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Why Britain doesn’t build

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Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#161

Post by asdff »

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…

In all these systems where "the world over" we have the same end result, what do we have in common? Shareholders, for profit companies, consultancies, an entire sector of the economy is just consultancies. Its death by a thousand cuts set up by the incentives. You don't know what the hell you are doing, so hey lets act like you do by bringing in a consultancy who does know what they are doing because that's their job. In effect, you get to be bad at your job but be good at your job since you rubber stamped "bring in a consultant" on the project.

Then what about these consultants? Well, they don't need to actually solve the problem either. They just make various plans and present a slide deck to management at the end and collect a check. Whether the plan works or not doesn't even matter here, because the consultants got paid already and are on to the next job, the manager looks good because they brought in a consultancy, and if shit fails in the next three years well its no ones fault, because management will act like they did everything right bringing in the consultancy and will cut other staff first.

Consultancyism is everywhere these days. Its the next big thing in emerging markets which is even scarier and only a fig leaf away from imperialism with the terms of how some of these deals are struck, always to the benefit of capital with the people seen as a resource for extraction or exploitation. Consultancyism probably also encourages an unhealthy mercenary outlook on life. Never taking pride in projects because they are never your projects in your community, they are just jobs elsewhere to make some money.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#162

Post by rcarr »

Jochim wrote: post #65
robertlagrant wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note: I originally said Britain built 30k houses last year, which commenters have corrected. Thank you! I don't really understand all this. Surely the main reason for a lack of housing is the difference between house demand (e.g. Britain took in 606k people in net immigration last year) compared to house supply (Britain built I think around 200k houses last year). The state shouldn't need to build houses (in fact it…

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. The UK experimented with selling off it's social housing in the 70s. It was a colossal failure that has lead to the country having…

> Private landlords have been enriched at the expense of the wider society.

We are literally subsidising the least productive "profession" in society, to the tune of billions. It's an absolute joke.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#163

Post by thriftwy »

badpun wrote: post #121
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…

> 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 so…

The interesting thing is that Russia and China are capitalistic now, and they both manage to output a huge amount of high rise housing for sale.

Makes one wonder whether capitalism is actually compatible with democracy.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#164

Post by Detrytus »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #68
robertlagrant wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note: I originally said Britain built 30k houses last year, which commenters have corrected. Thank you! I don't really understand all this. Surely the main reason for a lack of housing is the difference between house demand (e.g. Britain took in 606k people in net immigration last year) compared to house supply (Britain built I think around 200k houses last year). The state shouldn't need to build houses (in fact it…

For comparison, Canada which has a population of 40M vs Britain's 86M built 286k homes in 2021. We took in 400K immigrants and 630K non-permanent residents in 2022. Not sure if those two numbers are additive, since I presume many non-permanent residents eventually become immigrants. The average price of a house in Canada is CAD716K vs £285K (=CAD480K) in the UK.

you made a typo, Britain's population is 68M, not 86.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#165

Post by Detrytus »

blakblakarak wrote: post #17
robertlagrant wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note: I originally said Britain built 30k houses last year, which commenters have corrected. Thank you! I don't really understand all this. Surely the main reason for a lack of housing is the difference between house demand (e.g. Britain took in 606k people in net immigration last year) compared to house supply (Britain built I think around 200k houses last year). The state shouldn't need to build houses (in fact it…

The state does need to make houses to provide for lower paid people who do critical jobs.

That doesn't make sense: if your job is indeed "critical" you have enough leverage to negotiate higher pay, don't you?

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#167

Post by goodpoint »

Chyzwar wrote: post #148
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ch…

Migration to bigger tier one cities is partly to blame. Many young people want to live in NY and rent a shoebox flat for life. They think that they can become Friends protagonists when in fact they become broke and blame government.

No, people move to cities because of jobs and because the countryside is dying. No need for weird theories about Friends.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#168

Post by khuey »

Chyzwar wrote: post #148
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ch…

Migration to bigger tier one cities is partly to blame. Many young people want to live in NY and rent a shoebox flat for life. They think that they can become Friends protagonists when in fact they become broke and blame government.

> Many young people want to live in NY and rent a shoebox flat for life.

Nobody wants to rent a shoebox apartment in NYC for the rest of their life. But if you're not rich your only choices are to rent the shoebox or to leave NYC, and people choose which one matters more to them.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#169

Post by desas »

muteor wrote: post #12
dairylee wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The infrastructure is often insufficient for existing homes nevermind for any expansion. I've recently moved house but I'm having to stay registered to my Dentist & Doctors 30 miles away because the wait list to get registered in my new town is months.

They just built over 1000 homes near me, but not one dentist or doctors. Now the small local surgeries are expected to take these new households on. Again government policy not holding up to community needs.

There's a shortage of GPs. Two of the small local surgeries near me have reduced opening times because they don't have the staff to staff them. The need is still there - the villages are growing, but the villagers have to travel to the next village if they're lucky enough to be able to get an appointment.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#170

Post by lotsofpulp »

vidarh wrote: post #28
bluescrn wrote: post #2

There's loads of houses being built in the UK (often of questionable quality, built for maximum profit, packed into minimal amounts of space). It may still not be enough to match the demand, but the real problem is we don't seem to be building any infrastructure to support these homes. More people and more homes requires more roads, railways, hospitals, police stations, power stations, sewer capacity, even reservoirs…

One of my pet peeves is that UK infrastructure focus seems to be about getting people to the centre of London faster, and that just makes the pressure on London greater at excessive costs, and then you start the cycle all over. You see that even with HS1 and HS2, where instead of focusing on lines towards London it'd have been better to strengthen the triangle of Leeds, Sheffield, Manchester, and pour money into effe…

The New York City region is like this too. Forget connecting the NJ and CT suburbs, even Queens to Brooklyn to Bronx is inconvenient.
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