> This is how land is managed e.g. in Hong Kong and Singapore, and the system works quite well.

Really? I thought HK was notorious for it's housing crysis where you have people living in flats the size of closets. According to this[1] only 24 % of land is developed in HK (7 % is residential). My understanding is that the government does this on purpose because it makes the majority of its budget from this.

[1]: https://www.cedd.gov.hk/filemanager/eng/content_954/Info_She...