[bobthepanda]

Unfortunately, that economic trick can't be repeated forever. We've simply run out of land that is within commutable distance, and our governments are collapsing under the lifecycle cost of infrastructure for ever lower densities.

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I read an interesting article that framed the new laws around loosening single family zoning in California as allowing a new type of homesteading. Basically, the zoning regulations have forced homeowners to more or less get value only out of the house they actually live in. Actually homesteading with a garden in your backyard in 2021, the way American homesteads used to be small farms, would not really make any sort of significant income.

The argument was that people can now choose to use what was previously more or less legally mandated unproductive[1] land, your backyard and front yard, to be converted into more housing, which could be rented out as a source of income.