Matthew Desmond, 'Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City'

Harvard Sociology Professor Matthew Desmond discusses his book, "Evicted", which looks at public housing and poverty in America through the prism of eight families from the poorest neighborhoods in Milwaukee.

[nthperson]

What policies are needed to solve the housing shortage crisis? Some think the problem is an income problem. This is not close to the full answer. Without a continuous increase in the supply of housing options owners of property have all the leverage. Any widespread increase in household incomes is quickly capitalized into higher land prices and this becomes higher rents for available rental housing. Properties for sale to owner-occupants experience the same "demand pull inflation." There is but one solution, and this is for government to move as quickly as possible to a land-only property tax base.

An annual tax on land that comes close to collecting the full potential annual rental value of each and every land parcel in a community will remove the profits now associated with land speculation and the holding of land off the market simply because the cost of doing so is nominal. A high tax on land's rental value will induce owners to bring the land they hold to its highest, best use -- or sell to someone who will.