You're right, I reread it and it's talking about the city. I guess had never seen it argued before that a city should optimize property values(and hence taxes).
That raises the question: Property taxes increasing won't by themselves increase people's incomes. Since they aren't trying to affect jobs(per-capita income) and explicitly mentioned density is not the issue(population), then the only thing left is to change the demographics(transfer wealth in).
Investment could be meant more broadly(like education or healthcare), but he explicitly disclaims that at the start("What I'm going to present here is pure dollars and cents. "). Somehow it doesn't seem right to advocate for city policy that swaps out the existing citizens for more profitable ones, though I suppose the existing citizens do come out ahead.
That raises the question: Property taxes increasing won't by themselves increase people's incomes. Since they aren't trying to affect jobs(per-capita income) and explicitly mentioned density is not the issue(population), then the only thing left is to change the demographics(transfer wealth in).
Investment could be meant more broadly(like education or healthcare), but he explicitly disclaims that at the start("What I'm going to present here is pure dollars and cents. "). Somehow it doesn't seem right to advocate for city policy that swaps out the existing citizens for more profitable ones, though I suppose the existing citizens do come out ahead.