Consider that other people hold different axioms. For many of us, it's not that one is valued above the other, it's that one facilitates the other.
When much of your survival comes from the land, having sufficient (or more) land is a major factor in preventing your kids from dying, and in doing much better than "not dying". Food comes from land. Shelter (wood, brick, rocks) comes from land. Heat (wood, straw, dung) comes from land. Growing up, half my family's food came from our backyard, and most of our heat could have (easier to get firewood delivered, but the fallback was there).
You may look at a city and praise the wonders of modern upscale living. I look at a city and see a million people dead in a week if the water/gas/electricity gets shut off. You may look at a rural community and see sub-optimal living conditions. I look at a rural community and see a culture that will continue on thru major EMP/Y2K/etc technological disasters.
It's not that I think available land is more important than my kids not dying, it's that I think available land is a major component to ensuring my kids don't die.
But under actual existing conditions, why do children die? It's not starvation (at least in the US and Europe), or EMP. It's lack of medical care.
So, back to the question at hand. Isn't the availability of medical care more valuable than the insurance value of the land? Yes, the land lets your kids live if there's an EMP. But the medical care lets your kids live through all the years until there's an EMP, if there ever is. Isn't the actually-happening reality more important than the might-be?
Or, to put it in more brutal terms: How many of your kids would you be willing to have die due to lack of health care, in order to have the land to keep all your kids from dying if there ever is an EMP? For most people, I think the answer is "zero".
When much of your survival comes from the land, having sufficient (or more) land is a major factor in preventing your kids from dying, and in doing much better than "not dying". Food comes from land. Shelter (wood, brick, rocks) comes from land. Heat (wood, straw, dung) comes from land. Growing up, half my family's food came from our backyard, and most of our heat could have (easier to get firewood delivered, but the fallback was there).
You may look at a city and praise the wonders of modern upscale living. I look at a city and see a million people dead in a week if the water/gas/electricity gets shut off. You may look at a rural community and see sub-optimal living conditions. I look at a rural community and see a culture that will continue on thru major EMP/Y2K/etc technological disasters.
It's not that I think available land is more important than my kids not dying, it's that I think available land is a major component to ensuring my kids don't die.