While that may be useful, there should never be a necessity to move out of a house you’ve paid off, and quite well may have built up to support your own aging in place. Some people want a “forever home”, and that’s okay.

In some countries and cultures the good of the many comes before the good of the individual, no matter the sacrifices required to get there. The US (and to a slightly lesser degree, Canada) generally does not subscribe to such a cultural mantra.

Edit to add: for the cases where the societal good really does outweigh the personal good, we have a tool for that: eminent domain, which is how we build train lines and so forth.

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trylfthsk an hour ago | parent [-]

A point against: if someone was an early adopter in a community that urbanized over 30 years, in effect the increased value means their future ownership at present rates requires the collective subsidy of their neighbors. Young families subsidizing the elderly in this way is a huge issue in tax burden disparity where I live.

	▲	ndriscoll an hour ago \| parent [-]
		How so? e.g. anywhere I've looked, schools are a huge part of the budget. Special education alone is over 10% of the county budget where I live. Schools in total are over half of city+county. The elderly wouldn't be contributing to service demand there. They're likely also not going on tons of crime sprees necessitating police, generally another large budget item. Like another poster said, things like pensions and medicare might overall drain the entire economy, so the end result is the same, but that seems more diffuse than local tax bases, and wouldn't properly appear in local government budgets.