Maybe "generating space trash" would be a more apt analogy, since you're going from nothing to something as you generate it (unlike parcel of land which there's

Maybe "generating space trash" would be a more apt analogy, since you're going from nothing to something as you generate it (unlike parcel of land which there's a fixed amount of), and the more of it that's generated, the worse off the public is (space trash leads to more danger while orbiting, more patents leads to more legal danger while doing business).