Firstly, you can already get a plot of land you can garden at market rate - simply buy a house with a garden.

Secondly, you should be extremely skeptical about the 40 year claim. After all, people move, and the popularity of allotments waxes and wanes.

Thirdly, the people who allocate allotments are mostly looking for someone who is going to show up and take care of their plot so it doesn't get overgrown. Expecting a lot of manual labour and then pricing out anyone with a background in manual labour might not be the smartest move.

> the people who allocate allotments are mostly looking for someone who is going to show up and take care of their plot so it doesn't get overgrown.

Couldn't the owners address that by including a clause like "if you let your plot get overgrown, you have to pay a penalty (maybe 3x what it costs to pay someone to come take care of it), and if you do it twice, we're not renewing your lease"?

Or... "You pay to start having the plot... Whoever is willing to pay most gets it, like an auction. And at a random time each year we'll come inspect the plot, and the worst-kept 20% will immediately lose the plot and if you want it again you have to re-buy it.".

So you're buying a kinda-5-year-lease. But the exact length of your lease depends how well you look after it.

Man, can’t the working class have anything without the fashionable classes pricing them out?

We live in a fucking society. Not everything needs to be minmax rent seeking.

I don't see any rent-seeking in that idea. Note that economic rent in the sense of rent-seeking is not the same as rent paid to lease something.

>> and the worst-kept 20% will immediately lose the plot

Which is stack-ranking - fire the lowest x% of performers every year. Yeah nahhh, no problems with that idea, nope.

Except you have a judging team do it, based on published criteria, rather than all the participants ranking eachother. A bit like a school exam (where students are usually ranked - curve fitted - to eliminate variable difficulty of the questions that year)

School stack taking is even worse.

I basically like this idea too, although rather than the worst-kept 20%, I'd define a standard at the beginning of the year and then do any that don't meet that standard at inspection time, no matter what percentage it ends up being.

Very strict standards would become political very quickly and lead to conflict. There is a huge difference of opinion about what constitutes tidy and weed free. My plot has stinging nettles on it. They are a useful habit that attracts beneficial insects. I let the grass grow longer as a habitat for frogs. I don't use chemicals on bind weed just pull it out. My shed leans over a little and needs painting. It looks a bit of a mess sometimes but is actually fairly well cared for. But some people won't see it like that. The wonderful thing about an allotment is that it is a space to play a bit without too many rules. And a more relaxed approach to care is more sustainable in terms of effort.

I initially considered that... But then you can just pay someone to meet the standard, and keep the allotment forever.

It effectively becomes land you own permanently. And the price would probably go from 'a few hundred bucks for something that will entertain me for a year' to 'an investment that will rise in value and I can give my children, so $400k'.

Knowing that a fixed percentage of owners will be stripped of their holding each year makes it a very unattractive investment, while not preventing most of the other uses of an allotment.

Or, you make the process cumbersome enough that the individuals who complete it have already demonstrated commitment.

I assume there are rules where if you don’t show up for a couple years in a row, you forfeit your plot?

The difference is that one is distributed to people in order of requests and the other is distributed strictly to those who can afford the highest bid.

Naturally, people with the most affluence would prefer the free market approach. Everyone else would prefer a non-zero chance of getting a plot eventually rather than a zero chance of being able to afford one at all.

It’s just a choice of what metric of scarcity to use. Financial or time. Time is arguably more equal and since it’s not a strictly economic good like controlling traffic in the city, it’s not a worse way to do it.

> It’s just a choice of what metric of scarcity to use.

That is an analysis by choice. There are other ways of looking at the world, and at economics, than "measure everything".

The "metrics" methods of analysis are useful, but insufficient. Human dignity/happiness cannot be measured, and from the evidence of this New Yorker piece, it is both that the writer is getting from the allotment.

The 40 year thing is extremely unlikely. About 7 years in my part of London. Might have gone up to 10 now.

I got one after 3 years in Lewisham, in 2021.

I'm pretty sure I've spent more in equipment, consumables, seeds, etc. than I've got out of it so far but it's very enjoyable.