Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why Britain doesn’t build

worksinprogress.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 520 posts

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#171

Post by khuey »

rcarr wrote: post #154
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 definitely seems to be more of an Anglosphere problem than elsewhere. I've been learning other languages with the long term view of permanently escaping the Anglosphere in the next 5 years, unless I finally manage to land a job that pays enough to allow me some stability.

Yes, the homevoter mentality is much worse in the English speaking countries than it is in continental Europe or in developed East Asia.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#172

Post by sefrost »

brailsafe wrote: post #149
leoedin wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an interesting observation. I'm part of a few UK and Canadian regional subreddits, and the topics of conversation are often very similar. House prices are too high, we need to build more, the government is favouring boomers, the economy is stagnating, we need more manufacturing and less real estate speculation etc. What's particularly interesting is that often in the UK ones people paint Canada as being far bett…

Which Canadian subreddits idolize the U.S? Generally both countries have pretty similarly horrible development patterns with a tiny amount of exceptions. My impression is that the U.S just does sprawl and car-centricity to an extreme, like Toronto, but I can't say I've come across anywhere more compelling.

I have noticed the same thing as the person you're replying to.

I think the reason is there are a lot of tech / tech-adjacent workers on Reddit and they know people less than 100 miles away (in the USA) are doing the same job as them, possibly at the same company even, but are getting significantly higher compensation packages.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#173

Post by JumpCrisscross »

atoav wrote: post #156
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Elections are largely monopolized by older people who mostly tend to be homeowners...the entire system is rigged Homeowners, irrespective of age, vote more. This is in part enabled by material comforts. But there may be other layers of causation. The first two are problematic per se (though I'm uncertain of the effect size). But the last is fundamental--if someone can vote but can't care to, they're not going to ha…

The real question is, if you are profiting from this system: How can you stop people from caring, or alternatively how can you make them vote against their interest? This is ofc a rhetorical question as you can see the answers play out very clearly in nearly every conservative party in the world (and much more subtle and convoluted in the parties left of them).

> How can you stop people from caring, or alternatively how can you make them vote against their interest?

Voting against their interests: nothing. That said, I've often found folks deemed to be voting against their interests to be doing nothing of the sort.

Those who don't care are, for me, also fine. They're self selecting out of having a voice. If they want to have one in the future, they can engage. The tragedy is those who want to engage but can't. Due to registration requirements, ersatz poll taxes, difficulty of getting to and from poll sites or keeping tabs on the election calendar.

(Apathy is unlikely to be solved with reforms versus education. I've never met an apathetic voter who cast a blank ballot in protest. If they show up, they tend to find something to vote on.)

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#174

Post by idontpost »

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.

[dead]

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#175

Post by asdff »

jareklupinski wrote: post #104
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…

> Who is actually in control here? Is it blind forces pushing us to an inevitable outcome? The Illuminati? Lizard people? less blind forces, more "well, what would you do in their situation": the people who first paid money for a given square of land were also the first to try to convince someone else to pay them more for that same land natural resources aside, land only really has the value that other people are wil…

There's a little more to it. If it was merely about getting all the profit you could out of land, there's be no sense capping a bay area neighborhood at single family home densities, when you could probably build a 25 story condo on each single family home lot and sell each story as its own luxury condo for the price of that 1930s single story california home that sits there today.

I think nimbyism just appeals to the monkey side of the brain we all have. If you are happy and surviving, there's probably millions of years of biological evolution in your behavior that's telling you to keep up what you are doing where you are. There's probably a side of your brain that subconsciously gets irritated at seeing more humans move into an area competing for resources with you, even if today that just means a parking spot at the grocery store and not an appreciable dent on game populations. Stuff like cities and dense living on top of many different "tribes" only happened within the last few thousand years, that's only like 50-100 generations and that's only considering those ancient cities that were around then, plenty of places have been rural for all of human history. Not nearly enough time to expect a significant amount of adaption, and that's only if there is a remarkably strong selective pressure favoring adaption.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#176

Post by zamfi »

bloqs wrote: post #31

Something cannot both be a good investment and accessible to all. The decision was made to make them a good investment, and thus our lazy, entitled economy that is addicted to foreign goods and services became what it is today.

This is an easy explanation, but not the whole story -- single-family homes can be a good investment even while allowing the construction of apartment buildings.

Without the limitations of zoning, a single-family home could be worth the same as several apartments in a 4-plex minus construction costs. As density increases, low-density housing becomes more valuable, and high-density housing remains accessible, a process that then resets for the next generation.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#177

Post by prottog »

parthdesai wrote: post #159
Chyzwar wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Or at least in North America, younger people don't want to live in soulless suburbs where there's literally nothing to do apart from visiting the same big box stores, chain restaurants and bars in exactly same looking plaza.

Real estate isn't immune to the law of supply and demand, which mandate that you can only pick at most two out of size (or quality) of the housing unit, location (and the quality thereof), and price. Most places in the US are either affordable and boring or the other way around.

> soulless suburbs where there's literally nothing

This is a bit of a reductionist take on those younger people's part. You can have just as much fun at the TGI Friday's at your local strip mall as you can at the hippest restaurant no one else has ever heard of in Brooklyn. It's just a matter of who you spend that time with, and how you perceive that time, in the Stoic tradition.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#178

Post by rcarr »

mattlondon wrote: post #115
Aromasin wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Please remember not to ask for a pay rise too, otherwise you'll be making inflation worse! /s Yep it sucks. Many people I know cannot afford unless there are two people paying the bills. You need two to tango for kids of course, and some might argue why do you need a 3 bed house if you are single without kids (I am assuming here - you may not be). Of course that is no one's business apart from your own and shouldn't…

> why do you need a 3 bed house if you are single without kids

Because the 3 bed house is a signal to potential mates that you are financially capable of starting a family. Don't get me wrong there's a lot that goes into picking a partner and not everyone is going to be bothered by it, but there's a substantial portion out there who are going to look at where you live as an indicator of whether you're a potential long term suitor. Which is sad really because I think people used to meet, fall in love with the actual person rather than a checklist, and then took on challenges together and grew as a result, like moving into a small or rundown house, renovating it and then starting a family. There is an insidious streak in dating culture now where getting with someone who hasn't already made it is interpreted as "settling for less than you deserve". Don't get me wrong, you've got to have some standards and dealbreakers, but if you watch any of the matchmaking shows on Netflix, the criteria most of the dates have for their potential partners is wild. There's a reason Sima Aunty is always telling them to compromise, she knows exactly what's up!

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#179

Post by segamegazord »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #144
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…

> Elections are largely monopolized by older people who mostly tend to be homeowners...the entire system is rigged Homeowners, irrespective of age, vote more. This is in part enabled by material comforts. But there may be other layers of causation. The first two are problematic per se (though I'm uncertain of the effect size). But the last is fundamental--if someone can vote but can't care to, they're not going to ha…

Countries like Australia have compulsory voting and are still suffering the same issues. You are right - there are other layers of causation.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#180

Post by Detrytus »

thriftwy wrote: post #163
badpun wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

If you believe Karl Marx then the answer is no: capitalism is incompatible with democracy, because of the basic human nature. If you allow people to vote, they will vote to take money from the rich and give it to them for free. Or for government to create money out of thin air, and give them away.
Post reply on HN