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Why Britain doesn’t build

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Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#201

Post by edent »

_dain_ wrote: post #193
lmm wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Elections are largely monopolized by older people who mostly tend to be homeowners". > Sounds like democracy? Young people might get their first chance to vote at age 23 - assuming they paid for the right kind of ID, or navigated an impenetrable web of underpaid bureaucrats to get the mythical free ID. And if they manage to get off work on election day. Meanwhile the elderly are reliably on the register (because t…

>Young people might get their first chance to vote at age 23 - assuming they paid for the right kind of ID, or navigated an impenetrable web of underpaid bureaucrats to get the mythical free ID. uhh what? we're talking about britain here. I don't know what kind of yank(?) political dysfunction you're alluding to, but nobody has any trouble voting because of a lack of ID here. you don't need one to vote. you notify th…

That is not correct.

During the recent elections in England about 14,000 people were denied a vote due to lack of ID.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-65988959

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#202

Post by matthewmacleod »

_dain_ wrote: post #193
lmm wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Elections are largely monopolized by older people who mostly tend to be homeowners". > Sounds like democracy? Young people might get their first chance to vote at age 23 - assuming they paid for the right kind of ID, or navigated an impenetrable web of underpaid bureaucrats to get the mythical free ID. And if they manage to get off work on election day. Meanwhile the elderly are reliably on the register (because t…

>Young people might get their first chance to vote at age 23 - assuming they paid for the right kind of ID, or navigated an impenetrable web of underpaid bureaucrats to get the mythical free ID. uhh what? we're talking about britain here. I don't know what kind of yank(?) political dysfunction you're alluding to, but nobody has any trouble voting because of a lack of ID here. you don't need one to vote. you notify th…

The government has introduced a requirement for photographic ID for all UK parliament elections, as well as local elections in England. This has been quite heavily discussed, so I'm surprised you haven't heard about it.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#203

Post by asdff »

zamfi wrote: post #176
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 proces…

Whats tricky is getting the investment to continue to be good once you are in the condo stage. So many condo owners hate owning condos because of how hamstringing it is. It seems like a natural march that one day a low density apartment will grow to a high density one, but how does that happen with condos? A few might not want to sell or go along with whatever change to the building and could hold up the entire process. Its like the situation where your nimby neighbors won't let you turn your home into an apartment, but now these people live in your damn building with you too. Its part of the reason why a lot of buildings in nyc are so old, turnover is tough when you have a building full of people already.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#204

Post by dahwolf »

jgon wrote: post #195
dahwolf wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Elections are largely monopolized by older people who mostly tend to be homeowners". Sounds like democracy?

We usually have checks and balances in democracy so that a majority can't vote to say, take all the money from some minority group that has less voting power than them. What is happening now is that a "loophole" has been discovered wherein instead of just directly taking all of the money from some minority class the property owning class just instead condemns them to a lifetime of renting whereby just enough rent is…

I get what you're saying and I'm against inter-generational hate.

There is no plot against young people. Remember that most old people have children. If today's young people would time travel to some decades back, they'd too make the most of the conditions then. I would not imagine any young person that owns a home to sell it at a discount out of solidarity, they too would self-optimize without any consideration for anybody else.

Young people today aren't especially targeted, they are at the end of what was a demographic/economic/infra/building boom. Those conditions cannot be recreated.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#205

Post by nervousvarun »

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.

Until they get married/have kids and do the same thing their parents and their parent's parents did...move to the suburbs.

One difference with "younger" kids now is they're getting married later...but once you have kids the suburbs look completely different and it's been that way for as long as there have been suburbs.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#206

Post by stubybubs »

kansface wrote: post #126
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…

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.

Possibly the Nate Cohn thing from NYT in early June?

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/06/millennials-will-not...

This is a pretty good analysis. Yes, some rightward shift. Things to change, though sometimes they change back as well. Millennials are still far more left-leaning than boomers as they age.

> Critically, millennials are also much more Democratic than their predecessors were at the same age, as the chart above on the age gap in recent U.S. elections makes clear. And this exceptional partisan distribution is rooted in the generation’s distinctive social values, which do not typically change drastically over time.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#207

Post by coliveira »

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.

Big cities are not created because of dreams of "Friends", but because they have lots of jobs. That's why NYC is still attracting people. If it had zero jobs, it would go broke in less than a year, no matter how many TV shows are shot over there.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#208

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

vogon_laureate wrote: post #158
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…

It’s even worse because there’s an adult social care crisis, a pension crisis, and in some areas a rundown NHS and school system. So all the incentives are towards not just home ownership but also additional buy-to-let ownership so that those with the means can afford private health care, dentistry, school fees for their kids/grandkids, inheritance for the kids who are priced out of the market, and retirement. It’s a…

> adult social care crisis, a pension crisis, and in some areas a rundown NHS

I remember about 10 years ago, "the idea" was that retirees would, as their health starts to decline, do equity-release in their homes to pay for their care needs (on the basis that the NHS would start to means-test care based on the value of all assets, including housing, so that if an OAP has £1m locked-up in their house and they probably have less than 5-6 years to live it's only fair that they liquidate some of that wealth instead of expecting the NHS to pay for everything - while those who don't own their own houses, would still benefit from free NHS care).

I left the UK just-over 10 years ago (but I still visit my parents a few times a year and do the WFH-thing-but-abroad) so I'm not as clued-in on subtler points of public policy, but I'm curious if that's still the case? ...or if the Tories reversed that decision in the 8 years they've held power? (after-all, it would be anathema to Daily Mail readers, who give me the impression that they fully expect to enjoy their house-prices even after they're dead).

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#209

Post by clpm4j »

khuey wrote: post #168
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.

> 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.

And if not already rich in NYC then you're probably there because you're trying to become rich.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#210

Post by makomk »

edent wrote: post #201
_dain_ wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Young people might get their first chance to vote at age 23 - assuming they paid for the right kind of ID, or navigated an impenetrable web of underpaid bureaucrats to get the mythical free ID. uhh what? we're talking about britain here. I don't know what kind of yank(?) political dysfunction you're alluding to, but nobody has any trouble voting because of a lack of ID here. you don't need one to vote. you notify th…

That is not correct. During the recent elections in England about 14,000 people were denied a vote due to lack of ID. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-65988959

Though since the correct ID is basically every kind of ID that's valid to buy age restricted goods like alcohol and stores have become more and more strict at checking that over the last few years that mostly seems to have been older people. (The government also permitted some other kinds of ID that older people are more likely to have access to in order to reduce this, but it didn't completely eliminate the problem and I'm pretty sure it wasn't expected to either.)

The press has, as usual, not been entirely honest about this. In particular, there was a talking point about how only one non-passport and non-driving license form of ID that young people are likely to have compared with much more forms of ID that older people will have, but that one form of ID is a blanket scheme that providers of ID sign up to in order for it to be valid as proof of age. There is no equivalent blanket scheme for ID that older people are likely to have.

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