&gt;So you have somebody who is going to build a factory and they pick a nice piece of low value rural land. But once there is a factory, people build housing for the workers and stores and so on, and now you have a whole town centered on the factory and the value of the land goes up. But the reason the value of the land goes up is because of the factory.<p>Factories usually push <i>down</i> the value of land. Who wants to be next to a smokestack?<p>&gt;Anything that doesn&#x27;t actually care about its location but attracts other investment would keep getting moved<p>Which is all very well, except there basically isn&#x27;t anybody who doesn&#x27;t care about location and attracts investment. Location is important for everybody.