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There's a fixed amount of "desirable" land, and a growing population competing over it. This means some combination of "up" and "out" is necessary - either we e
by ThrustVectoring 7y ago
There's a fixed amount of "desirable" land, and a growing population competing over it. This means some combination of "up" and "out" is necessary - either we end up using less land per person (density), or new growth gets channeled into marginally desirable locations (sprawl).
- jimmaswell 7y agoHopefully more jobs turn remote so people are free to live anywhere and still have jobs.
- wpietri 7y ago> There's a fixed amount of "desirable" land I don't think this is true at all. Even the nature of "desirable" land has changed drastically over the last few hundred years. There's no reason to think that change won't continue to happen. Especially given the rise of internet, climate change, and the necessary decarbonization of our economy, what's "desirable", it's ridiculous to think where people want to live is fixed.
- mikeash 7y agoJust to reinforce this: for the vast majority of people who don’t live in the countryside, desirability is almost all about nearby human activities. Look at what makes a location desirable: good schools, good job prospects, retail, night life, transportation, etc. It should be pretty clear that this is definitely not fixed.
- ThrustVectoring 7y agoThat's uhh, way less true than you think it is. There's some pretty important geographical considerations. 1. Cheap shipping via navigable rivers 2. Deep water ports 3. Not subject to periodic flooding 4. Flatness (not a huge deal, but it does make construction cheaper) 5. Soil suitability for construction (especially relevant is where the bedrock is, and what kind of soil lies atop it) Granted, a lot of this is merely the reason why network effects got started where they did. But they are still highly relevant considerations that add completely natural value to land, regardless of what people would decide to do with it.
- mikeash 7y agoLots of desirable locations exist without those things. Lots of places with those things exist without being desirable.
- wpietri 7y agoI would submit that the first two are effectively irrelevant today. I agree they were historically important, but today we have cheap shipping handled. Note also that your "uhh" is something many people find objectionable. E.g. https://web.archive.org/web/20070105163441/http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/articles/content/a12088/ https://web.archive.org/web/20070105163441/http://www.televi... with more discussion here: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=28802 http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=28802
- drcode 7y agoIt's a sensible thought, but EMH argues that speculators would have already priced in that future expected value, again leading to a price rise in line with salaries/inflation.
- ThrustVectoring 7y agoThe speculators have to use a discount rate higher than the risk-free rate, otherwise why would they be doing real estate speculation instead of earning risk-free interest? Granted, the risk-free rate doesn't have to be above-inflation, but the real interest rate currently is positive in the US.
- oftenwrong 7y agoDon't forget "in": infill, another way to increase density.