As for property taxes in California, we have Prop. 13. Your valuation is the last sale price plus a 1% annual increase. Tax rate is about 1.5% of valuation. This means that most commercial property owners pay very low taxes if they hold onto the property.
Residential turns over faster. When I sold in 2006 I was paying 3x the taxes of my down-hill neighbors who had bought in 1960, and 1/3 the taxes of my neighbors across the street who had just bought. (similar subdivision houses) Those unfair ratios remain constant as everyone has the same 1%/year value increase.
Prop 13 appears to have been the brainstorm of everyone's favorite bank, Wells Fargo, which has a lot of commercial property.
That strip mall pays $38k/year in taxes, has 28k covered (interior) sq.ft. and 1.8 acres total. It's valued at $3.4M. There appear to be eight or nine businesses on the property.