A long post about urban infrastructure finance via “Land Value Capture” from Next American City. The general idea is that the provision of public goods — roads, sidewalks, transit lines, sewers, utility lines, etc — adds value to the property which it serves. This value pertains to the location, not the improvements any developer might have built (or refrained from building) on the property. Land value capture mechanisms seek a slice of that incremental value to re-pay (or finance) the provisioning of those improvements. It’s a feedback loop that results in density without lots of debt financing on the part of the city.