The others that benefit are the nearby condo developers, that take photos of cool retail in the area to put into their brochures in order to help sell their product. They benefit from the land speculation and the work from others.

I don't really have a solution except that I can see that the landlords benefit from scarcity, and their leverage and ability to raise rents would be lessened if there was more viable retail spaces to take advantage of.

So the city could help retailers by dramatically liberalizing retail zoning and allowing more competitive high streets to develop. This could take the edge off being forced to move by a landlord jacking up rent.

1. Go into a store to check out a product in person or try it on.

2. Leave and buy it cheaper online.

I try not to. Sometimes it's because the store doesn't have the exact color or model I want. Sometimes the point in time when I'm shopping happens to not be when I'm ready to buy and when I am ready, it's a hassle to go back to the store. But sometimes it's just being lazy and cheap.

I'm surprised the article didn't mention an obvious (but extremely difficult) answer:

1. Levy taxes on online retail companies. Scale so that the larger the business is and the greater the fraction of their business is online, the higher the tax.

2. Use that to subsidize or lower the taxes on smaller, in-person focused businesses.

Taxes are the single best lever we have to architect incentivizes to improve the world for the public. It's a shame that government and politics in the US is so broken that we can't really use it effectively.

- I like to shop IRL, and the opportunities to do this pleasurably are going extinct

- I live right by Hayes valley, which they start out with.

- I'm also a member of "The Commons" which they mention at the end. I love what it's trying to do: creating a new social 3rd space in SF.

It's somewhat complicated to understand, but I think this is an opportunity for strong communicators to present to a public that is much more receptive toward these ideas.

Uh... People "opt-in" to homeowners' associations because two-thirds of new builds impose them. Municipalities don't want to accept new roads, so developers can get things built through privatization.

No, they wouldn't. That is why property tax rates (and hence land value tax rates) have so many laws capping them and otherwise limiting them for all the important voting blocs (old people, military, big business, etc).

See California prop 13, that voters passed. See Oregon measure 5 and 50, also passed by voters. And politicians wouldn't dare touch these.

>In American cities, there is an issue with value capture. One party creates the value (in this case retailers), another party (landowners or homeowners) captures it.

This phenomenon is not restricted to American cities. It will broadly exist in all human societies with flattened or top heavy population age histograms. The old are the most populous and knowledgeable (and motivated) to structure society so that the non working (themselves) can capture the most value. Hence, the popularity of earned income tax instead of marginal land value tax rates. The goals of the wealthy and the old (and the ones with aspirations to be wealthy) align to support rent seeking policy.

I don't think that any of the suggested solutions would work, as they all involve the government and taxation - which can only destroy value, IMHO.

Creating a cool vibe certainly has value and can contribute to price appreciation in the community, but ultimately capitalism is not based upon creating vibe but upon selling products and services.

Next you'll find that you also need to do the same for schools. But schoolteachers won't be able to afford living near the areas that they serve. So you need subsidized housing for them.

Oh, and the same for kindergarten. But what about at-home childcare? And so on.

And no, "land value capture" won't fix it. You'll just move the complexity from giving out subsidies into assessing the value of kindergartens and schools.