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Lars Doucet

@larsiusprime.bsky.social
961 followers 315 following 216 posts

Co-Founder at ValueBase.co ☦ Narcoleptic Norseman, Texan with Tourette's, Game design and Game theory, Mass Appraisal for the Masses.

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Reposted by Lars Doucet
Pookleblinky @pookleblinky.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Reminder that in Canada upon becoming an engineer you get an iron ring made of a collapsed bridge, purposely designed to be uncomfortable, to remind you that your ethics demand you give a fuck even about the boring grudgework of such as double-checking your math. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Ring
en.wikipedia.org
Iron Ring - Wikipedia
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Davis Kyle @daviskyle.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
@larsiusprime.bsky.social Great article from Lars, not just for the five-year retrospective, but for the updates that have gone on at the (US) state level and internationally. The fundamental lessons on not taxing productivity or property improvements in a productivity and housing crisis remain.
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Nathaniel Barrett @ncoxbarrett.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
One of the cruelest aspects of our state will at last become a little less so.
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Lars Doucet @larsiusprime.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Texas has a "secret tax": hidden property prices. It doesn't protect privacy (data brokers still get it), causes appraisal errors, and makes protests harder. Chief beneficiaries are high end commercial and luxury property. The losers are everyone else. blog.landeconomics.org/p/how-texass...
blog.landeconomics.org
How Texas’s "Secret Tax" Hurts Taxpayers
The unintended consequences of real estate non-disclosure
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Kevin Erdmann @kevinerdmann.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Amazing
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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 09/09/2026
Today on Volts: a company called @zanskargeothermal.bsky.social believes that conventional geothermal resources (hot, porous rock underground) are *much* more abundant than existing estimates have it, and that machine learning can help them find it efficiently. The implications are enormous.
volts.wtf
Is there way more conventional geothermal than we thought?
A conversation with Carl Hoiland & Joel Edwards of Zanskar.
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Lars Doucet @larsiusprime.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
I would check nearby parcels (improved and vacant) with the same zoning to see what their valuations are, for starters. There should be a land table/schedule somewhere that defines the local rates.
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Dungeon Master Tim @tstaub.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
So I've had a running theory that the local assessor needs to rebalance land and improvement values. This vacant property is just under .08 acres and is assessed at $1,000 It went to tax auction today due to $450 back taxes and its tax certificate was sold for $11,460.
931 Sorin Street parcel 2026 assessment for the lot
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Robert / Zeboyd @zeboydgames.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Real talk. A multi-year gig that I was using to pay bills is suddenly ending on me. If you have any remote positions that could use someone with 10+ years of experience in gameplay & combat design, writing & narrative design, let me know. Or if you're a publisher and want to fund an RPG, contact me.
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Davis Kyle @daviskyle.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Centre for Land Economics, like the Sightline Institute, is doing some very good work. Truth be told, I really don’t understand why the BC Govt hasn’t made a move on this. We already have the best assessment on the continent. Allowing cities to do this is very very simple. x.com/larsiusprime...
x.com
Lars Doucet (@larsiusprime) on X
So we could "abolish property taxes", utterly gutting local government, jacking sales and income taxes way up, give local control up to power-hungry state governments, OR... we could pass revenue neut...
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Lars Doucet @larsiusprime.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
progressandpoverty.substack.com/p/is-ai-like... Is AI like petroleum (large, durable windfall gains) or like pens (price falls to the cost of reproduction)? Petroleum: Norwegian-style regulations and taxes make sense. Pens: nationalizing frontier labs could be a bailout of AI investors and CEOs.
progressandpoverty.substack.com
Is AI like Petroleum, or like Pens?
The best way to regulate and tax AI depends on how it behaves
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Next door in Silicon Valley @nextdoorsv.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
The winners of every single boom cycle in Silicon Valley: property owners... either rentiers (aka landlords) or sellers (aka homeowners). www.wsj.com/real-estate/...
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Lars Doucet @larsiusprime.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
In the 1920's New York City had a housing boom like none other, thanks to a temporary property tax abatement on the improvement value of new construction. DALT is inspired by this, a property tax reform that approximates an LVT with less work: progressandpoverty.substack.com/p/dalt-depre...
progressandpoverty.substack.com
DALT: Depreciation-Assisted Land Value Tax
One weird trick for turning Property Tax into Land Value Tax
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Lars Doucet @larsiusprime.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
also just opened dm's, didn't realize they were closed
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Lars Doucet @larsiusprime.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
lars.doucet@gmail.com!
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Lars Doucet @larsiusprime.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
Realtor.com interviewed me for this piece on two overlapping events: layoffs in the game industry, and an acute staffing shortage in local property assessment offices nationwide, desperate for technical talent with data processing, programming, and mapping skills. www.realtor.com/news/trends/...
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George Dubya @itisgeorge.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
I've been writing some stuff about LVTs for the Spokane Alliance and this convo is great, but one thing I want to zoom in on is what's lost to surface parking lots. The report this podcast talks about discusses a building downtown that pays 6x in taxes per square ft as the parking lot next to it🧵
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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 15/07/2026
Cool! A listener in the UK passed along this site he made, which calculates how much UK residents would save under a Land Value Tax. In part it demonstrates that assessment can be done with modern data-driven techniques -- it's not some opaque mystery. Would love to see a site like this for the US!
landvaluetaxcalculator.co.uk
Land Value Tax Calculator | Compare Your UK Property Tax
See estimated land values for any property in England and Wales and compare your current council tax against what you would pay under a Land Value Tax.
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Lars Doucet @larsiusprime.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
That said, in the case of e.g. "condo parcels" we will try to organize it in a way that makes sense, e.g. join the condos together into one agglomerated building, and glue that to the physical land they sit on. But you'll still get anomalies from data errors
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Lars Doucet @larsiusprime.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
Oh, you'll find these anomalies in a lot of cities. Almost certainly it's a data artifact, a miscoded land size that's impossibly small, leading to implausibly high $/size value. We visualize assessor data as-is, "warts and all"
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Lars Doucet @larsiusprime.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
It's relative value for one, I think most of the city's outer land value is near worthless, there's a small downtown core that seems to be bouncing back
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Lars Doucet @larsiusprime.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
Visualization of land value per square foot across four cities: Tallinn, Estonia Detroit, Michigan Cincinnati, Ohio Austin, Texas www.civicmapper.org
3D land value map of Tallinn, Estonia3D Land value map of Detroit, Michigan3D Land value map of Cincinnati, Ohio3D Land value map of Austin, Texas
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Lars Doucet @larsiusprime.bsky.social · 12/07/2026
New favorite historical fact
From Wikipedia "The earliest known reference to Transylvania appears in a Medieval Latin document of the Kingdom of Hungary in 1078 as ultra silvam, meaning "beyond the forest" (ultra meaning "beyond" or "on the far side of" and the accusative case of sylva (sylvam) "woods, forest"). Transylvania, with an alternative Latin prepositional prefix, means "on the other side of the woods". The Medieval Latin form Ultrasylvania, later Transylvania, was a direct translation from the Hungarian form Erdő-elve, later Erdély, which has been adopted phonetically into Romanian as Ardeal.[27][28] That also was used as an alternative name in German überwald ("beyond the forest") (13th–14th centuries) and Ukrainian Залісся (Zalissia)."
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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 10/07/2026
Today on Volts: Property taxes combine a tax on land value with a tax on the value of the buildings on the land. The latter discourages building and encourages land speculation. Shifting the tax to the former -- a "land value tax" -- produces better land use. They're pushing for it in Spokane, WA!
volts.wtf
Want less sprawl and more urban infill? Try a land value tax!
A conversation with Greg Miller of the Center for Land Economics and Kitty Klitzke of the Spokane City Council.
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Sightline Institute @sightline.org · 10/07/2026
Such a promising solution! Thrilled to see this idea get the Volts treatment. Related:
sightline.org
Yes, a Land Value Tax Is Possible in Washington State | Sightline Institute
A new report modeling a property tax building exemption in Spokane rebalances incentives toward community goals, encouraging homebuilding and discouraging in-city vacant land speculation.
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Jack Billings @johnhbillings.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
🚨New Report!🚨 "Modernizing Property Tax Assessments in Allegheny County" by Connor Schwartz and me; a project of @prohousingpgh.org 1/11
Screenshot of title and executive summary of a new paper:

Modernizing Property Tax Assessments in
Allegheny County∗
Jack Billings, PhD† ; Connor Schwartz‡
July 7, 2026

1 Executive summary
Allegheny County has gone nearly half a century without regular countywide
property assessments, creating a growing gap between assessed values and actual
market conditions. As county leaders consider legislation to mandate regular
reassessments, Pro-Housing Pittsburgh conducted a preliminary reassessment
analysis using the Center for Land Economics’ toolkits and publicly available
data. Our sales ratio analysis indicates that reassessment would likely shift as-
sessed values upward more in the City of Pittsburgh than in the surrounding
suburbs. Within the City, neighborhoods that have seen strong recent demand
growth, including Lawrenceville and Bloomfield, would likely experience larger
increases relative to the citywide average. We estimate that a regular reassess-
ment program could be administered by the County at a marginal cost of roughly
$1 million per year, with plausible annual welfare gains of tens of millions of
dollars. Our work here shows that a relatively small team with limited time,
working for free with the county’s available data can produce assessments of
similar or higher quality to the existing assessments. With improvements to
data quality and more nuanced modeling, we expect significant improvementsScreenshot of Figure 4: Median sales ratio by census tract, new assessments.

Most median sales ratios are close to 1.
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Lars Doucet @larsiusprime.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
If you take this path, please feel free to reach out to me because I can tell you exactly how to train yourself up
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Lars Doucet @larsiusprime.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
If you're serious about pursuing this, please reach out to me, I will guide you. It's an opportunity to serve your community and get a lasting job right where you live in many cases. If you need a quick crash course, this article can help: progressandpoverty.substack.com/p/mass-appra...
progressandpoverty.substack.com
Mass Appraisal For The Masses: The Basics
How are property tax assessments calculated, and how can we know if they're fair? Let's find out!
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Lars Doucet @larsiusprime.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
If you've been laid off from games/tech, consider the local property assessor's office - Office near you almost anywhere in USA - GIS/coders in demand, gamedev/tech skills translate well - Better job security - Field is desperate for talent - Pay not astronomical but gamedev wasn't either
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Lars Doucet @larsiusprime.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
Now there's more to comprehensive revaluation than just running good models. However, these results suggest it's easier to keep valuations up to date, and in-house, than local governments have previously thought. And it doesn't have to cost $30 million. www.prohousingpgh.org/blog/new-rep...
prohousingpgh.org
New Report: Modernizing Property Tax Assessments in Allegheny County — Pro-Housing Pittsburgh
This report examines how modern, open-source assessment methods could be used to produce fair, transparent, and affordable countywide reassessments.
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Lars Doucet @larsiusprime.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
In Allegheny, Pennsylvania, it's been decades since the last countywide reassessment was conducted. In 2024, a vendor quoted them $30 million to conduct an outsourced revaluation. A team of volunteers just used open source tech to do it themselves for ~$0 instead.
Title: Figure 3: Median sales ratio by census tract, existing assessments.
The figure shows median sales ratios in Allegheny county, with most of them over 1.0Title: Figure 4: Median sales ratio by census tract, new assessments.
Shows median sales ratios for Allegheny county under the new model, where the majority of the census tracts now have a ratio between 0.9 and 1.1Title: Table 1: MSR, PRD, and COD for existing and new assessments

Table comparing current assessments vs. new assessments for single family urban, prewar single family suburban, other single family suburban, and multi family groups. In each case the new assessments have median sales ratio closer to 1.0, and COD's that are comparable to and in most cases lower than the current assessments
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Lars Doucet @larsiusprime.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
A carrot is a stick you can eat!
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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 05/07/2026
On Tuesday, I'm recording a podcast on Land Value Taxes with a think tank expert & a Spokane city council person (Spokane is considering an LVT). I've been reading up on the subject & getting extremely LVT-pilled. Got questions?
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Lars Doucet @larsiusprime.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
Indeed an LVT is really all about the urban land. Developing our urban land better would pull development *inward* instead of sprawling out and consuming rural land which is better left for farming or wilderness
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Lars Doucet @larsiusprime.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
Laid off from tech or the games industry and live in or around Phoenix and need a job? Consider the Maricopa county property assessor's office! They need a tech savvy person and are hiring right now. If you apply for this job please reach out to me, I can help guide you.
Flyer advertising a job in Maricopa County Assessor's office. 
"Visit jobs.maricopa.gov to apply by Monday, July 13"
Job title: Innovations Strategist
Salary range: $86,500 - $145,000
Requirements: 
- Bachelor's in Computer Information Systems, Computer Science, Business Admin or related field
- 3 years of managing projects that focus on process improvement initiatives or IT related projects that require the support of technology
- A combination of post-secondary education and/or job-related experience may substitute for the minimum requirements on a year-for-year basis
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Lars Doucet @larsiusprime.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
Book Review: "The Natural Dividend". A summary: The Earth’s bounty belongs to everyone, property rights are good, labor and investment deserve a fair return, but please, please, PLEASE don’t hand over our precious natural resources to Some Guy. progressandpoverty.substack.com/p/book-revie...
progressandpoverty.substack.com
Book Review: The Natural Dividend
The Norwegian cure for the Resource Curse
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Russell Richie 🔰🌐🏗🚲♿🏳️‍🌈 @drussellmrichie.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
Our friends @larsiusprime.bsky.social & Greg Miller at the Center for Land Economics have made another great report showing that a land value tax would be a net winner for the majority of homeowners in Spokane, Washington -- and it'd be progressive! progressandpoverty.substack.com/p/yes-a-land...
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Max Dubler 🏳️‍🌈 @maxdubler.com · 27/05/2026
The Squamish people of what is now Vancouver were illegally dispossessed of their land 100 years ago. They sued, got the land back, and used their sovereignty to ignore local zoning and build 6,000 new homes over the loud objections of nearby wealthy NIMBYs. Now other tribes are getting in the game.
Construction photo of the Sen̓áḵw housing project in Vancouver, British Columbia.
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Lars Doucet @larsiusprime.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
Contra Watling on "the failure of the land value tax" progressandpoverty.substack.com/p/contra-wat...
progressandpoverty.substack.com
Contra Watling on "The failure of the land value tax"
There are many successful historical examples of land valuation and land value taxation, which critics don't engage with.
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Lars Doucet @larsiusprime.bsky.social · 24/05/2026
It's the "concrete port-a-potty" problem. Whatever the minimum threshold for "not vacant" is, you'll see exactly that minimum threshold and no more.
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Lars Doucet @larsiusprime.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
I haven't studied that specifically; you do hear anecdotes that it can depress local property values because they fill up with trash and garbage and/or are unsightly/attract crime, and you could see that as plausibly being a deterrent on projects penciling if they're going to be less valuable
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Lars Doucet @larsiusprime.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
Yup that's the problem with Dallas. No places to park. Zero.
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Lars Doucet @larsiusprime.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
How do appraisers value land? We interviewed one to find out! "THOMAS: Correct. Because the cost is worked out in advance of valuing the land, ultimately, once you set your cost schedules, really all we’re valuing is the land." progressandpoverty.substack.com/p/how-apprai...
A splash image of a house and a question mark
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Lars Doucet @larsiusprime.bsky.social · 24/04/2026
progressandpoverty.substack.com/p/ubi-advoca... If you want Universal Basic Income (UBI) or Land Value Tax (LVT) to succeed, you must find a place where they are: 1. Economically feasible 2. Technically feasible 3. Politically possible 4. Socially and politically urgent That place is South Korea.
progressandpoverty.substack.com
UBI advocates should watch South Korea
South Korea is the most likely place for UBI to take root, funded with LVT
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Daryl Fairweather ⛅ @fairweatherphd.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
Why are we bulldozing forests while city parking lots sit empty? 🌳🚫 It’s the tax code. By taxing buildings instead of just land, we incentivize sprawl. But a solution from the 1800s is back: Land Value Tax. 📈 The key to affordable housing AND a greener planet?🌎🏙️
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
It took us 111 episodes, but we finally dedicated a full interview to land value taxes. "The taking by the community, for the use of the community, of that value which is the creation of the community"! Thanks @larsiusprime.bsky.social for joining us! lewis.ucla.edu/2026/04/22/1...
lewis.ucla.edu
Episode 111: Land Value Tax Would Fix This with Lars Doucet (Incentives Series pt. 11) - UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies
We close out the Incentives Series with a primer on land value taxes (LVT), the ultimate incentive-aligned housing policy.
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Lars Doucet @larsiusprime.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
There's a new mass appraisal model in town! pypi.org/project/laye... Designed by John Kossa, data scientist at Lee County, Florida Property Appraiser! It's a tree-based model, designed specifically for real estate, imbued with assessor office instincts, fast, and explainable.
pypi.org
layeredcompmodel
Hierarchical tree-based model for robust parcel sale price predictions using weighted Wilson means.
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Frank @frankus.bsky.social · 21/04/2026
I made a map of surface parking in downtown Bellingham. It's wild how much of our most walkable neighborhood is parking lots: earth.google.com/earth/d/1FDg... (h/t @larsiusprime.bsky.social for the instructions)
earth.google.com
Google Earth
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Lars Doucet @larsiusprime.bsky.social · 15/04/2026
Step 2: Create Map in Google Earth Go to Google Earth Add a new layer → Import file → From device → Select GeoJSON Tweak basemap settings, style your layer That’s it, you’re done, take a screenshot
A screenshot of the Google Earth interface with the 3D parking lot map in it along with a visible settings menu for styling the parking lots.
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Lars Doucet @larsiusprime.bsky.social · 15/04/2026
Step 1: Download parking lot data from Overpass Go to overpass-turbo.eu Search for your area in the search bar on the right Plug in this query on the left Export to GeoJSON
A screenshot of the overpass turbo website, with a query. The query is:
[out:json][timeout:25];
(
  way["amenity"="parking"]({{bbox}});
  relation["amenity"="parking"]({{bbox}});
);
out body;
>;
out skel qt;
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