I didn’t say anything of the sort. In fact one proposal I put forth was to eliminate the property tax; or at least eliminate the property tax for one residence. That would lower the cost of owning a home for young people and allow them to live near their families, friends, schoolmates etc.
Another solution would be to make the sale of a primary residence 100% tax free. If you bought a $200k home in Los Angeles in 1988 it may be worth say $2 million today (some a lot more some less depending on zip code). After the exemption for a married couple, that sticks them with (if I did the math right) $260,000 in capital gains on federal taxes and around $140,000 in state income taxes. No small number. If they could keep all of it, they may be more apt to make their own decision to leave the area, or, could afford to downsize and stay in the general area without having to take on another mortgage. And that $400,000 would do them well if they age poorly thereafter and need to hire some forms of in home care or other improvements for accessibility etc.
You have valid points.
I think it is better to not trash existing neighborhoods, but to build further out or to move a business and its employees to another area altogether.
London retains most of its 19th Century housing of quality. Manhattan does not. Walk around London to understand the cost of trashing neighborhoods.
“I didn’t say anything of the sort. In fact one proposal I put forth was to eliminate the property tax”
A meaingless proposal without parallel proposals to either reduce local government expenditures and/or raise some other local tax(es). That can’t be left as a separate issue on a call to eliminate the property tax.
“Another solution would be to make the sale of a primary residence 100% tax free. If you bought a $200k home in Los Angeles in 1988 it may be worth say $2 million today (some a lot more some less depending on zip code). After the exemption for a married couple, that sticks them with (if I did the math right) $260,000 in capital gains on federal taxes and around $140,000 in state income taxes. “
An issue at the time of selling a house, is separate from the issue of buying a house and particularly unrelated to the issue of an “affordable” house which is generally an issue of first time buyers (people who have no house to sell to get some equity out of it for a down payment on another house).