[evjim]

Space is as necessary of a life resource as water and air. We should look at the 1800's and the Homesteading Acts as a template for a new land distribution program. There is more than enough land for everyone to have a small chunk. With technology it is easy to be connected and employed anywhere.

It is absurd that somebody is paying $550/month to live in a place without running water. In under 2 months I built a cabin for under $500 and have enough space to grow a garden.

[tmh79]

this is the opposite of what we should do. Spread out living situations contribute hugely to global climate change. We should instead focus on building so much housing in dense urban areas that there will be no scarcity to provide value, and we should also institute a land tax to ensure that land is used for its most efficient purpose. That will drive prices down and allow people to live a sustainable lifestyle.

[evjim]

I disagree. Currently, people's food and goods travel thousands of miles before reaching the user. Not too long ago, people grew most of their own food or it came within 50miles. With technology, it would not be hard for people to return to that lifestyle and still have many day hours to dedicate to intellectual or fabrication pursuits.

I am very in favor of Georgist style land taxation.

[ianai]

I realize that, but can we talk about fixing some of the problems of the city? I can't stand living in the city most of the time. There's just so much violence and hostility.

[CPLX]

It's not the 1800's, I'm not sure if anyone is going to line up for a square plot of land with no services in an undeveloped area.

[handedness]

Is your cabin in a city with a population of 1.3m? While it sounds very cool, it doesn't sound like the idea would scale, either.

> There is more than enough land for everyone to have a small chunk. With technology it is easy to be connected and employed anywhere.

Anywhere there are utilities. Also, who decides how those chunks are allocated? Who gets a chunk in Monaco and who gets one in the New Mexico desert?

[evjim]

Utilities aren't needed. Solar is cheaper than running new electrical. Wireless internet is affordable and fast.

Henry George has some good ideas on valuing and taxing land. Maybe even negatively taxing the worse land.

[geezerjay]

> There is more than enough land for everyone

You're missing the point. The reason why housing is expensive is not the lack of available land. The reason why housing is expensive is due to the fact that a lot of people want to live in and around very specific locations and don't want to waste time commuting to and from those locations.

[tmh79]

I think you've provided exactly 1/2 of the answer why housing is expensive.

The other half of the answer is that (in short) we've created a set of legal structures to prevent land owners from building the amount of housing that the market would otherwise build on their own land.

The scarcity, and thus value, comes from excluding people.

[evjim]

Industry was concentrated in these centers not by choice of workers. Peter Kropotkin makes a strong argument in "Fields Factories, and Workshops" on how the decentralization of manufacture would benefit the craftsperson.

There actually is a lack of affordable land. Rural land has been amalgamated by the agriculture companies, timber companies, and government. Buying rural land usually has to be done in large acreages and it is still expensive.