More Efficient Land Use

Now, we can go back into synergy mode. If we can find more efficient ways to use land, then the windfall for the owners of land is reduced. Instead, housing and business ownership becomes cheaper. And not just housing, per se, but playing space for children. I am not in favor of cramming families into apartment buildings as a way to use land more efficiently.

Here are a few samples of the possibilities:

• Roads. Do we really need so many? Do they have to be so wide? Do we need such huge median spaces?

• Yards. Do they have to be as large as they are in certain neighborhoods in order to provide playing space for children, and quiet for everyone?

• Farms. Do we need to cultivate as much space as we currently do? Or can we return more to wilderness?

• Businesses. Note how so many modern businesses are on one floor. Lots of room overhead that is being wasted.

• Parking lots.

I realize that by mentioning this list, I am raising the hackles of many on the Right. Rest assured, I do not call for the authoritarian measures advocated by certain radical environmentalists. I like wealth, progress, and freedom. The good news is that many improvements in land use efficiency can be carried out be increasing the use of market-based ideas. Capitalism is more efficient than socialism. Some of the other ideas can be implemented with very gentle use of government pressure. Yet others can be implemented with private action.