As in one of the comments, apart from geographic location of these lands, other social factors can determine the growth of real estate to mention, literacy leves ,GDP , urbanization, government policy, political stability and the like.

Honestly it should be like this with every parent but since that is not a norm in our society I congratulate you for thinking differently!

For example I work as a site Civil in So Cal, and if I showed you a urban in-fill lot that could be split into two it could cost ~50K and take around 2 years total.

Ethics bought for $3K.Sad in society a person can be bought for so little.

As for personal investing, I'm working to grow my portfolio with buy & hold properties in emerging neighborhoods in urban Indy.

Urban blight in Baltimore is far worse than DC.

Is there anything bulletproof in our society?

As society changes, we just need to adapt and find that way to make our businesses profit.

Maybe some more Urban Bourbon expansion downtown? 

I think society lacks that as a whole.