Hopefully everyone can see how, as land supply

Land supply

Land supply is a term that indicates how many blocks of land are available. Allowing subdivision (such as by rezoning from rural to residential) increases the land supply, as does limiting the amount of land that someone can buy. You can read more about it in Land Supply and Demand. is restricted (especially relative to demand), the price of land will go up. Thus we need to discuss factors which alter the supply and demand of land.

Land Supply

Zoning

The prime factor affecting land supply

Land supply

Land supply is a term that indicates how many blocks of land are available. Allowing subdivision (such as by rezoning from rural to residential) increases the land supply, as does limiting the amount of land that someone can buy. You can read more about it in Land Supply and Demand. is its zoning. When land is released

Land release

Land release is a euphemism for the process whereby the government rezones land from a lower density zoning (such as rural) to a higher-density zoning (such as suburban). If the government hadn't restricted the land, it wouldn't need "releasing". You can read more about this in Land Supply and Demand. by the government, it is rezoned for a more densely-populated usage. This generally means that rural land of various types is rezoned as various types of residential, usually suburban, land.

The primary problem here is the ideology of the town planners. The town planners believe that everyone except farmers should live in the city; they regard the suburbs as "ugly", and refer to urban growth as "urban sprawl".

To fix this problem, the abovementioned ideology of the town planners has to go. Some of these are on the local councils, but much of this planning is done at a state level. We need to elect politicians (at especially State but also the Local level) who are willing to tell the town planners to pull their heads in and release land.

Overacquisition

A secondary problem affecting land supply

Land supply

Land supply is a term that indicates how many blocks of land are available. Allowing subdivision (such as by rezoning from rural to residential) increases the land supply, as does limiting the amount of land that someone can buy. You can read more about it in Land Supply and Demand. is that some people or corporations are buying up land, and then not using it. This both reduces supply (because they're not using it), and increases demand (because they keep buying more, presumably in hopes of selling it at a profit).

One solution to the problem is to release more land; as the land supply

Land supply

Land supply is a term that indicates how many blocks of land are available. Allowing subdivision (such as by rezoning from rural to residential) increases the land supply, as does limiting the amount of land that someone can buy. You can read more about it in Land Supply and Demand. goes up, simply sitting on empty land will no longer turn a profit. Another solution to this problem is discussed in the Land Taxes article.

Land Demand

I don't recommend controlling land demand

Land demand

Land demand is the number of people or groups of people wanting to live on separate properties; land demand for suburban housing may be somewhat separate from land demand for apartments. You can read more about land demand in Land Supply and Demand. in order to reduce prices, but I think it's worthwhile examining the options so that we can reject them because we understand them, rather than because we don't.

When we're talking about a group the size of the population of Australia, there are three basic factors that control demand. They are:

• Population & Demographics (age)
  
• Social structures
  
• Overacquisition (see section above)

Population & Demographics

The population is a fairly obvious factor -- the more people there are, the more land they need. Assuming we aren't going to start culling people, there is only one solution -- decrease the rate of increase. This can be controlled at two points; immigration, and the birth rate. These points also control the average age of the population.

Limiting either of these would have an adverse effect on the economy. That is why the Howard government was doing its best to increase the birth rate, and why immigration hasn't been reined in to the point where the population level becomes static. A side effect of this improvement of the economy is the increase of land demand

Land demand

Land demand is the number of people or groups of people wanting to live on separate properties; land demand for suburban housing may be somewhat separate from land demand for apartments. You can read more about land demand in Land Supply and Demand..

I note that the Rudd government has greatly increased immigration. Although this improves the economy in many ways, it will only make the housing affordability situation worse.

If the Federal Government wants to control land demand

Land demand

Land demand is the number of people or groups of people wanting to live on separate properties; land demand for suburban housing may be somewhat separate from land demand for apartments. You can read more about land demand in Land Supply and Demand., controlling immigration may be their best option, as most of the other options are in the hands of the State governments.

Social Structures

A number of trends in social structures have increased the Land Demand

Land demand

Land demand is the number of people or groups of people wanting to live on separate properties; land demand for suburban housing may be somewhat separate from land demand for apartments. You can read more about land demand in Land Supply and Demand.. I don't think changing policy in relation to any of these will have much effect on land demand

Land demand

Land demand is the number of people or groups of people wanting to live on separate properties; land demand for suburban housing may be somewhat separate from land demand for apartments. You can read more about land demand in Land Supply and Demand. in the short term, but I thought that, as factors influencing Land Demand

Land demand

Land demand is the number of people or groups of people wanting to live on separate properties; land demand for suburban housing may be somewhat separate from land demand for apartments. You can read more about land demand in Land Supply and Demand., they should at least be mentioned. The factors are:

• Single-parent families (ie. the father in a separate house from the mother increases demand)
  
• Divorce (ie. previously married partners living in separate houses increases demand)
  
• Lower marriage rate (possibly due to specialisation and diversity; ie. when everyone was homogenous, people were more likely to meet someone who suited them as a marriage partner; the more unusual are now not meeting anyone suitable, or meeting them much later; as they are living alone, they increase the land demand

  Land demand

  Land demand is the number of people or groups of people wanting to live on separate properties; land demand for suburban housing may be somewhat separate from land demand for apartments. You can read more about land demand in Land Supply and Demand.)

Without almost draconian policy changes, the government has little control over these in the short term and, while improvement could be made, they are too long-term to address the current problem.

Conclusion

The best solution in this article is that of electing people who will override the ideology of town planners.