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I've recently wondered why cities don't tend to spring up on their own anymore. Either that's true or I just haven't heard about it. Has anyone looked into this

I've recently wondered why cities don't tend to spring up on their own anymore. Either that's true or I just haven't heard about it. Has anyone looked into this? I was going to bring this up as an anecdote but looking at this (http://www.businessinsider.com/federal-government-land-map-oregon-militia-2016-1 http://www.businessinsider.com/federal-government-land-map-o...) it seems to be true; a relative of mine lives in a small city in Utah and says he wants a couple acres but the land surrounding the city is federally owned, limiting his options. How was this land released to citizens previously and how has that changed since? Was it really just doling it out to farmers who have since sold it?

betaby 9y ago
Where I live(d) government owned land is rarely sold because it has 'protected' status either because it a wilderness protected area or future/previously farmland. That means land is not for residential/commercial development.
0x4f3759df 9y ago
There's a few master planned towns that spring into existence, Seaside, FL, Jakriborg, Sweden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jakriborg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jakriborg
gnarcoregrizz 9y ago
guess: because the government used to give land away in the homesteading act, to encourage people to settle the west https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_Acts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_Acts
api 9y ago
The market may be saturated. There are lots of cities already and many of them have affordable homes. Why found a new city when you could move to Cincinnati, Lexington, Pittsburgh, or Cleveland? If you want really cheap housing you could move to Detroit or St. Louis.
aphextron 9y ago
>Was it really just doling it out to farmers who have since sold it? Yes. For much of America's history, you could literally get in a wagon, head out west somewhere, plant a flag, and the land was yours. This was true all the way to 1976. "In all, more than 270 million acres of public land, or nearly 10% of the total area of the U.S., was given away free to 1.6 million homesteaders; most of the homesteads were west of the Mississippi River." [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_Acts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_Acts But that's not the whole story. Another 10% of the entire US land mass (~200,000,000 acres) was granted free of charge to various railroad companies[0], many of which are still the largest private landowners in their respective states. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Railroad_Acts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Railroad_Acts
- zapita 9y ago
  > For much of America's history, you could literally get in a wagon, head out west somewhere, plant a flag, and the land was yours. You also had to band together with your fellow settlers into armed militias to kill the people whose land you were squatting. Those are the same militias which are protected in the second amendment. Their original purpose was "killing indians". The secondary purpose was to catch escaped slaves. It's always fun to remember where our real estate industry comes from. It's also interesting to see the hidden connections between America's passion for home ownership, its obsession with guns, and its racism.
  - aphextron 9y ago
    Founded on genocide, built by slavery, maintained with brutal force. The American Way™
    - RestlessMind 9y ago
      I don't see anything uniquely American about it. More like The Human Way™ :p (You do realize that all the societies are maintained with brutal force, right? And pick any country, go back a few centuries and you will find conflicts with as many casualties as American genocide).
drewmate 9y ago
Much of the land in the American West made its way into private hands through homesteading, where farmers earned the land by improving (i.e. farming) it. It's worth considering what modern homesteading could look like. Perhaps large development groups could make deals to plant dense neighborhood seeds (e.g. multi-use buildings in grids with a plan to expand into an actual community) and pay for connecting highways in exchange for exclusive rights to surrounding parcels of land. There is a lot of federal land in the west that is close to existing development. Could it be used to create healthier cities in those areas?
- gnarcoregrizz 9y ago
  And we were all making fun of China's ghost cities not too long ago...
- icebraining 9y ago
  If you have the money to build a bunch of buildings in the middle of nowhere, is the cost of the land really a big impediment?
  - xyzzyz 9y ago
    If you want to build houses of similar quality to those built by homesteaders, it's really, really cheap.
  - drewmate 9y ago
    That's a good point. It would have to be the right set of circumstances: with unused land in close proximity to an existing city that can't manage to scale up because of entrenched interests. I suspect such areas exist (perhaps around Salt Lake City, or Las Vegas) and there might be a chance to make a true dense city in those areas rather than the sprawl that has developed naturally.
BryantD 9y ago
Not all locations are equally good places for cities, particularly now that the Interstate highway system is already built. Still happens now and again, though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seaside,_Florida https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seaside,_Florida
psyc 9y ago
This might help: https://youtu.be/3PWWtqfwacQ https://youtu.be/3PWWtqfwacQ
jhbadger 9y ago
Actually there are quite a few, with the classic example being "edge cities" like Tysons Corners near Washington DC - what was originally just offices and shopping has become a real community. But to tie in the zoning issues mentioned, places like Tysons developed in response to the stricter zoning in DC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_city https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_city
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago
  People only build elsewhere when distance costs less than cleaning up the regulatory pollution required to build. The problem is that the regulatory pollution (crappy zoning) is so bad in certain areas and improves so little as you get further out that building a little further away isn't actually a better value.
burlesona 9y ago
I think about this too. Building more cities seems like an obvious way to help, but it doesn’t happen for many complicated reasons which I don’t pretend to fully understand. YC was looking into this at some point, I don’t know where they went with it, though.
AnimalMuppet 9y ago
> How was this land released to citizens previously and how has that changed since? It was doled out via the Homestead Act. Anybody could take the land and farm it. And what land did they take? Land that they thought they could grow enough on to not starve. What land was that? Land with water. The land that didn't get taken was land that had no water - not enough to run a farm. And it probably still doesn't have enough water for a subdivision, at least not one with lawns.

betaby 9y ago

Where I live(d) government owned land is rarely sold because it has 'protected' status either because it a wilderness protected area or future/previously farmland. That means land is not for residential/commercial development.

0x4f3759df 9y ago

There's a few master planned towns that spring into existence, Seaside, FL, Jakriborg, Sweden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jakriborg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jakriborg

gnarcoregrizz 9y ago

guess: because the government used to give land away in the homesteading act, to encourage people to settle the west https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_Acts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_Acts

api 9y ago

The market may be saturated. There are lots of cities already and many of them have affordable homes. Why found a new city when you could move to Cincinnati, Lexington, Pittsburgh, or Cleveland? If you want really cheap housing you could move to Detroit or St. Louis.

aphextron 9y ago

>Was it really just doling it out to farmers who have since sold it? Yes. For much of America's history, you could literally get in a wagon, head out west somewhere, plant a flag, and the land was yours. This was true all the way to 1976. "In all, more than 270 million acres of public land, or nearly 10% of the total area of the U.S., was given away free to 1.6 million homesteaders; most of the homesteads were west of the Mississippi River." [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_Acts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_Acts But that's not the whole story. Another 10% of the entire US land mass (~200,000,000 acres) was granted free of charge to various railroad companies[0], many of which are still the largest private landowners in their respective states. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Railroad_Acts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Railroad_Acts

zapita 9y ago
> For much of America's history, you could literally get in a wagon, head out west somewhere, plant a flag, and the land was yours. You also had to band together with your fellow settlers into armed militias to kill the people whose land you were squatting. Those are the same militias which are protected in the second amendment. Their original purpose was "killing indians". The secondary purpose was to catch escaped slaves. It's always fun to remember where our real estate industry comes from. It's also interesting to see the hidden connections between America's passion for home ownership, its obsession with guns, and its racism.
- aphextron 9y ago
  Founded on genocide, built by slavery, maintained with brutal force. The American Way™
  - RestlessMind 9y ago
    I don't see anything uniquely American about it. More like The Human Way™ :p (You do realize that all the societies are maintained with brutal force, right? And pick any country, go back a few centuries and you will find conflicts with as many casualties as American genocide).

drewmate 9y ago

Much of the land in the American West made its way into private hands through homesteading, where farmers earned the land by improving (i.e. farming) it. It's worth considering what modern homesteading could look like. Perhaps large development groups could make deals to plant dense neighborhood seeds (e.g. multi-use buildings in grids with a plan to expand into an actual community) and pay for connecting highways in exchange for exclusive rights to surrounding parcels of land. There is a lot of federal land in the west that is close to existing development. Could it be used to create healthier cities in those areas?

gnarcoregrizz 9y ago
And we were all making fun of China's ghost cities not too long ago...
icebraining 9y ago
If you have the money to build a bunch of buildings in the middle of nowhere, is the cost of the land really a big impediment?
- xyzzyz 9y ago
  If you want to build houses of similar quality to those built by homesteaders, it's really, really cheap.
- drewmate 9y ago
  That's a good point. It would have to be the right set of circumstances: with unused land in close proximity to an existing city that can't manage to scale up because of entrenched interests. I suspect such areas exist (perhaps around Salt Lake City, or Las Vegas) and there might be a chance to make a true dense city in those areas rather than the sprawl that has developed naturally.

BryantD 9y ago

Not all locations are equally good places for cities, particularly now that the Interstate highway system is already built. Still happens now and again, though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seaside,_Florida https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seaside,_Florida

psyc 9y ago

This might help: https://youtu.be/3PWWtqfwacQ https://youtu.be/3PWWtqfwacQ

jhbadger 9y ago

Actually there are quite a few, with the classic example being "edge cities" like Tysons Corners near Washington DC - what was originally just offices and shopping has become a real community. But to tie in the zoning issues mentioned, places like Tysons developed in response to the stricter zoning in DC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_city https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_city

dsfyu404ed 9y ago
People only build elsewhere when distance costs less than cleaning up the regulatory pollution required to build. The problem is that the regulatory pollution (crappy zoning) is so bad in certain areas and improves so little as you get further out that building a little further away isn't actually a better value.

burlesona 9y ago

I think about this too. Building more cities seems like an obvious way to help, but it doesn’t happen for many complicated reasons which I don’t pretend to fully understand. YC was looking into this at some point, I don’t know where they went with it, though.

AnimalMuppet 9y ago

> How was this land released to citizens previously and how has that changed since? It was doled out via the Homestead Act. Anybody could take the land and farm it. And what land did they take? Land that they thought they could grow enough on to not starve. What land was that? Land with water. The land that didn't get taken was land that had no water - not enough to run a farm. And it probably still doesn't have enough water for a subdivision, at least not one with lawns.