If there weren't so many customers for that land, it wouldn't cost so much.
There is only so much prime real estate in this country, and the more our population grows from immigration, the smaller the percentage of Americans that can own prime real estate.
How does that make America more prosperous?
I'd rather own a quarter-mile of private beachfront property on the East or West Coast, and my neighbors the same (nice and private for all of us), than have all the cheap electronic gizmos and the latest in auto bulgemobiles.
And then there's water rationing, pollution controls, garbage recycling, and all the associated laws and penalties . . . all signs of scarcity of resources.
AS for flyover country, you can keep it: boring and landlocked. Ugh.