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Sam Purinton's avatar

You sir, are an astounding writer. I would read you even if you wrote about sea mollusks. Georgists are exceedingly fortunate that you write on our favorite subject.

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Russell Hawkins's avatar

Adding more sea mollusk content: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_(clam)

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Isaiah Antares's avatar

Humility is key. We see too little of it, today; narcissists of the left and right shout right past one another.

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Spencer Dorsey's avatar

I don't really have anything useful to add but I think this is really nice.

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Alex Potts's avatar

It always wonder why the Georgist symbol also appeared as one of the many "things" you can acquire in the video game Katarami Damacy. Now I know!

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Mike Curtis's avatar

This is a wonderful speech. It really does encapsulate the georgist thesis.

My had is off to you sir.

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Barbara Riverwoman's avatar

I have been saying I’m a Georgist for decades now, ever since my son introduced me to the ideas. It seemed intuitively right to not pay taxes on something that is not a created asset. Land should be everybody’s birthright and the value of land should be divided equally between us all. But I admit I never found a home built on this philosophy and when I brought it up with others I could never defend explain how it could work in the modern world. So I was happy to see this article and hope it means that this idea really does have relevance to our present moment. It

definitely coincides with my growing understanding as an 87-year-old that it makes sense to be humble when trying to help others understand what I think I understand.

So thank you for lifting up both banners. Or at least the more modest logo.

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Erl Happ's avatar

Great post. Eminently readable.

I have a suggestion. Australia is a big country with a small population. In Western Australia we have 150 km of continuous urban sprawl along a strip of coastline on either side of the Swan River where Perth sits. It's a product of the availability of cars for personal transport, cheap fuel and developer convenience. Today its choked by traffic, it lacks vegetation and is a heat sink. Once the allotment for a house was 2000 square metres. Now its down to 240 square metres. You can imagine what that means for public transport options and traffic density. on the roads.

The same planning formula is applied to rural towns.

There is plenty of green space but its beyond the frontier of what's possible because its zoned 'rural'.

Therein lies the opportunity, but we must have the wit to imagine something different. Walkable, mixed use, combine home, commerce and work and keep the cars away for the sake of the kids. Imagine what it would be like if the main street of ones town was a dirt road where kids can play hopscotch or marbles as my grandmother did in Hay Street, in the centre of Perth in 1880.

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