Housing costs: The real reason houses are so expensive is right beneath your feet.

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Housing in America has become ridiculously expensive. The typical American home costs more than five times the median household income, with the ratio pushing into double digits in places like South Florida, coastal California, and Hawaii. To talk about the high cost of housing, however, is to misidentify the problem. While contemporary builders face challenges like tariffs on materials, high interest rates, and a masked police force hunting down workers, it is not the houses that cost so much more than before—it’s the land beneath them.

In the priciest U.S. cities, three-quarters of the value of residential neighborhoods is just dirt. The aftermath of January’s