Stop Chasing Cars walking tour

Under your feet is the answer to most of San Francisco's housing turmoil. Land. More precisely, the value of land. Land value is political power, and whoever collects land value, rules.

Come along on a free walking tour tracing a significant swath of San Francisco social movement history leading to the insight that socializing land values to a much greater degree than the current property tax does will establish the people as the rulers (whether they rule wisely is another matter).

Currently, however, housing rights and social justice advocates more generally, are chasing cars. They seek a $15/hour minimum wage or Prop I or Prop F or the right to squat empty buildings or legacy business protections. This car chasing fails to simply stand still, claim land value as community property, and thereby win everything advocates of this and that desire.

Think about it. If the great challenge in San Francisco is the high price of real estate and yet that rising price is ignored as a property right of the community, then all the piecemeal attempts at fixes of the effects of the failure to tax land values heavily will stumble at best, fail likely, obfuscate at worst.

If you're tired of chasing cars, spend two and half hours this Sunday morning getting the religion of community relationship to land values. Or don't. Sleep in. And we'll watch you lope behind more cars next election cycle with your long, red tongue wagging in the wind.