In the US you can buy land at quantity for, say, ~$1k/acre in places where there aren't people/infrastructure/etc... There is no shortage of land in the US. T

In the US you can buy land at quantity for, say, ~$1k/acre in places where there aren't people/infrastructure/etc... There is no shortage of land in the US. There is a shortage of land in a few high density areas. But increasing their density makes them more attractive. I don't think it's reasonable to make the pioneer comparison-- if you want to do what pioneers did and build something from almost nothing in the middle of nowhere with great effort then there is still an analogous route open to you.