Why the Rent is Too Damn High: An inquiry into land value and the common wealth - Softcover

Beard, Paul

Softcover

ISBN 13: 9798234035691

Publisher: Otherwise Books, 2026

Synopsis

The rent is too damn high but we’re told it’s the landlords or speculators from somewhere else while the real answer is in the tax assessor’s office. They know what land is really worth and that affordable housing is impossible without affordable land.

Thinkers like John Locke, Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and John Stuart Mill understood what makes land valuable. Henry George explained what happens as an economy moves from agriculture to industry — just as economists decided land wasn’t important, even as it grew enormously in value. The value of land is created by everyone who lives and works on it…the name on the tax bill banks it.

Read this book if you want to understand how wealthy cities create poverty, why a vacant lot or boarded-up building is the real crime, not the person sleeping in the doorway.

This book explains how the game works and how to reclaim what Locke called our natural inheritance. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it, and it will make you angry every time.

You have been warned.

Edition details

• Publisher: Otherwise Books
• Publication date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 13: 9798234035691
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 393