As to land look up an acre of Iowa farmland. It’s not worth that much in comparison to a an acre near a city. But to see that growth you need to predict were massive migration and infrastructure investments take place while subtracting taxes.
https://www.extension.iastate.edu/agdm/wholefarm/html/images...
But to your broader point, predicting where growth will occur, is literally the definition of investing. Investment is the allocation of capital towards areas of growth. Luckily, the global economy has generally grown over time, which means that generally investments such as real estate tend to grow as well, and faster than inflation.
I’ve gotta say, I appreciate your thoughts and perspective, but you’re going to miss out on a lot of growth if you only believe in investing in utilities companies and TIPS.
PS: I chose farm land specifically because it’s value relates to it’s use as a productive asset. In Gerlach, Nevada you can get land as cheap as $157 per acre. Now, if we start running out of space for solar panels it might be worth something some day but for now it’s really not.
In the short term, like my lifetime, growth stocks are great. But, you need dividends at some point or what does stock ownership actually provide?
The bottom line is that for most of modern history, real estate as a whole has been a better investment than some theoretical instrument that tracks inflation.
Your point about Detroit is like arguing that stocks are a bad investment because Enron collapsed.