[glitchinc]

Not in all cases. I live in a Resource Conservation area where no lot less than 10 acres in size can be subdivided per zoning laws. The zoning is set as it is to preserve watersheds, wildlife, etc. There are limits (by ratio to land area) that dictate structure density, amount of impervious substrate that can exist within the perimeter of my property, etc. Just because I own over 10 acres doesn't mean I can sell my property to a developer so that they can build four high rise apartment buildings and turn a rural area into a burgeoning metropolitan hub (while destroying a large swath of forest in the process).

We pay high property taxes (which are split value taxes, by the way) relative to other rural areas in the region. That is, we are taxed for the virtue of owning relatively large plots of land (for our area) that come with the protections afforded by the zoning laws--even though our sparsely-developed properties and the characteristics thereof provide benefit to all in our area, including city dwellers (e.g. readily available and clean drinking water, maintaining a healthy ecosystem), for which a value could be assessed that would result in lowering our taxes.

That said, I purchased the property specifically for the Resource Conservation zoning protections, as did my neighbors--and we'd have the zoning laws set no other way regardless of the cost of doing so.

Trying to jam more people into the same finite amount of space is not a sustainable solution (here's looking at you, Bay Area). A byproduct of the recent pandemic was that a significant number of people beta tested relying on technology to get their job done independent of where they were physically located. I would argue it generally worked quite well (though not in all cases).

Though a more ambitious plan than merely increasing taxes and hoping that more housing is developed, why not incentivize people to move to less populated area with the intent of promoting a more-even distribution of population density over time; incentivize medium and large businesses to either permit remote work or establish and maintain local/regional offices if remote work is not conducive to their lines of business or their corporate culture; and fund timely development of new and improvement of existing infrastructure that would make previous two goals achievable?