manufactories, and for terms of years exempting such real estate from
taxation, why not accord to the wage-workers at least their primary
natural rights? If any property be exempted from taxation, why not the
homesite below a certain fixed value? And if, for the public benefit,
municipalities provide parks, museums, and libraries, why not give each
producer a homesite--a footing on the earth? He who has not this is
deprived of the first right to do that by which he must live, namely,
labor.


_Effects of Municipal Land._

A city public domain, open to citizen occupiers under just stipulations,
would in several directions have far-reaching results.

Should this domain be occupied by, say, one thousand families of a
population of 50,000, an immediate result, affecting the whole city,
would be a fall in rents. In fact, the mere existence of the public
domain, with a probability that his tenants would remove to it, might
cause a landlord to reduce his rents. Besides, the value of all land,
in the city and about it, held on speculation, would fall. Save in
instances of particular advantage, the price of unimproved residence
lots would gravitate toward the cost, all things considered, of
residence lots in the public domain. This, for these reasons: The corner
in land would be broken. Home builders would pay a private owner no more
for a lot than the cost of a similar one in the public area. As houses
went up on the public domain, the chances of landholders to sell to
builders would be diminished. Sellers of land, besides competing with
the public land, would then compete with increased activity with one
another. Finally, just taxation of their land, valueless as a