There used to be big green feilds where people would fly their kites along the river in the Karlín neighborhood of Prague. The feilds were privately owned, but

There used to be big green feilds where people would fly their kites along the river in the Karlín neighborhood of Prague. The feilds were privately owned, but it was illegal to build on them, because they were seasonal flood grounds. Now, new and very fancy offices and appartments are being built there, despite the fact that we often have over a meter of floodwater there. I have no idea what changed. In the same neighborhood is an old rotting building called the Invalidovna [1], which was partly destroyed by flooding. It is about 200 meters from the shore of the river. Everything closer will be flooded even worse. This is an issue that is of great interest to me in the analysis of property rights. When the old building code was in effect, privately owned land was turned into a defacto public park. No one wanted the city to lose that park, but the private property was owned. Doesn't the owner have the right to do with their land as they please? But really, it is in the interest of no one except the owner that the owner should build there. Even the people who buy the appartments are getting screwed in a way. And what is the fairness of declaring the land a flood plane in the first place. People owned that land before it was declared a flood plane. The government, with the stroke of a pen makes land worthless or worth millions. It is just one of those great examples of how capitalism is chaotic, unjust, and senseless and why we should never assume that someone deserves to be rich and others deserve to be poor. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invalidovna https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invalidovna