$50,000 for a house in Palo Alto sounds implausible, simply because there are a lot of people who want to live there and not enough land to satisfy demand. But, I agree that houses can and should be a lot cheaper. We could just build houses in the middle of nowhere, but without jobs and infrastructure it's not attractive to most people. Desirable cities exploit network effects. People want to live there because other people they want to be around also want to live there. We need more of these desirable cities.
Sometimes I wonder if one possible solution would be a sort of kickstarter-type deal for bootstrapping new cities. In other words, find a large plot of cheap rural land big enough for a few tens of thousands of people that's close enough to another town to have access to basic necessities but not where it's going to become a suburb of some other city. Get a bunch of people who want to live there to put down an up-front deposit. Create a non-profit to manage the deposits and handle the logistics of buying the land, installing roads and utilities, creating lots, and so on. The people who put down deposits are given lots that they can build on. Leftover lots are sold over time to finance more infrastructure development. The non-profit is replaced by a city government once there's a sustainable population.
My assumption is that if you can buy rural land cheap (like a few thousand dollars an acre or something) and then convert it into residential lots that are still cheap by urban housing standards for a few tens of thousands per lot, maybe 3 or 4 per acre, that generates the necessary funds that can then pay for the infrastructure needed to turn that rural lot into a buildable city lot. Another assumption is that this is being done purely as a non-profit venture; I don't think it would work as a real-estate get rich quick scheme because the temptation to not put enough money back into the town would be too high.
Another necessary component is having at least a few employers who are willing to set up shop in this new city. (Perhaps a branch campus of a major university would be ideal.)
Sometimes I wonder if one possible solution would be a sort of kickstarter-type deal for bootstrapping new cities. In other words, find a large plot of cheap rural land big enough for a few tens of thousands of people that's close enough to another town to have access to basic necessities but not where it's going to become a suburb of some other city. Get a bunch of people who want to live there to put down an up-front deposit. Create a non-profit to manage the deposits and handle the logistics of buying the land, installing roads and utilities, creating lots, and so on. The people who put down deposits are given lots that they can build on. Leftover lots are sold over time to finance more infrastructure development. The non-profit is replaced by a city government once there's a sustainable population.
My assumption is that if you can buy rural land cheap (like a few thousand dollars an acre or something) and then convert it into residential lots that are still cheap by urban housing standards for a few tens of thousands per lot, maybe 3 or 4 per acre, that generates the necessary funds that can then pay for the infrastructure needed to turn that rural lot into a buildable city lot. Another assumption is that this is being done purely as a non-profit venture; I don't think it would work as a real-estate get rich quick scheme because the temptation to not put enough money back into the town would be too high.
Another necessary component is having at least a few employers who are willing to set up shop in this new city. (Perhaps a branch campus of a major university would be ideal.)