Thus, a land value tax provides strong incentives to develop uiban brownfield sites. In contrast, under a general property tax that considers the value of the building and the land together, the owner of the brownfield site would have to pay much lower taxes than the owner of the plot with the skyscraper and consequently, would have less incentives to develop the land. They create a mechanism through which land owners compensate the public for the costs that they impose on the public by developing land in particular ways.