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Comment by petermcneeley | Hacker News Reader

The commenter said "wealth inequality problem" which is basically about distribution of economic resources. If these resources were distributed differently those mansions would not be located on prime beachfront property. They may take completely different forms!

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> If these resources were distributed differently those mansions would not be located on prime beachfront property. They may take completely different forms!

As long as we're talking hypotheticals with no basis in reality, how about:

"If more houses were built then none of this would be a problem"

Discussions about hypothetical forceful redistribution of wealth to prevent people from owning mansions isn't really interesting, IMO.

"If more houses were built then none of this would be a problem" Yes but the economy is a real thing with limitations. In the short term you are limited by economic resources. Think of a worker placement board game or a city building game. You can choose to build mansions on beaches that will be 90% empty or you can choose to build housing elsewhere which might find different utility. But you cannot do both!

It's kind of interesting you're saying the same thing as each other.

If money were in the hands of people who want houses built in cities instead of on beaches, there'd be more houses in cities and fewer on beaches.

I mean I agree that principally what needs to happen is that houses need to be built & cities need to densify, but there's no question huge chunks of prime inner city real estate lie vacant because of wealth inequality & land speculation.

A land value tax would do a lot to put these underutilized spaces to work.

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