The Most Valuable Land in the U.S.?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 มิ.ย. 2023
- Analysis of one of the largest chunks of privately held land in the U.S. and what might happen with the land use in the future. With so much land being consumed by this one giant property, it has nearly unlimited options if it were to ever become developed.
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Album displayed:
Khruangbin - "Texas Moon" (2020)
I would think that (in theory) Central Park in New York might be more valuable, per square mile, than any other patch of undeveloped land in the US. Imagine if those greedy vultures on Wall Street got the rights to develop Central park.
Let them have it. That city is irredeemable anyway.
@@Nashvillain10SE Wasn't it Samuel Johnson who said "When you're tired of London, you're tired of life"? Equally true of New York.
@@lemuret69 The rest of that quote says, "...for there is in London all that life can afford." I can't speak for London, but I certainly wouldn't say that about New York.
The locals will never allow it
@@Nashvillain10SE sounds like you’ve never been there
Most wholesome man on TH-cam
I can't imagine anyone wanting to live in south Texas! Even Houston was miserably hot and humid when I visited there in the summer.
Houston is worse than the very far south Texas, which is less humid and gets way less rain. Lived in Houston 28 years and I've visited my brother in the RGV many times.
Great episode. I grew up in the Southwest but not as far as Texas. The square miles are just mind-boggling. Driving around a city is nothing like driving through an empty desert. I'm so glad you included the bird list -- that region has some of the best birding in the world!
Sustainable pasturing of cattle is a big, big deal so I hope they keep doing what they are doing.
Amen to the cattle. I would sure hate to see some huge money people promoting veganism/plant based-fake food get their hands on this, though I admit have no idea of this would be a place for them to do that.
@@cynthiamurphy3669 No, more likely quite the opposite, huge, inhumane factory farms that are... bad news. I'm all for regenerative pasteurization of animals for food as long as it is done right. But huge, overcrowded feed lots are sort of the opposite of sustainable pasturage.
@@rodgerbane3825 Thanks for the info!
Shhh kids Daddy’s gotta watch new Geography King!
Hi daddy
@@DonnaChamberson📸
@@DonnaChamberson📸
I work at a hotel in Washington state. I had never heard of King Ranch until some Texans from Corpus Christi came to stay. They sang its praises and they gave me a King Ranch hat that I now wear all the time. I hope to visit someday!
Environmentally, land in the Great Lakes basin is the most valuable land in the world. Great soil for agriculture, relatively unlimited surface fresh water, higher elevation to protect against rising sea waters, tolerable cold and mild summers even if the earth warms more, no major storms beyond blizzards that are manageable, and lots of naturally growing trees
people are too pussy for a little bit of winter these days
Better start building that tower! Watch out! NYC will be underwater in 5 years. The homeless will have to develop gills
As usual, something I knew nothing about and I found this video fascinating and learned lots. Thanks.
If y'all ever come to Corpus Christi or our surrounding tourist or sportfishing areas then go down to visit the King Ranch and their Saddle Shop.
They really do have something for all ages at the ranch and if you want to blow $100,000 on a saddle they'll accommodate you.
But for real their Saddle Shop in Kingsville is a neat place to go and buy something more than just a souvenir - generally handmade hunting, fishing, and horse related gear that they make by hand right there.
It's real old school stereotypical Texas and places like this have become few and far between.
No thanks. I stay away from hurricanes.
That entire region of Texas is mostly unpopulated for a reason. It's extremely flat and extremely hot, and mostly just good for agriculture, although parts of the area are barren. Even having Padre nearby hasn't created any population growth. They would have to build a planned community out in the middle of nowhere, but that hasn't worked very well in the past. You have to either expand an existing city, or build between two large cities like they've done to Austin and San Antonio, but Corpus and the Brownsville/McAllen metro aren't big enough to support significant growth in between. I don't think selling the King Ranch lands would change much down there. It would just be someone else producing crops and cattle.
We need to create an insurance policy for African wildlife that's just hanging on right now. Climate change may make extinction there inevitable. It would be amazing to create a huge sanctuary for rhinos, giraffes, lions, cheetahs, elephants, etc. Tourism would fund the endeavor and help these magnificent animals survive.
I think Las Vegas worked pretty well.
Don’t forget the mosquitoes and rattlers!
It worked for Salt Lake City, although there were certain circumstances involved there.
♪♫ Where it's flat and immense and the heat is intense
It's barbaric, but hey, it's home. ♫♪
0:35, 2:25 & 3:33 for reference: Chicago at its longest and widest is 25 miles x 15 miles. Overall around 230 sq mi = 147,000 acres
Also, years ago, I guesstimated (from looking at the map during the opening theme song) that the Ponderosa Ranch on Bonanza was about the size of Cook County, 946 sq mi = 605,000 acres
I hope it stays as is. Our natural areas need to be preserved.
That’s one thing the US has been pretty good about. Our National Parks, BLM land and wildlife preserves are top notch
It is so big, even Ford has a “King Ranch” edition of their pickup truck.
I toured the King Ranch back in 1998. Very informative and entertaining day
Great album in the background!
If I was super wealthy, I would buy land to preserve. Hope the Texas property is preserved forever!! Can't replace it.
Exactly what I would do!
But the last thing I'd do is raise cattle on it, which, no matter how you do it, is way more environmentally destructive than just leaving it to nature. No other land use has done so much overall damage to the Western US than livestock production. Yes, development is usually worse to relatively small areas, but ranching occurs on MOST Western land, and therefore has a much greater overall negative impact.
You can start with small donations to The Nature Conservancy, which buys up land and preserves it forever.
@@lynnjacobs9885You don't really make sense with your own argument. You should use per acre damage, not overall damage.
If I was super wealthy, I’d have a lot better things to do instead of making TH-cam comments.
The land is only good for agriculture or cattle, and a lot of it isn't even good for that. I'm sure they would've sold off some of the land by now if they could get good money for it. Nobody lives down in that area for a reason.
What an awesome show! New subscriber.
Hi Kyle! Interesting video, I can give you a glimpse into how they select space launch sites. Launching eastward and nearer the Equator give the rockets a speed advantage (explanation below*), which saves on fuel thereby making launch cheaper (rocket fuel is very expensive!). Launching eastward, for safety, one would want to do it over water to minimize issues if explosions occur. Weather can also be a factor but the two previous reasons overshadow it a bit.
So, Earth is kind of a sphere rotating east-to-west on an axis; things moving furthest from said axis ~closer to the equator~ are moving fastest. You need speed to get out of the atmosphere and away from Earth's gravity pull.
Kyle, thanks for the update on the King Ranch. I had no idea how big it is, but I love driving my big F-150 King Ranch….
Good video idea!
Camp Pendleton , CA is huge! Developers have been trying to pay off congress for decades to get it. It would create a mega city from Tijuana to Santa Barbara.
While huge, Pendleton is less than 1/6 the size of King Ranch
@@KreemieNewgatt Smaller, yes, but the value for development may be higher. :)
@@stephenharper6638As would the cost of development.
A mega city from Tijuana to Santa Barbara..? Pendleton is only from Oceanside to San Clemente
@@G_F1 true, it's over 200 square miles. Right now it's the only non city on the southern coast. There would be development all the way to Escondido and Temecula.
Interesting topic. There are at least two public companies that are attempting to maximize the value of similar large tracts of land - Tejon Ranch just north of Los Angeles and St. Joe on the Florida panhandle. Those tracts might be smaller than King Ranch, but perhaps more valuable.
Kyle constantly dropping bangers
You should do a video on Irvine, California which is another old ranch, absolutely massive piece of undeveloped real estate right next to LA in Southern California...think of how much ocean front property is worth in Orange County, California! The ranch incorporated the city of Irvine, of which the Irvine Company was the 100% sole owner. The Irvine Company started building real estate on a massive scale and I believe it is now the largest developer in the world. I worked for a company in Irvine and the more I learned about the town, the more fascinated I became.
I grew up in the rgv(Los Fresnos). And we drive through the king ranch at least 4x a year. While i think the video is interesting, it would be a tough sell to convert this land into full on development. I would definitely recommend viewers read up on the history of the Wild Horse Desert!
Super interesting! I was guessing it would have been Manhattan, but I should have known it would be something surprising.
Khraungbin, nice!
I live in the Corpus metro, just north of the King Ranch. I've been through the highways in Kleberg County that cut through the ranch and it looked like I had suddenly entered a portal to northern Oklahoma or southern Kansas. It's desolate, but a beautiful kind of desolate.
Space launches like to be as close to the equator to take advantage of the momentum of Earth’s ROTATION to launch satellites. If you were to stand on the North Pole, during a 24 hour day you would be moving very little relative to your target (space. Neglecting the slight wobble of Earth as it rotates around the polar axis). You only have Earth’s ORBIT around the sun for starting momentum, which would also be equally present at the equator.
If you were to stand on the equator, your body would travel in a ‘circle’ about the polar axis of around 49,000 miles. It’s easy to understand the advantage of being “thrown” in space at a velocity off an arm that is traveling around 2700 mph around Earth’s polar axis, versus zero rotational velocity at all if we’re launching from either the North or South Pole.
I'm sure a shoe closet in Manhattan is worth more than that
Definitely true, but I was thinking along the lines of "land" as open land, not literally just land.
Costs more maybe. Not worth more. Bleh!
@@crabring Things are worth what they cost.
A bit of an overstatement, but I enjoyed your video. FYI, according to my recent property tax appraisal, my little suburban lot is now the most valuable land in North America.
I hope they keep it.
A month ago I drove from the southwest region (“armpit”) of Texas, along the Rio Grande, and it’s all ranches and emptiness. Not many dying towns like you might see elsewhere, just a lot of land with a select few owners.
Steve Erwin taught us conservation starts with preserving land. :)
(Edited for spelling) ReadJoan Didion's essays in Where I Was From. She writes about the Hollister Ranch and the Irvine Ranch. The families took different paths.
this channel rules!!!! long live the king!
How long has the Texas Moon record been there? Love that album
I change the album each video. If it's about a specific place I try to use an album of an artist from the city or state.
Not surprisingly like most large family held ranches the king ranch is a corporation already. They own a bunch of other properties as well as the Texas home base and number of other business interests. I have had the pleasure of visiting the ranch a few times and I hope it stays the way it is for a very long time. The Norias division is an amazing place filled with wildlife.
Much respect for mentioning Ted DiBiase.
The million dollar man jokes were on point
One of the higher trim levels of the Ford F-150 is the King Ranch (R). I never knew that it was based on real place.
I thought he was going to talk about Atherton which is the Beverly Hills of the Bay Area and the most expensive zip code to live in the US, and by a decent margin. And all of the value there is in the land and location. The new buyers who can afford a home there all have so much money that they don’t need their home to be a good investment. If someone has a nice house there, once it’s sold it will very likely be torn down because the buyer will want to make their own custom bigger home exactly to their specifications.
I have a great Aunt who has lived there since the 1970s. She and her daughter don’t bother updating her house even though she has the money, and often will opt to fix appliances rather than replace them because the family knows that when her home is sold after she dies, it will be torn down. And it’s a nice home by normal standards with a tennis court, a pool, 3,000 square feet inside, and an acre of land. It’s so wasteful and cringy to me to imagine that home being torn down given that it’s such a nice home by regular standards. So many people would feel so privileged to get to live there. But not the people who will end up buying it.
Million dollar man reference. Nice one
Richard King and his partner bought their first 24 sq mi chunk of that land for less than 2¢ per acre, not a bad investment
KreemieNewgatt, yeah, like right in the price range of the Louisiana Purchase of 1803.
It makes for a long drive from Kingsville to the Rio Grande Valley. I made many a trip through the years.
Wish you'd talk about the Mid-South. I've moved around many parts of the US and this area is so distinct and different from any I've been to. Specifically referring to the Jackson Purchase region of western Kentucky.
Certainly something to think about.
Funny, as soon as I heard you say it'd been in the family for over a 100 years I started looking in the comments for people talking about Kings Ranch.
That's an interesting family that no one talks about really...
I'm impressed you quoted Ted DiBiase😅😅❤❤😊😊😅😅😂😂❤❤❤❤
Regarding spacetravel. You also want to travel with the spin of the earth, which means you go east. And worst case scenario... you want an ocean over there to land/crash in. It's a very good spot for such activities.
Please do a video on Atlanta, Georgia
😂😂 I can't believe that I knew it before you said it. I've never been there but I used to work with a lady who was from Kingsville and she told me a lot about it.
Is there enough water to sustain large growth?
Pretty sure they make leather for Ford Motor Co. Saw their logo all the time in the plant I worked at.
I hope the King Ranch continues as it is now.
What’s the property taxes on this land
Isn’t there a ranch in Australia even bigger than the King Ranch
The video of the Geography King himself looks like 480p.
Anna Creek Station in South Oz is almost 8x that size.
On a different topic, do you have an opinion about Ames, Iowa. It seems like its not a bad choice for someone who can stand a small town. Low crime, low housing costs, citizens are in good health, university town. 25 miles from Des Moines. It rated highly in a recent magazine article. Ever been there?
What about Niihau?
I’m used to thinking about land in acres: 825,000 for King Ranch. My family has 300 outside of Austin and that seems big sometimes, King Ranch is something else.
300 acres outside of Austin has to be worth a very hefty penny as well! Just curious, how far outside the city and in which direction? I lived in Austin on two separate occasions but never ventured far outside the city borders. Still kicking myself for that years later.
@@dancarl23 it’s really near Bastrop but my family lives in Austin
How much do they pay in property taxes per year?
The Vegas Strip? Just in $$ per acre?
It almost sounded like you were trying to talk Disney into building a new kingdom closer to your home, lol
Zorro ranch is on the King ranch next state over
LoL. I was born there in Kingsville. We left before my first birthday and haven't been back since. I might have to do something about that. They do say you're not Texan if you're not born there.
As a wrestling fan, great timely quote from Ted DiBiase
Vegas strip has to be up there.
How much money do you think Ford pays for the branding?
If you look at how valuable actual land is, in terms of the soil, Lexington KY/Central Kentucky would be way up there
The Great Lakes states are where it’s at, great soil, climate and all that fresh water
i love that it's open space. even if it is a ranch or farm. something nice about not developing commercial or residential projects on every square inch of god's earth that makes me feel good inside.
I wonder how much they make off the Ford Truck licensing contract.
I'd guess a 3-figure fee for each King Ranch truck Ford sells plus payment-in-kind in the form of getting their entire fleet free as part of the deal.
Now I know where the waves and the name came from on trucks in florida.
The Mississippi-Missouri waterway, hands down.
I wonder what the ocean frontage is like.
You have a clear view of the hurricanes.
Space station like equatior locations because of the stable weather and temperatures.
I hate to do this but it's _the_ Hill Country, has the before it. It'd be like saying "I'm going to gulf coast" or "I live in Northeast"
Well with a handle like that, I'll go ahead and trust you.
@@GeographyKing :)
I guessed it!
I think that Disney canceled their big development project.
Oil & Gas deposits provide major revenue.
“property value” is a mass hallucination
A new Disney world would be perfect, invite santis
You could even build a new bud light brewery right next to it and maybe a target also
All this time I thought this is where they made the F150s....
My friends in North Carolina have put it on a land trust so it can never be developed. Not even by their heirs
I'm surprised.
I was guessing Los Angeles.
Most expensive property In each state 👍🏼
I've sold many King Ranch Fords in my life.
lol Ted DiBiase
King Ranch is bigger than Pathfinder? Hmm cool
I think you are vastly overestimating any potential value of the land. I don't know if there is any oil drilling or fracking, but for agriculture the area is just too arid for anything but ranching. And few very head per acre a that. As far as residential development, the whole Rio Grande Valley is not particular the nicest place to live, regardless of the warm climate. The Winter Texans who move there do so only because housing is so cheap.
What about the Palm Springs Indians?
"Ultimately we don't what will happen to this land"
Prediction from experience: The beneficiaries will continue to sell it off, piece by piece, living a life of luxury, never waiting in line for anything, and always have the best new products, food, travel and accommodation there is available.
"Work" is defined as making 'difficult decisions' made while over - indulging in those luxuries.
The law will be broken to advance power - but officials will be bribed away.
edit: (observed, not lived)
Yeah, but I bet they give out cheap candy on Halloween
Why can’t they do eminent dominan on it or the state or federal government buys it makes it a protected park
heck this mom watches at nap time
Size of Rhode Island eh? Rhody has a population of 1.1 million and there are approximately 600,000 homeless in the U.S. It seems like there is an opportunity to house all those people on this land with room to spare!
You mean Rhode Island.
@@woodwaker1 no Rhode Island is already occupied.
Babe, be quiet, Kyle dropped
I'd assume the owners would set up whatever is needed, will, trust, endowment, to keep the land as they want even after they're gone.
Yeah, let dead people decide how things should be. That sounds smart. >.
@@grantofat6438 That is what was done for virtually every piece of conserved land.
@@Scott_From_Maine Just shows that humans are stupid, or at least americans.
Their land. Theirs to choose how to pursue their views of life, liberty, and happiness.