Comment by jyounker
2 days ago
I was alive at the time prop 13 passed. I was a little kid in Ohio. Even I remember the stories that were being circulated on the national news about old people being priced out of their homes in LA. It was a big campaign.
"Big campaign" sounds right. These sort of tax revolt campaigns tend to spread wide, with the hope of passing similar things elsewhere shortly after.
Fortunately, this one did not spread which is very good news, because the long term effects have been absolutely horrific for housing prices in California. However, I hear of other states right now proposing adoption of California's housing crisis via similar tax measures... Hopefully they don't pass and learn the lessons of what has happened here.
Vancouver used to have a land value tax, which was widely credited with the its prosperity up to the ~1960s. However eventually enough homeowners and landowners got sick of paying their fair share and overturned it, which has resulted in Vancouver's housing situation which is possibly even worse than the SF Bay Area's...