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Why Britain doesn’t build

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Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#181

Post by asdff »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #117
jareklupinski wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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 It seems a bit silly to argue that increasing land prices is principally a result of marketing. The amount of earth on the planet in the last 10k years essentially hasn't changed but the number of huma…

The thing is, we used to respond to such growth easily in a way that prevented land prices from being so out of reach for average workers. Here is the population of Los Angeles over the years:

1850 1,610 —

1860 4,385 172.4%

1870 5,728 30.6%

1880 11,183 95.2%

1890 50,395 350.6%

1900 102,479 103.4%

1910 319,198 211.5%

1920 576,673 80.7%

1930 1,238,048 114.7%

1940 1,504,277 21.5%

1950 1,970,358 31.0%

1960 2,479,015 25.8%

1970 2,811,801 13.4%

1980 2,968,528 5.6%

1990 3,485,398 17.4%

2000 3,694,820 6.0%

2010 3,792,621 2.6%

2020 3,898,747 2.8%

As you can see, the city used to experience massive decade over decade growth. It also used to be zoned for 10 million people in the 1960s, today though, its zoned for a little bit over 4 million people, creating the housing crisis we see today because not a lot of properties are even able to be built up even if they are available for sale and potentially a turnover. There's no shortage of land, its just mismanaged.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#182

Post by prottog »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #173
atoav wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

> 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.

I hear about this every now and then, but is it an issue in any real number? Maybe the problem of the "difficulty of getting to and from poll sites", which I can see arising due to the nature of this country being large, spread out, and automobile-centric.

Even Georgia, which was recently under fire for so-called voter restriction laws, hands out voter ID cards for free or a non-driver state ID card for under $40 that lasts nearly a decade. I can only imagine that anyone who is unable to obtain one of those has much bigger problems than voting every few years.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#183

Post by asdff »

hibikir wrote: post #135
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 really the entire world: See Spain [1]: Until the financial crisis in 2007, the country liberalized building, often quite dense as opposed to plain sprawl. See, for instance, the growth in the towns surrounding Madrid around train stations. The crisis slowed it down massively though, in part because a lot of builders lost their shirts, as the building became massive overbuilding. But when demand goes up enou…

Some latin american cities are starting to make even nyc look small. I expect in 30 years that a lot of latin america will look like southeast asian cities while American cities look the same as they did 30 years ago for another 30 years.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#184

Post by dahwolf »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #128
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 ch…

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

Sounds like democracy?

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#185

Post by resolutebat »

leoedin wrote: post #76
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 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…

Housing in Japan is affordable even in the big cities that are not shrinking (yet). The main reasons why are very liberal zoning, ubiquitous and functional public transport that makes continuing long distance feasible, and tolerance for tightly packed apartments and houses that would be considered far too small in most of the West.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#186

Post by sefrost »

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…

Another trap they have created:

I am one of the millennials that managed to get on to the housing ladder by buying a one bedroom flat in London. Then the government significantly changed the fire safety and building safety laws and now the building requires significant sums of money spending on it until the flat will become sellable again. The person that owns the building is not required to pay for that - only the leaseholders.

There are hundreds of thousands of us trapped in this situation and it's not good for the Conservative Party. Many, like me, are now renting out their flats and have become so called "accidental landlords".

So - even many of the younger people who DID manage to acquire property have been screwed!

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#187

Post by rcarr »

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…

The thing is, I think a lot of millennials are that pissed off now that even if they got homes, I don't think they'd make the switch. We've literally had our fucking lives stolen from us. Most people I've spoken to don't want anyone to go through the same thing. Contrast with the boomers who got free education, cheap housing, stable employment etc and seem hell bent on denying everything to the next generation.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#188

Post by asdff »

sefrost wrote: post #172
brailsafe wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

People have been saying this for years. Why do Canadian techies stay in canada? Tough immigration to US keeping them trapped? Seems like that's been the drumbeat of the central US tech scene for years and its resulted in all the engineering grads from those schools trying to flock to the coasts, and there basically being not much of a tech industry at all in the wake.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#189

Post by kieranmaine »

Joeri wrote: post #84

So the article claims that the housing construction boom that ended at the second WW led to a massive stock of housing, which has since declined due to planning issues, leading to a shortage of housing and therefore a rise in prices. This does not hold up statistically. 1939: 11.3 million dwellings in the UK, population 47.9 million people = 4.2 people per dwelling today: 27 million dwellings in the UK, population 67…

My understanding is it's because of lack of house in the places with highest demand. The article gives the following example:

"The economist Paul Cheshire notes that between 1980 and 2018 the declining industrial areas of Burnley and Doncaster built 56,340 houses while adding 22,796 new residents. By comparison, the high-wage university towns of Cambridge and Oxford built just 29,340 houses for a combined population growth of 95,079"

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#190

Post by com2kid »

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…

The developed world has one great example of functional housing policy: Japan.

A single policy that allows for unique neighborhoods, affordable houses, supports small businesses, and enables walkable cities.

Just.... do what we know already works.

For anyone not familiar, here is a primer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfm2xCKOCNk

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