PROGRESS
No. 1133 (Winter 2023)
After a two-year hiatus, we present edition #1133 of Progress Magazine. Guest edited by Richard Meredith, this edition and has been redesigned and reimagined to locate Prosper’s work within the contemporary global movement.
This edition zeroes in on the housing issue. It features a condensed version of Brendan Coates’ 2022 Henry George Address, “The Great Australian Nightmare,” exposing how unequal access to housing and land drives intergenerational wealth transfer.
Tim Helm provides a summary of Prosper’s recent research on Georgist speculation, and Stephen Hoskins discusses the natural alliance between YIMBYism and Georgism.
Alana Hartzok’s open letter to King Charles weaves together international movements and actions into a comprehensive picture.
Additionally, we reprint an article from Wired Magazine that outlines the moral case against landownership.
Join us as we explore modern Georgist debates, delving into the implications of land and housing dynamics in today’s world.
In this edition
Speculation, housing supply and prices
By Tim Helm
Speculation. It’s a Georgist obsession shared by few others. Landbanking, flipping, vacancy, delayed development, staged releases – how does any of this matter?
An Open Letter to KING CHARLES III ON HIS CORONATION
By Alanna Hartzok
I write to you as your “astrological twin sister”. Yes, we were both born on the fourteenth day of November 1948… My mother sometimes laughingly said this about the day she and your mother gave birth to us: “That woman is doing the same thing as I am, why is she getting all the attention?”
Land Ownership Makes No Sense
By Jehan Azad & Uri Bram
“It’s pointless to declare that someone has a right to something if they can’t acquire its basic prerequisites.” The earth is a shared inheritance, and profiting off a common resource is just wrong.
Community Land Trusts can progress Georgist theory
By Karl Fitzgerald
My belief is that Community Land Trusts (CLTs) can demonstrate the benefits of recycling land rents for the common good. This will support the larger Georgist agenda with a micro version of the macro vision.
The Great Australian Nightmare
By Brendan Coates
Upstream from the Great Australian Nightmare of worsening housing affordability – and all the downstream consequences it is creating in our society – sits our longstanding intellectual neglect of the economics of land.
Planning Deregulation, Housing Supply and Affordability: In Brief
By Emily Sims & Jesse Hermans
Planning deregulation, especially rezoning, has been repeatedly touted as a key policy solution to Australia’s eye watering house prices. Prosper’s latest discussion paper in brief.
Land and Liberty to Build: On Georgism and YIMBYism
By Stephen Hoskins
Spend any time trying to untangle the Gordian knot of urban housing costs and you’ll quickly encounter two groups claiming to hold the scissors: the YIMBYs and the Georgists.