If you've ever had the privilege of travelling over the island by plane, you have probably looked down from the airplane window and marvelled at the vast amounts of unused land across Jamaica.

Most of the land is absolutely unused - no structure, no cultivation and no indication of human habitation. Only a fraction of our island is being used to any degree. This is partly because a significant proportion of the available land is government-owned and is not being used because the government is either not ready to use it or has no plan for it. Then there is another large proportion of land for which ownership is legally uncertain.

Only a fraction of the Jamaican soil is really up for sale. Government land is not routinely sold to the public and again, another large expanse has no clear owner. So Jamaican citizens must buy and sell among themselves, the same parcels of private land. Of course, if the supply of saleable land is not increasing, while the population of people both interested and empowered enough to purchase land is increasing, the price of land will increase. This is what has been happening. Less than 14,000 square feet of land in Hellshire now goes for $17 million and a quarter acre in Brown’s Town for $12 million, that is, according to last week’s Sunday classifieds.