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Comment by ippisl | Hacker News Reader

One factor that increases housing prices is that people are competing on houses near good schools, because of the importance of education.

But education might become less dependent on geography(by using remote ed tech) or in some scenarios(better AI) much less important, which will indirectly reduce housing costs.

Another option is a growing availability of remote jobs and better remote social lives( remote telepresence and video conferencing, access to great and varied food through sous-vide, generally better digital experiences) might also decrease the demand for city life.

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One factor that increases housing prices is that people are competing on houses near good schools, because of the importance of education.

It's interesting that people who are in the business of selling houses and lots will tell buyers that they are selling a place "in a good school district" even in states like Minnesota, where there is statewide public school open enrollment, so that anyone can live anywhere in the state and send their children to schools anywhere in the state.

http://education.state.mn.us/MDE/StuSuc/EnrollChoice/index.h...

In my public school district, which aggressively seeks open-enrollment students, there are students enrolled with residence addresses in the territories of FORTY-ONE other public school districts. We happen to be homeschoolers who live in this school district for other reasons, but it amazes me how many families think they have to live in this school district to have their children in the schools here, when the law has been otherwise in Minnesota for more than twenty years now.

Agreed that decoupling work choices from residence address constraints will help change the market for housing. Having public school open enrollment in all states, with public school funding rules more like Minnesota's

http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/hrd/pubs/mnschfin.pdf

might also help rationalize the housing market, but the example here shows that will be a slow process as families readjust their habits in shopping for housing.

Open enrollment doesn't mean that your child will have the same experience as living in the district of the school. For example, your kid would likely be unable to walk to school, and would have a hard time hanging out with friends from school. School is important from a social perspective too.

I get the impression that the demand for city life is increasing. (Backed up by research by Richard Florida and others.)

One hundred years ago, industry located near natural resources or methods of transport. Large rivers, the Great Lakes, natural seaports, etc. were of huge practical importance, and most industries needed to be relatively close to related industries. So, for example, you saw lots of factories which made car parts in the general vicinity of Detroit.

A website, however, even a huge one like Google, you can make anywhere. And since access to natural resources is no longer really an issue, what's left? Access to people.

Well, I'm not sure about that reducing the cost of housing. However, you bring up one point that could lead to answer to get to the $25,000. If instead of making the schools better, you make them really really bad, you might be on your way. But $25K is going to need more than just bad schools, you need crime, you need disrepair, slums etc. A lack of jobs could help as well, but that could have the effect of making $25K still too expensive.

so if ideal geography and location increases price of land thus increasing cost of living in an area...then is it possible to disrupt this scarcity of space problem?

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