that's true, market forces like supply and demand affect everything in the economy, and while we've grown, our landmass has remained static.

which parts of the land are worth more than others though, I think the article does a good job of providing examples too: people living closer to each central city had higher wages, which meant they could pay more for the land pieces... so they did, which meant they had to ask more when selling in order to 'break even' or 'realize on their investment'

i guess the bigger question is: why did we tie our need for shelter into the economy? in order to achieve constant growth (ensure someone isnt left 'holding the bag'), we have to either be willfully ignorant of a growing population, or maintain a fantasy of there always being viable room for ever more people

i hope we start colonizing the moon or even mars before we have to deal with fallout from the above...

> which parts of the land are worth more than others though, I think the article does a good job of providing examples too: people living closer to each central city had higher wages, which meant they could pay more for the land pieces... so they did, which meant they had to ask more when selling in order to 'break even' or 'realize on their investment'

I don’t think that’s a very compelling explanation for increased market prices for city centers either. It doesn’t address the rival (and more likely IMO) claim that prices increased for economic reasons (maybe city salaries increased even further or even something as nebulous as “Hollywood portrayed cities as vibrant, desirable places to several generations”).

The thing is, we used to respond to such growth easily in a way that prevented land prices from being so out of reach for average workers. Here is the population of Los Angeles over the years:

1850 1,610 —

1860 4,385 172.4%

1870 5,728 30.6%

1880 11,183 95.2%

1890 50,395 350.6%

1900 102,479 103.4%

1910 319,198 211.5%

1920 576,673 80.7%

1930 1,238,048 114.7%

1940 1,504,277 21.5%

1950 1,970,358 31.0%

1960 2,479,015 25.8%

1970 2,811,801 13.4%

1980 2,968,528 5.6%

1990 3,485,398 17.4%

2000 3,694,820 6.0%

2010 3,792,621 2.6%

2020 3,898,747 2.8%

As you can see, the city used to experience massive decade over decade growth. It also used to be zoned for 10 million people in the 1960s, today though, its zoned for a little bit over 4 million people, creating the housing crisis we see today because not a lot of properties are even able to be built up even if they are available for sale and potentially a turnover. There's no shortage of land, its just mismanaged.

Sure, I was remarking narrowly about the “forces vs marketing” claims. I don’t have a position on land prices have adapted with population growth (although I’m not sure looking narrowly at a single city is particularly compelling).

Is it really true that there's no shortage of land? I lived in the LA area and rarely saw empty plots. What is obvious is that we could improve density by encouraging more mid-rises and high-rises.

>It seems a bit silly to argue that increasing land prices is principally a result of marketing. The amount of earth on the planet in the last 10k years essentially hasn't changed but the number of humans has increased almost 2000%. Population growth is surely a "blind force", right?

But in some places population is the same or even declining and prices are still going up.

Sure, there are definitely other factors as well—for example, the local economy may be growing such that there is more intense competition for housing in close proximity to downtown. This is also a pretty “blind force” (rather than homeowners marketing their homes).