Especially those with very pricey condos and apartments in large, luxurious urban high rises.

The land doesn't use much in public services. Put a house and the needed infrastructure on it, throw in the maintinance on that infrastructure, like roads, water, sewer, trash collection, fire protection, law enforcement protection, civil regulations to keep them safe and protect their individual values, like zoning and such. ALL that is what really costs local government and need to be supported by a solid, reliable tax base.

The land doesn't require a lot of expenditure, until you put the home on it.

You tax the land, say its $1000 bucks a year, someone builds a million buck house, the tax is 1000 a year.

So ok you need to get more, you tax the land at 10k a year, how is that cheap for some one looking for an affordable small house.

Best option is kind of how it works now, tax the land and tax improvements. cheap small house, small tax bill, big house big tax bill.

But I am actually against property taxes on housing that is unchecked. The prop 9 in cali makes sense as it allows people who have lived in their house still be able to afford their house. Taxing some little old lady or man 10k a year on a house they bought in 1965 for 15 grand is a great way to ruin and make retired folks loose their house.

It was pretty boring. I mean, it was like any other slightly shabby northeast town. It was billed as having a strong artisan/artist community drawn by the lower housing costs, but they'd actually mostly drifted away to the cities years earlier.

Negligent absent landowners would have to be taxed A LOT to get them to maintain and develop property. Obviously they don't mind making nothing on the property for years anyway.
Better would be confiscating neglected land after just a year or two of neglect... Give it to someone who will use it. (For owners who do care, but can't afford to do the repairs, well, it would be cheaper to help them out probably.)

I don't live in Detroit or Delaware, but in a city neighborhood-- a nice working class neighborhood, mostly "Levittown" style small frame homes. There's one house down the street that was partly burned by arson 11years ago, and has been boarded up and abandoned by the absentee owner. But the city just slaps more penalties on year after year, never condemning it, though the lot could be sold to a family for building.

So I see the problem, but I think that mere taxing land wouldn't solve the "too rich to care" owner problem. (Or the "too poor to fix" one either.)

very complex problem. We all want easy answers but those simple solutions rarely work.

Things that cost more, the more people, should be funded by an income tax. So schools, police, courts, sewer, water, waste management, health and emergency services, libraries, local government, road maintenance, animal control? Everything that costs the same regardless of the population such as road construction, fire depts, fire prevention, security patrols, etc. should be funded by property tax. In short, property tax is for services to property. Income tax is for services to people.