[extropy-chat] World's most and least expensive cities

[scerir]

From: "Robert J. Bradbury" 

> None of those locations are exactly screaming out for lack
> of surrounding land on which to build apartments.  

> There is not exactly a lack of laborers for construction 
> given immigration from Africa (or is there???).
 
> So something strange is going on (bureaucracy? politics? culture?) 
> if there is a lack of affordable housing.

Politics. Or law (if law is something different from politics,
which I doubt, I mean I doubt that law is something different
from politics here).

There are enough apartments in Italy. And there are enough
empty apartments in Italy. But the owners prefer not to
rent their apartments. There are many reasons for that.
The main reason is that (sometimes, or very often) you cannot 
get back your apartment at the end of location time. Where
is the judge? Who is the judge? What is the law? Years
and years to get the apartment back. So, when the owners 
actually rent, they also ask so much (and some "black" money
too, cash). 

Construction? New buildings? Right. But where is the land?
Is there enough land for new buildings? Yes there is,
but the urban plan usually says this land is not for construction,
but for agricolture. But you can change the urban plan,
is not it? It depends. It depends. The first question
politicians ask is this. "Whose is the land?". Because
you know, land for construction has huge values! And
politicians are *very* interested in those values ..... 

s.