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About half of the world's habitable land is used for agriculture.

About 80% of that agricultural land is used for livestock and silage. The meat produced is less that 20% of humans' caloric intake.

The housing crisis is a meat crisis. If we want more space to live, we should dedicate less land to meat production.

@evan I'm for deleting 100% (or anything in that direction) of meat production but really dubious about land for meat production, or agriculture in general, being a significant contributor to the housing crisis, at least in the US, where it's super easy and cheap (short term) to sprawl. Want more space to live, make it cheap to build more where people already live, not doing that is where the blame lies. BUT I'm all about yes and, so endorse housing crisis is [a bit] a meat crisis, go vegan!

mlinksva

@evan of course. Two plots of land are not equal. Thought experiment: 100% of land used for meat production goes fallow through everyone going vegan and more commensurately more efficient production of plant-based foods (yay, let's do it!). What's the impact on the housing crisis? I'd predict negligible. Lots of that land is available for housing now, there just isn't demand where it is. You can homestead in Kansas, right now. And build exurban sprawl almost anywhere. 1/2

@evan Maybe it'd be slightly cheaper than it is now to sprawl, and homesteading in the middle of nowhere would be a bit more common. But the housing crisis comes from not building housing where there are opportunities, servives, amenities, family...people. There will be a permanent housing crisis (barring economy collapse) until cities allow a lot more housing to be built. Plus, super sprawl contributes to other crises. These are the reasons I reacted to your post. Perhaps overly! 2/2

@mlinksva it's an interesting question and probably testable! Let's see if we can find an answer on it.