Moreover, granny might be a paper millionaire based on the current valuation of a principal asset but otherwise be eating cat food.
Why doesn't she just cash out? I think the below linked blog post has some insight into how each asset of a person isn't an isolated atom but represents a structure of complements.
For example, maybe Granny can't drive and walks down to the community center every day to help immigrant kindergarteners learn to code. If she moved maybe she loses exercise and a reason to live and her lives and those of others are negatively impacted in ways money from selling a house can't fix. Or maybe, since Halloween is coming up, she is a sadistic cat killer and if she sells her house and moves the whole neighborhood is overrun with feral felines reducing everyone's property value due to fears of cat scratch fever.
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2017/10/sel...
> Your feelings don’t matter
They do when the argument begins and ends with tugging at my heart strings. And I honestly don’t see these Jarvis arguments from the 70s holding up for much longer. Not when everyone else is hurting.
1) an empty lot, 2) a single family home, and 3) a 30 floor residential tower,
presuming they're equally-sized lots with equal land value.
If granny's taxes are high, the answer is to put her land to productive use like by adding rental units instead of growing zucchini. Or sell and buy better land for hobby zucchini gardening (or grow it on the roof of her new tower).
Regulations don't allow her to add rental units? Then it's the regulations that are bad, and finally land value taxes are aligning land owners' and renters' interests instead of dividing them.