Neither land nor materials are scarce. They've been artificially made expensive to prop up the feudal system. This planet is still mostly wilderness - go zoom in anywhere on Google Maps and you'll see. And building materials are easy to find in nature everywhere except for in the oceans and the deserts.
I know it's easy and a habit to always defend the status quo, no matter what it is, but when it comes to housing the situation is much beyond ridiculous. I can purchase a literal airplane for half of what it would cost me to buy a run-down shack where I'm from, which is a region that neither has any high paying jobs nor lack of space. It's a mostly deserted, low-population density region, with population shrinking every year because people cannot afford a fucking simple house to live in. Housing prices has nothing to do with economy nor supply and demand. It is all politics and it's all a scam.
By the way, what do you think it takes in energy, factories and labour to make the material needed for a car? A whole lot more than what it takes for a house.
Ah, you made the classical blunder of forgetting location matters!
Living in the woods sounds grand until you have to live in the woods. The vast majority of humans prefer to live in Urban areas, where land is more expensive.
Living in the woods also sounds fun until you realize you have no infrastructure for anything. How will you shop? Cook? Entertain yourself?
There is a lifestyle there, yes. But that's the trick - lifestyle. You have to dedicate your life to achieving just the basics.
I wrote in the comment above that land and housing is expensive also in regions with low population density. Because the land owners there also demand top dollar for the land they have. The same problems are in rural areas as in urban areas, of course it is accentuated more in urban areas since those are also places where people can make a high income and population is denser.
I've lived in the woods, so I know exactly how it is. As long as you have a vehicle you are fine. Haven't you ever been outside of a city in your life? They have energy and modern comforts. I've lived off grid as well, and that was fine. You have to plan differently.
You are arguing from obsolete standpoints, which probably have never been true. Why? To defend a status quo that is strangling generations of people?
Right, so a vehicle... and a road and a city and thousands of years of human innovation.
> They have energy and modern comforts
Right, at the expense of the city which keeps the rural and even suburban areas on Welfare. Because providing funding to places where nobody lives in a money burner. Luckily, the "status-quo" is 100% to burn money on rural and suburban areas.
I know it's easy and a habit to always defend the status quo, no matter what it is, but when it comes to housing the situation is much beyond ridiculous. I can purchase a literal airplane for half of what it would cost me to buy a run-down shack where I'm from, which is a region that neither has any high paying jobs nor lack of space. It's a mostly deserted, low-population density region, with population shrinking every year because people cannot afford a fucking simple house to live in. Housing prices has nothing to do with economy nor supply and demand. It is all politics and it's all a scam.
By the way, what do you think it takes in energy, factories and labour to make the material needed for a car? A whole lot more than what it takes for a house.