Thanks for the long reply, but I think you kind of missed the point entirely. The question was about what would happen if Georgism were adopted. Not what NYC is like now. I'll respond to each section:

The Georgist assumption isn't that land in NYC (or wherever) is inherently valuable. However, I think we'd all agree that a plot of land in NYC is valuable - maybe you think it shouldn't be, but I think we'd both agree that it is. The value might not be inherent to the land. Much of the value of land in NYC is because of what others have built in NYC.

Well, certainly it has some value, but I don't know if this value is "inherent." The fact that large parts of lower Manhattan was a kind of wasteland in the 70s would seem to indicate that it there isn't a huge amount of value in the land itself. Detroit is another good example, although definitely not as much as NYC.

Most people disagree with your assessment of the value of land in NYC.

Again, I think you are reading too much into my comment. These companies are centralized in NYC because of the social factors, not because of the inherent value of the dirt there. In the not too distant past, large parts of Manhattan had dramatically less value than today. Plenty of other cities in the world were once far more important than they are now.

Ah, but this is where markets work. If the land becomes more valuable because it is more valuable to you, then you wouldn't want to move.

But wouldn't you then be taxed more because of this value? Again, that doesn't really solve the issue. You'd just want to sell the land and move somewhere that has a lower tax burden.

You might be correct about the future: maybe all work will become remote and to take it a step further let's say that all friendships, dating, education, and community move to remote/metaverse. NYC no longer has any value beyond things like access to a good harbor.

Maybe location will have zero value in the future. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but that seems to be where your thought process is going: NYC doesn't seem to have any value for you and in a remote-working world, physical space wouldn't have any value (beyond things like shelter and such). If that's the case, then all land would have equal value and pay equal Georgist taxes.

Well, I didn't say those things and you are claiming far more than I did. So yeah, you are putting words in my mouth.

All of the comments about my personal living location are again, not really relevant to the point at all. At no point did I say NYC is not a desirable place to live, that I think the land doesn't have value, or that I have some issue with living in cities and prefer rural areas.

My question is not about how NYC is now, it's about what would happen if Georgism were adopted, and if this would set off a cycle of companies not investing into urban areas because their tax burden was determined by land value and not revenue. All of the things about NYC today are frankly irrelevant to the discussion, because the question is about effects of the policy if implemented.

Some of the philosophy all sounds reasonable and rational if the intention is to spur development from empty lots, but I still don't see how Georgeism prevents capital exit. Your assumption here is that when choosing between "keep empty lot and get taxed X" or "build thing and get taxed X", those are the only options. The other option is just to leave, which again is what my question is about. You might say, "then someone better able to capitalize on it will buy the lot," but what if there are no buyers? That's a pretty big assumption to make.

Finally, you're making a lot of giant leaps that a) I didn't make and b) aren't necessary for my point to be relevant. BigCo doesn't need to go from NYC to a barren tundra; it can just go from NYC to a smaller, cheaper city that has lower land values. If those land values rise a decade later, they can just move to another one, ad infinitum.

I still don't see how replacing income/revenue taxes with land value taxes will prevent this sort of behavior.