Upzoned - When Fixing Property Taxes Just Adds Another Tax

A New York condo sold for $238 million, but the city assessed it at just $15.5 million. Mayor Zohran Mamdani has framed his new pied-à-terre tax as a way to “tax the rich,” but a recent article by Ken Girardin, “The Sheer Absurdity of New York’s Pied-à-Terre Tax,” argues that the bigger problem sits underneath it. Chuck Marohn talks with Urban Three founder Joe Minicozzi and land economist Lars Doucet about how classifications, assessment caps, and decades of special rules can shift the tax burden away from high-value property. If the system is already distorted, does adding another tax make it fairer or just harder to fix?

ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES

• "The Absurdity of New York City’s Pied-à-Terre Tax" by Ken Girardin, Theatlantic.com (September 2026)
• Chuck Marohn (LinkedIn)
• Joe Minicozzi (LinkedIn), URBAN3 (Site)
• Lars Doucet (LinkedIn), Center for Land Economics (Site)
• Articles Mentioned an Downzone:
  
  • DALT: Depreciation-Assisted Land Value Tax (Substack)
  • Moneygpt: AI and the Threat to the Global Economy by James Rickards (Site)
  • Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less by Leidy Klotz (Site)
  • Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath and Dan Heath (Site)
  • Book Review: The Natural Dividend (Site)
• Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom.

This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons</