This phenomenon is what drove Henry George to write "Progress and Poverty," nearly 140 years ago. To quote from the introduction: > But just as such a communit

This phenomenon is what drove Henry George to write "Progress and Poverty," nearly 140 years ago. To quote from the introduction: > But just as such a community realizes the conditions which all civilized communities are striving for, and advances in the scale of material progress—just as closer settlement and a more intimate connection with the rest of the world, and greater utilization of labor-saving machinery, make possible greater economies in production and exchange, and wealth in consequence increases, not merely in the aggregate, but in proportion to population—so does poverty take a darker aspect. Some get an infinitely better and easier living, but others find it hard to get a living at all. The "tramp" comes with the locomotive, and almshouses and prisons are as surely the marks of "material progress" as are costly dwellings, rich warehouses, and magnificent churches. Upon streets lighted with gas and patrolled by uniformed policemen, beggars wait for the passer-by, and in the shadow of college, and library, and museum, are gathering the more hideous Huns and fiercer Vandals of whom Macaulay prophesied. He identified the reason for it as being the higher value of scarce lands in the midst of progress, and the tendency of private ownership in land to make this inevitable. To take your example from (2) ― if the land on the side of the road demanded great payments for its use, good luck building a shelter there. (This goes hand-in-hand with zoning laws, one of the tools wielded by the landowning class, but which didn't exist in George's day.) [0] http://www.econlib.org/library/YPDBooks/George/grgPP1.html http://www.econlib.org/library/YPDBooks/George/grgPP1.html