Common Ground USA is an all-volunteer organization that promotes land value tax shifts, rent-sharing land trusts, and other commons-based approaches to social, environmental and economic issues.
From the Common Ground USA Blog
Work Group Holds Listening Sessions on Property Tax Study & Social meeting October 12th
Join Us and Rep. Chotzen for a Lively Social Event We’re excited to have Rep. Chotzen (D-SE Portland) join us Monday, Oct. 12, to learn about the prospects for property tax reform. We hope to have speakers from Portland: Neighbors Welcome and Strong Towns PDX...
Globe-trotting Georgist Robbe Demey interviews local NYC Georgist in new Video
I was very happy to have Robbe Demey interview me for his Georgist YouTube channel: Aboveground, on a wide range of topics in the summer of 2026: "Talking with Scott Baker, president of Common Ground USA New York, about imps, game development, teaching, RiverArch, the...
Streetsblog: “By George! Could A ‘Land Value Tax’ Fund The Interborough Express?”
"New York could raise billions of dollars for the proposed IBX by taxing the increase in property values from the new rail line." An article in New York City's Streetsblog pro-transit newsletter highlights the existing legal possibility of using a Land Value Tax to...
New Report: Modernizing Property Tax Assessments in Allegheny County
Allegheny County has not conducted periodic, regular property reassessments since the 1970s. As a result, assessed values have drifted further and further away from actual market values, creating inequities for taxpayers and making the property tax system less...
Contra Watling on “The failure of the land value tax”
There are many successful examples of land valuation and land value taxation, which critics don't engage with. Andy Burnham, mayor of Greater Manchester and widely seen as a potential challenger to PM Keir Starmer from within the Labour party, has been making a lot of...
Where did the Land Value Go? Assessments and Condominiums in New England
SUMMARY Condominium parcels in most New England jurisdictions are assessed at a single value per unit, with no separate land component itemized on the assessment roll. Single-family and other fee-simple parcels, by contrast, carry an explicit land value and an...
Back to Earth: The Case for Lowering Speculative Land Values
By Daniel Wortel-London The inflation-adjusted price of residential land in the U.S. quadrupled between 1975 and 2006. By 2025, New York City’s land values were estimated at $2.84 trillion. Manhattan’s land alone is valued at approximately $3,500 per square foot....
Introducing: The Game of Prosperity
Ed. Note: This is from Evan Atlas, an active young man in upstate New York working on social causes, including Land value Taxation and Georgist goals. He writes: "I find Georgism interesting because I genuinely think it can appeal across the political spectrum, but...
Higher Property Taxes Drive Home Affordability
The relationship between property taxes and home prices is worth remembering now that so many states want to get rid of the former and wrongly expect more affordability of the latter. Of course, a tax just on location would make the true relationship even more obvious.
Recent
Research
Setting up a Rent-sharing Farm Trust in Minnesota
A report prepared on behalf of Common Ground USA
Municipal Land Trusts
A Feasibility Study for Adoption by City of Saint Paul
The Power of Land Value Taxation to Spur “Missing Middle” Housing
Original Research from
Common Ground OR-WA
