[kodyo]

There are some undefined variables. Did the people doing the improving own the land? Well, now they're no longer poor. Yay. Sell and get out of there before the Californians move in and turn it into a sewer.

If they voluntarily improved somebody else's land under no contractual agreement with the owner, why do they think they're entitled to a share of the new value?

If they voluntarily improved "public" land, good luck extracting gratitude from the state after the fact. The bureaucrats are more likely to issue fines and send in bulldozers.

[threatofrain]

> If they voluntarily improved somebody else's land under no contractual agreement with the owner, why do they think they're entitled to a share of the new value?

> If they voluntarily improved "public" land, good luck extracting gratitude from the state after the fact. The bureaucrats are more likely to issue fines and send in bulldozers.

I wonder if this is a fringe example as I imagine few people are radically improving public land, esp. to such extent that it's causing a real estate rush. We might then go across not only the country but to other nations like Canada and ask what proportion of real estate booms are due to this scenario.

[jandrewrogers]

A small version of this occurs in the Mountain West. Some well-maintained rural roads are actually maintained illegally across Federal land by the locals. The Federal government is responsible for maintenance but often doesn't do any for decades and so the roads go into severe disrepair. If you ask permission to repair the road out of your own pocket, you will have to file absurd amounts of paperwork and the Federal government charges you money for the right!

Some of the local illegal road repair crews are well-organized. They descend like a flash mob with heavy equipment when the odds of getting caught are near zero. The Feds are incurious about who is maintaining the roads illegally because it is kind of doing them a favor.

I first learned about this when I naively started jumping through the hoops to get permission to repair a remote road. One of the local ranchers heard about it, pulled me aside, and explained how things worked while admonishing me for ruining my plausible deniability. The whole thing was wild.

[bombcar]

Stuff like this is way more common than just roads.

The further you get from the lawmakers the more reasonable actuality gets, even if it is done plausibly deniable.

[disgruntledphd2]

Heaven is high, and the emperor is far away.

[kodyo]

I agree, I doubt it's much of a real thing, but the hypothetical got me thinking.

[8note]

> If they voluntarily improved somebody else's land under no contractual agreement with the owner, why do they think they're entitled to a share of the new value?

Because property rights are garbage? If they improved it, they should gain ownership