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Why Britain doesn’t build

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Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#121

Post by badpun »

lll-o-lll wrote: post #49
ggm wrote: post #3

I find the economic reductionism in housing planning really irritating. It's not like other public utility functions, but it is damn close to a fundamental and is included in human rights declarations. What kind of state throws up it's hands and claims "it can't" fix housing when states can do precisely that? Thatcher's revolution in council housing is a cesspit of counterfactual outcomes. It made individual househol…

It’s the whole western world at the same time. The same policies, the same social outcomes. It makes me question whether there is any real democracy; did we all just happen to make the exact same decisions in lock step since the 70s by incredible coincidence? And it’s not as if the eventual negative outcomes of housing costs continually outstripping wage growth weren’t obvious and growing year on year. Who is actuall…

> did we all just happen to make the exact same decisions in lock step since the 70s by incredible coincidence?

It might have been a combination of circumstances and intellectual tides turning. The 70ties saw stagflation everywhere, which led to a decade of economic problems that couldn't be fixed with existing, socialist policies. Finally, voters everywhere (starting with Thatcher in UK ) decided it's time to try something else.

Part of it might also have been a disillusionment with big leftist ideas in general - in the late seventies, there was enough reliable information coming from USSR and China to make it clear that anything resembling communism (a holy grail for much of the left back then) is an unmitigated disaster. People started to realise that capitalism, much like democracy, might be bad, but is better than all the alternatives.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#122

Post by rcxdude »

danjac wrote: post #26

This is an interesting political trap for the ruling Conservatives that they have made for themselves. The traditional Conservative voter is a home-owner. So you might be a rabid socialist in your youth, but once you get a job, save up for a deposit, and buy your own home, you eventually transition to become yet another middle-aged Tory voter. That pipeline is now broken - young people are unable to save up for their…

There's a decent amount of evidence this isn't quite true anymore. It does seem like Thatcher's Right-to-buy made for a lot of conservative new homeowners, but the conservatives appear to get less popular with modern homeowners over time(though they seem to split equally toward labour and further right parties like UKIP): https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/blog/2022/02/22/does-...

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#123

Post by rcxdude »

hsjqllzlfkf wrote: post #45
danjac wrote: post #26

This is an interesting political trap for the ruling Conservatives that they have made for themselves. The traditional Conservative voter is a home-owner. So you might be a rabid socialist in your youth, but once you get a job, save up for a deposit, and buy your own home, you eventually transition to become yet another middle-aged Tory voter. That pipeline is now broken - young people are unable to save up for their…

Sounds like a problem that will fix itself? According to you, do nothing and the Tories will be out.

Eventually they'll be out, but it'll take a lot of political willpower and capital to clean up the mess they've made in the meantime.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#124

Post by teddyh »

danaris wrote: post #107
lll-o-lll wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s the whole western world at the same time. The same policies, the same social outcomes. It makes me question whether there is any real democracy; did we all just happen to make the exact same decisions in lock step since the 70s by incredible coincidence? And it’s not as if the eventual negative outcomes of housing costs continually outstripping wage growth weren’t obvious and growing year on year. Who is actuall…

It's not coincidence, and it's not conspiracy. It's zeitgeist, and people seeing one place do something and decide that's a good idea, and people following everything from scientific (and pseudoscientific) studies that came out around the time, to philosophical works published around the time, to all of the above that were old but re-popularized around the time. You can just as easily ask "why was there a rise of rig…

The entire world was (and still is, to some extent) horribly racist. Every nation, institution and venerable principle you hold sacred has horrible racism lurking in its very bones, if you dig deep enough. You can’t, therefore, dismiss anything on that basis alone. Argue with an issue on its merits alone; to attack the supposed secret origin of an issue is equivalent to an ad hominem argument.

Also, alternative explanation of the lizard people thing: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=8600>

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#125

Post by rootusrootus »

lll-o-lll wrote: post #49
ggm wrote: post #3

I find the economic reductionism in housing planning really irritating. It's not like other public utility functions, but it is damn close to a fundamental and is included in human rights declarations. What kind of state throws up it's hands and claims "it can't" fix housing when states can do precisely that? Thatcher's revolution in council housing is a cesspit of counterfactual outcomes. It made individual househol…

It’s the whole western world at the same time. The same policies, the same social outcomes. It makes me question whether there is any real democracy; did we all just happen to make the exact same decisions in lock step since the 70s by incredible coincidence? And it’s not as if the eventual negative outcomes of housing costs continually outstripping wage growth weren’t obvious and growing year on year. Who is actuall…

> since the 70s

Is part of the problem that we think the 70s was normal and not the outlier?

https://www.longtermtrends.net/home-price-median-annual-inco...

Certainly there have been a couple recent bubbles, but even as recently as 2012 we were basically within the bounds of the long-term normal.

I'd like to say it's a supply problem, and demographics does support that argument to some extent, but the fact that it involves most of the western world makes me think it may have to do with monetary policy.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#126

Post by kansface »

Aromasin wrote: post #85
ggm wrote: post #3

I find the economic reductionism in housing planning really irritating. It's not like other public utility functions, but it is damn close to a fundamental and is included in human rights declarations. What kind of state throws up it's hands and claims "it can't" fix housing when states can do precisely that? Thatcher's revolution in council housing is a cesspit of counterfactual outcomes. It made individual househol…

> If I was a young person, this above all other things would radicalize me. Our elected leadership are captive to stupid market force arguments. I'd rather they tried and failed than sat on their hands. I truly think it has radicalized a lot of us. My generation (millennials and younger) are one of the first ones not to slide further right politically as time goes on but remain staunchly left wing. That's culturally…

There was a poll posted on HN within the last week or two showing the expected slide rightward for your demo. I can’t comment on how it compares to previous generations.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#127

Post by yamazakiwi »

nindalf wrote: post #95
quickthrower2 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Travelling to another country for treatment sounds like the luxury to be honest. The unluxury would be no health care, or travelling 100 miles within the UK by train/bus.

Having to wait 6 months for treatment isn’t luxury, what are you talking about. That’s effectively no health care.

Having to wait 6 months is not as bad as having no other option. Although, I do empathize for your inability to go somewhere local and need of another option.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#128

Post by spaceman_2020 »

ggm wrote: post #3

I find the economic reductionism in housing planning really irritating. It's not like other public utility functions, but it is damn close to a fundamental and is included in human rights declarations. What kind of state throws up it's hands and claims "it can't" fix housing when states can do precisely that? Thatcher's revolution in council housing is a cesspit of counterfactual outcomes. It made individual househol…

1. Politicians and the bureaucratic class have deep investments in real estate

2. Foreign money keeps flooding into western economies to find a safe haven and lack of capital controls. A bulk of it goes into real estate.

3. Elections are largely monopolized by older people who mostly tend to be homeowners.

The entire system is rigged against anything that would impact home prices - such as an increase in supply or change in zoning laws. Entire countries seem to be perfectly okay with watching its young people be priced out of cities and areas they work in as long as "number go up".

All the hand-wringing about political gridlock is just a cover for basic greed. Detestable.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#129

Post by rcxdude »

Jochim wrote: post #50

Planning permission was granted for 2.78m homes between 2011-2021. Only 1.6m homes were built[0]. I find it interesting, given the length of the article, that this wasn't mentioned. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/may/08/over-1m-home...

That number could do with more details on how that number was counted. Apart from provisional permission (which still a lot of further planning effort), I know from bitter experience that a "granted" full permission does not actually mean you can build there yet. It's also possible for duplicate grants where only one of the permitted options can actually be built. It would need to count the number of houses which have been granted full permission and for which all pre-commencement conditions have been discharged. (Also, if the article is right and the number of applications has been increasing over time, it could well be that the majority of the not-(yet)-built houses are in the more recent batch).

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#130

Post by disruptalot »

Jochim wrote: post #87
robertlagrant wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a limited amount of space and a non-negligible portion of society are unable to afford market rates. When the state doesn't build accommodation, citizens end up transferring ludicrous amounts to private landlords to house foster children, asylum seekers, the poor, or the disabled. Space is limited by regulation and zoning. 90% of the UK is rural. Market rates are high because of the supply not matching the…

> Space is limited by regulation and zoning. 90% of the UK is rural. Market rates are high because of the supply not matching the demand, or being allowed to match it. This does not square with the fact that private builders are leaving nearly half of approved developments unbuilt. It's almost like private builders are incentivised to squeeze the market rather than bring prices down. > The same number of people would…

You highlight a bunch of examples where government policy/implementation has failed miserably in the backdrop of higher and higher demand from it. I wonder how far this needs to stretch before we realise that the problem isn't that the government doesn't behave correctly, but that the whole idea that a government is a good allocator of capital and resources is flawed.
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