Add to it, land is the primary method by which "old money" remains in that category.
Yes, but that sum in the US is huge. Drive around the midwest or any region outside of an urban core and its empty space as far as the eye can see.
The problem is large-scale economic and demographic changes. The US used to have:
* A culture that prized living in suburbia away from dense areas.
* Labor-intensive agriculture that provided a lot of jobs in rural areas.
* Labor-intensive manufacturing that provided a lot of jobs in a large number of smaller cities.
All of those forces encouraged the population to spread out. Those forces are evaporating. The suburbs are now seen as soulless sources of miserable commutes. Automation and consolidation has dramatically reduced the number of farm employees needed for a given square acre of land. Automation and cheap imports from other countries have eliminated manufacturing jobs.
Without those forces counterbalancing things, there is a strong trend towards consolidating into large metropolises which can't absorb the growth that quickly.
We can try to stuff every more dense housing in those cities and gradually turn them into concrete boxes. Some amount of densification is good. But instead of investing almost entirely in that, I really wish the US was working to try to make small and mid-size cities more desirable too.
They choose not to.
> more dense housing in those cities… turn them into concrete boxes
A "US NIMBY-like" viewpoint. Paris is denser than the average city and lovely, as are many EU cities. US cities designed before the car took over usually nicer and more space-efficient as well, but are few and mostly on the East coast.
You're such an optimist. Governments around the world have been trying to relocate employment and labor for centuries and the best they have come up with is ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
In any new suburb or city you are not allowed to put jobs where the people are. There is exactly one house within comfortable walking distance of my office: the farmhouse that was here before the area was developed. If I bought a lot in this office park I would not be allowed to put apartments or houses. A couple miles away there are lots of houses, I wouldn't be allowed to buy a few and put in an office. A few miles in a different direction is a shopping mall that is failing. If I bought the mall I wouldn't be allowed to rent space for offices or apartments without first doing a zoning change, and then I'd have to choose either apartments or office, I wouldn't be allowed to put a house in the parking lot that is bigger than either apartments or offices would need.
Not to mention a city is more than housing. It's nice to walk to the corner pub, go to a theatre, sporting event, etc.
Various cities have tiny band aid programs under the rubric of affordable housing but the low hanging fruit is to stop actively intervening to make the problem worse.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11612989-the-dictator-s-...
Sorry to ruin your day ;-)
We probably can’t eliminate the scourge of land rents altogether but we can stop making the problem worse by putting in place more and more policies designed to raise housing prices rather than lower them. Such policies are exactly the opposite of what the government should strive for.