3 ms·
> The price of land will skyrocket Is that really true? Let's look at some data from Google, the World Bank, etc.: US land area: 3,532,316 square miles
by graycat 2y ago
> The price of land will skyrocket
Is that really true?
Let's look at some data from Google, the
World Bank, etc.:
US land area: 3,532,316 square miles
US population: 334.9 million
640 acres per square mile
( 640 * 3,532,316 ) / 334,900,000 =
6.750 acres per person
Fertility rate: 1.66 births per woman
(2022) World Bank
GDP growth rate: 2.5% annual change
(2023) World Bank
So, per family of four, that would be
( 4 * 640 * 3,532,316 ) / 334,900,000
= 27 acres per family of four
"Skyrocket?" With the fertility rate of
1.66, the US population is falling so that
the acres per person is increasing.
A guess is that people are crowded into
tall buildings in dense cities to reduce
costs of communications. So, yes, in
dense cities, the cost of land per acre is
comparatively high.
But the Internet is reducing the costs of
communications meaning that people can
move to land that is less densely
populated and cheaper.
So, for the near future, tough to believe:
> The price of land will skyrocket
- llamaimperative 2y agoIf this logic worked, all land and therefore rent would currently be ~free since there's ample open space all over the continent. The price of land is set by the productivity of it. Productivity goes up (by increased density, public infrastructure, private investment, or technological advancement) -> price of land goes up.
- computerdork 2y agoActually, the part that that person was focusing on was that the fertility rate is below the replacement rate. Yeah, if we also decrease our immigration rate, our population could peak out even in a decade or two: https://www.axios.com/2023/11/09/us-population-decline-down-projections-data-chart https://www.axios.com/2023/11/09/us-population-decline-down-...
- graycat 2y ago"Price of land goes up": In simple terms, the Internet is providing huge areas of land suddenly now feasible for use; the larger supply will lower US average costs per acre.
- llamaimperative 2y agoEmpirically hasn't happened. It turns out people enjoy being near other people, so actually the increase in productivity has outstripped preference for less-dense living.