Cut property taxes, Reihan Salam writes in Slate. He uses Boston as an example:
it is no coincidence that Boston's property boom followed a statewide cap on property taxes that went into effect in 1982. Homeowners no longer feared that their property taxes would increase without limit, so more and more of them were willing to invest. While Boston lost 30 percent of its residents between 1950 and 1980, it gained 5 percent over the next two decades and the median household income in the city increased 38 percent faster than the national average from 1979 to 2005. ...When the Massachusetts property tax cap was being debated, many feared that cities like Boston would be starved of revenue as services collapsed. Instead, a rush of new investment and economic activity led to healthy increases in property tax revenues.