EXPLORING LAND VALUE TAXATION AS A MEANS OF MITIGATING GREATER BOSTON'S HOUSING AFFORDABILITY CRISIS.

Like many coastal American metropolitan areas flush with high-paying jobs characteristic of twenty-first century innovation economies, Greater Boston is grappling with skyrocketing housing costs and a shortage of affordable housing stock. Although the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and City of Boston have implemented a panoply of initiatives to address the housing crisis, the situation continues to worsen. Meanwhile, after nearly a half-century of disinterest in land value taxation (LVT) as a policy tool to foster equitable urban development, local municipalities and regional authorities across the United States have once again started studying LVT as a means to counter rapidly rising rents and worsening urban sprawl. This note argues that, in theory, LVT could mitigate the prodigious upwards climb of housing costs in Greater Boston, especially around new transit corridors, while also providing alternative sources of financing for new affordable housing development. However, implementing LVT in Greater Boston would likely face significant political pushback as well as various challenges under the Massachusetts Constitution. As a result, the feasibility of LVT implementation in Greater Boston remains uncertain, although LVT has overcome similar hurdles in Pennsylvania. In the interim, current efforts to speed up the production of new housing should be prioritized. To that end, this Note highlights examples from peer metropolitan areas from which Greater Boston could learn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]