Originally Posted by tandempower

Just think about it in terms of a suburb or subdivision, which is basically built as an investment offering. You take a piece of undeveloped land and build a bunch of houses on it. Then, you set an introductory price, e.g. "starting in the mid $100k' you'll see on advertisements. Then, if people can drive between the subdivision and jobs elsewhere, it sets a precedent where others will see that the houses are selling and think, "hey, I can buy into that market and maybe sell for a profit a few years down the line after the neighborhood is established and keeps appreciating." Then, if people are living there, there is also impetus to build businesses, schools, etc. to serve the community.

There's really no agricultural motive for people to build and move out to these suburbs. It's just that they can take money from income and invest it in a new (real estate) stock offering, and then drive back and forth to their place of employment to shuttle the money back out to the suburb (figuratively shuttle it, I mean, because really they are just shuttling it to the bank to pay off the mortgage). So it really is just pure driving-facilitated growth. It is land-waste that destroys the environment and creates sprawl, but it is a way to convert green forests and countryside into green money. It is just one part of the money printing-press that keeps so many investors happy at the expense of the environment and sustainability (and ease of LCF), for those of us who care about that more than (printed) money.