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> Who is actually in control here? Is it blind forces pushing us to an inevitable outcome? The Illuminati? Lizard people? less blind forces, more "well, what w

> Who is actually in control here? Is it blind forces pushing us to an inevitable outcome? The Illuminati? Lizard people? less blind forces, more "well, what would you do in their situation": the people who first paid money for a given square of land were also the first to try to convince someone else to pay them more for that same land natural resources aside, land only really has the value that other people are willing to pay for it, like currency. so if you want the "growth of your asset", the only thing you can really do is convince people the land is worth more than what you paid for it, for whatever reasons you dream up globalisation just made everyone's marketing messages go 'round the world

throwaway894345 3y ago
> less blind forces, more "well, what would you do in their situation": the people who first paid money for a given square of land were also the first to try to convince someone else to pay them more for that same land It seems a bit silly to argue that increasing land prices is principally a result of marketing. The amount of earth on the planet in the last 10k years essentially hasn't changed but the number of humans has increased almost 2000%. Population growth is surely a "blind force", right?
- jareklupinski 3y ago
  that's true, market forces like supply and demand affect everything in the economy, and while we've grown, our landmass has remained static. which parts of the land are worth more than others though, I think the article does a good job of providing examples too: people living closer to each central city had higher wages, which meant they could pay more for the land pieces... so they did, which meant they had to ask more when selling in order to 'break even' or 'realize on their investment' i guess the bigger question is: why did we tie our need for shelter into the economy? in order to achieve constant growth (ensure someone isnt left 'holding the bag'), we have to either be willfully ignorant of a growing population, or maintain a fantasy of there always being viable room for ever more people i hope we start colonizing the moon or even mars before we have to deal with fallout from the above...
  - throwaway894345 3y ago
    > which parts of the land are worth more than others though, I think the article does a good job of providing examples too: people living closer to each central city had higher wages, which meant they could pay more for the land pieces... so they did, which meant they had to ask more when selling in order to 'break even' or 'realize on their investment' I don’t think that’s a very compelling explanation for increased market prices for city centers either. It doesn’t address the rival (and more likely IMO) claim that prices increased for economic reasons (maybe city salaries increased even further or even something as nebulous as “Hollywood portrayed cities as vibrant, desirable places to several generations”).
- asdff 3y ago
  The thing is, we used to respond to such growth easily in a way that prevented land prices from being so out of reach for average workers. Here is the population of Los Angeles over the years: 1850 1,610 — 1860 4,385 172.4% 1870 5,728 30.6% 1880 11,183 95.2% 1890 50,395 350.6% 1900 102,479 103.4% 1910 319,198 211.5% 1920 576,673 80.7% 1930 1,238,048 114.7% 1940 1,504,277 21.5% 1950 1,970,358 31.0% 1960 2,479,015 25.8% 1970 2,811,801 13.4% 1980 2,968,528 5.6% 1990 3,485,398 17.4% 2000 3,694,820 6.0% 2010 3,792,621 2.6% 2020 3,898,747 2.8% As you can see, the city used to experience massive decade over decade growth. It also used to be zoned for 10 million people in the 1960s, today though, its zoned for a little bit over 4 million people, creating the housing crisis we see today because not a lot of properties are even able to be built up even if they are available for sale and potentially a turnover. There's no shortage of land, its just mismanaged.
  - throwaway894345 3y ago
    Sure, I was remarking narrowly about the “forces vs marketing” claims. I don’t have a position on land prices have adapted with population growth (although I’m not sure looking narrowly at a single city is particularly compelling).
  - gautamcgoel 3y ago
    Is it really true that there's no shortage of land? I lived in the LA area and rarely saw empty plots. What is obvious is that we could improve density by encouraging more mid-rises and high-rises.
- DeathArrow 3y ago
  >It seems a bit silly to argue that increasing land prices is principally a result of marketing. The amount of earth on the planet in the last 10k years essentially hasn't changed but the number of humans has increased almost 2000%. Population growth is surely a "blind force", right? But in some places population is the same or even declining and prices are still going up.
  - throwaway894345 3y ago
    Sure, there are definitely other factors as well—for example, the local economy may be growing such that there is more intense competition for housing in close proximity to downtown. This is also a pretty “blind force” (rather than homeowners marketing their homes).
asdff 3y ago
There's a little more to it. If it was merely about getting all the profit you could out of land, there's be no sense capping a bay area neighborhood at single family home densities, when you could probably build a 25 story condo on each single family home lot and sell each story as its own luxury condo for the price of that 1930s single story california home that sits there today. I think nimbyism just appeals to the monkey side of the brain we all have. If you are happy and surviving, there's probably millions of years of biological evolution in your behavior that's telling you to keep up what you are doing where you are. There's probably a side of your brain that subconsciously gets irritated at seeing more humans move into an area competing for resources with you, even if today that just means a parking spot at the grocery store and not an appreciable dent on game populations. Stuff like cities and dense living on top of many different "tribes" only happened within the last few thousand years, that's only like 50-100 generations and that's only considering those ancient cities that were around then, plenty of places have been rural for all of human history. Not nearly enough time to expect a significant amount of adaption, and that's only if there is a remarkably strong selective pressure favoring adaption.

throwaway894345 3y ago

> less blind forces, more "well, what would you do in their situation": the people who first paid money for a given square of land were also the first to try to convince someone else to pay them more for that same land It seems a bit silly to argue that increasing land prices is principally a result of marketing. The amount of earth on the planet in the last 10k years essentially hasn't changed but the number of humans has increased almost 2000%. Population growth is surely a "blind force", right?

jareklupinski 3y ago
that's true, market forces like supply and demand affect everything in the economy, and while we've grown, our landmass has remained static. which parts of the land are worth more than others though, I think the article does a good job of providing examples too: people living closer to each central city had higher wages, which meant they could pay more for the land pieces... so they did, which meant they had to ask more when selling in order to 'break even' or 'realize on their investment' i guess the bigger question is: why did we tie our need for shelter into the economy? in order to achieve constant growth (ensure someone isnt left 'holding the bag'), we have to either be willfully ignorant of a growing population, or maintain a fantasy of there always being viable room for ever more people i hope we start colonizing the moon or even mars before we have to deal with fallout from the above...
- throwaway894345 3y ago
  > which parts of the land are worth more than others though, I think the article does a good job of providing examples too: people living closer to each central city had higher wages, which meant they could pay more for the land pieces... so they did, which meant they had to ask more when selling in order to 'break even' or 'realize on their investment' I don’t think that’s a very compelling explanation for increased market prices for city centers either. It doesn’t address the rival (and more likely IMO) claim that prices increased for economic reasons (maybe city salaries increased even further or even something as nebulous as “Hollywood portrayed cities as vibrant, desirable places to several generations”).
asdff 3y ago
The thing is, we used to respond to such growth easily in a way that prevented land prices from being so out of reach for average workers. Here is the population of Los Angeles over the years: 1850 1,610 — 1860 4,385 172.4% 1870 5,728 30.6% 1880 11,183 95.2% 1890 50,395 350.6% 1900 102,479 103.4% 1910 319,198 211.5% 1920 576,673 80.7% 1930 1,238,048 114.7% 1940 1,504,277 21.5% 1950 1,970,358 31.0% 1960 2,479,015 25.8% 1970 2,811,801 13.4% 1980 2,968,528 5.6% 1990 3,485,398 17.4% 2000 3,694,820 6.0% 2010 3,792,621 2.6% 2020 3,898,747 2.8% As you can see, the city used to experience massive decade over decade growth. It also used to be zoned for 10 million people in the 1960s, today though, its zoned for a little bit over 4 million people, creating the housing crisis we see today because not a lot of properties are even able to be built up even if they are available for sale and potentially a turnover. There's no shortage of land, its just mismanaged.
- throwaway894345 3y ago
  Sure, I was remarking narrowly about the “forces vs marketing” claims. I don’t have a position on land prices have adapted with population growth (although I’m not sure looking narrowly at a single city is particularly compelling).
- gautamcgoel 3y ago
  Is it really true that there's no shortage of land? I lived in the LA area and rarely saw empty plots. What is obvious is that we could improve density by encouraging more mid-rises and high-rises.
DeathArrow 3y ago
>It seems a bit silly to argue that increasing land prices is principally a result of marketing. The amount of earth on the planet in the last 10k years essentially hasn't changed but the number of humans has increased almost 2000%. Population growth is surely a "blind force", right? But in some places population is the same or even declining and prices are still going up.
- throwaway894345 3y ago
  Sure, there are definitely other factors as well—for example, the local economy may be growing such that there is more intense competition for housing in close proximity to downtown. This is also a pretty “blind force” (rather than homeowners marketing their homes).

asdff 3y ago

There's a little more to it. If it was merely about getting all the profit you could out of land, there's be no sense capping a bay area neighborhood at single family home densities, when you could probably build a 25 story condo on each single family home lot and sell each story as its own luxury condo for the price of that 1930s single story california home that sits there today. I think nimbyism just appeals to the monkey side of the brain we all have. If you are happy and surviving, there's probably millions of years of biological evolution in your behavior that's telling you to keep up what you are doing where you are. There's probably a side of your brain that subconsciously gets irritated at seeing more humans move into an area competing for resources with you, even if today that just means a parking spot at the grocery store and not an appreciable dent on game populations. Stuff like cities and dense living on top of many different "tribes" only happened within the last few thousand years, that's only like 50-100 generations and that's only considering those ancient cities that were around then, plenty of places have been rural for all of human history. Not nearly enough time to expect a significant amount of adaption, and that's only if there is a remarkably strong selective pressure favoring adaption.