Hacker News Reader

Indeed. One of the chief causes of high land prices for farmland is unmet demand for housing in the urban core, so farm and ranch land gets bid up to development prices.

A lot of advocates of building restrictions did it in the name of preserving nature/farmland/greenspace, but in many ways it’s had the opposite effect:

https://youtu.be/-Qn4iZgQY8k?si=LFzuAdWgMxB1BpIG

View on HN

That doesn't really make sense, the vast, vast majority of farmland is not close enough to an urban area to be influenced by sprawl and get bid up to development prices.

sure, but enough of it is close to urban areas

you never lived in California?

The urban sprawl there ate up all of the orange groves, for example... in Orange County!

Define "enough"? The article in question is about Arkansas and broad acre farming, there is 600+ million acres of farm in the midwest down to the delta 99% of which isn't close to a major population center. There is lots of pressure in areas of California and all up and down the west coast up to Vancouver.. but that is a trivial amount a farm land in the grand scheme of things (and specialized due to climate, water, and market access issues that don't apply to most farm land in the US or really anywhere)

All the subdivisions in Texas that have “ranch” in the name are that way for a reason

Reply on news.ycombinator.com