There's a thing called leasehold whereby you own the building and lease the land usually for 99 years after which it returns to the freeholder. It's one of the reasons that the US embassy in London moved from Mayfair to Nine Elms. It was the only US embassy in the world that the US government didn't own, the freehold belongs to the Grosvenor family (i.e. Lord Grosvenor). When the US tried to buy the freehold the Grosvenor family refused but agreed to a 999 year lease in exchange for the return of 12000 acres of Florida that was confiscated from them after the Revolutionary War - yes, they've been landowners for a very long time! I think the US made sure to buy the freehold of the new site at Nine Elms (they sold the remainder of the 999 year lease in Mayfair for an undisclosed sum) 😀

[–] Patches@sh.itjust.works 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Ah okay so private land ownership but all it takes is the slightest bit of corruption to 'lease' a plot of land for free, for essentially forever. Because that's what 999 years essentially is.

We already have these systems with Water tables, and we can already see the problems.

Saudi Arabia is running the Arizona water tables dry because some shit agreed to 'lease' them unlimited water usage. They did this for the price of less than a smart phone in today's dollars.

[–] Eyelessoozeguy@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I want this to be fixed by not allowing non citizens to own american soil. It doesnt make sense to me to allow non us citizens to buy up land in america.

Like why cant the Saudis just buy hay from arizonans this transfering monies into local economies?

[–] Tlaloc_Temporal@lemmy.ca 4 points 10 months ago

That will just make middle-man agreements.