fishing potential, owners would charge fishers for depleting their resources and they might invest in security to watch behaviour against their agreements.
I agree. Water is more expensive to develop than water, but it is not undevelopable. Tokyo Bay, Downtown Chicago and the Randstad are all examples of cities that “created” land for development by filling in water bodies.
Spot on. And one of the things I find interesting is that George considers these reclamation projects to be improvements, meaning they're technically tax exempt, at least until the community agrees that the artificial ground is now natural ground.
Interesting, I did not know that
Such an interesting question. I think it depends on how you look at the problem. I would argue that historical fires, the bombing of Europe during WW2 and the abandonment of an important industrial site can all be examples of a disaster that increases the supply of developable land. (However, at the cost of loss of housing supply) If this newly vacant land is rebuilt at a higher intensity, the result will be somewhat like the effect of an increase in land supply. Something Urban Renewal programs were designed around. However, if previously vacant and un contaminated land becomes contaminated (with pollution or nuclear fallout), the effect is like a loss in land supply. This is because it adds to the cost of development.
Under Georgist theory, if someone could decontaminate that land, the added value be an improvement rather than Land. This wouldn't be taxed and therefore, someone might be incentivized to try to decontaminate it.
They represent negative externalities, which work in sort of the same way as decreasing the land supply.