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.
Why Britain doesn’t build
31–40 of 520 posts
Re: Why Britain doesn’t build
#32Earlier 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…
> Britain built I think around 30k houses last year The latest house building statistics show that in the financial year ending March 2022 there were 204,530 dwellings completed in the UK. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/housing/...
Oh - fair. I can't remember where I got that figure from. It might've been a quarterly average.
I'll amend, but noting the change.
Re: Why Britain doesn’t build
#33One word - corruption. Britain builds plenty but not on a social basis. Profit is king. To get planning permission costs money. Appeal committees must be bought. Britain is the most corrupt country not in Europe..
> Appeal committees must be bought. Britain is the most corrupt country not in Europe..
Local authorities refusing planning isn't corruption. And if you think Britain is corrupt I assume you have no familiarity with other countries.
Re: Why Britain doesn’t build
#34The housing crisis is universal. There's been growing inability to build in many countries, as the article readily admits. People can't afford homes across the world: USA, Canada, Australia, even China, where supply isn't a problem per se. The article should then address this global phenomenon rather than conclude it is a "political problem", suggesting it is some kind of peculiar ideology exported out of Britain.
That's neoliberalism, baby.
You'll see the same pattern with healthcare, water, waste, media, energy, etc; every common good is being scooped up as much as possible by private interests.
The ultra-wealthy have a sophisticated playbook for doing this which maximises profit at the expense of the vast majority of the population. It's international.
A complicit media owned by the same private interests acts like this is all a big mystery, and any individual or group that gets too effective at making this plain is systematically irrelevanced.
Re: Why Britain doesn’t build
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Britain built I think around 30k houses last year The latest house building statistics show that in the financial year ending March 2022 there were 204,530 dwellings completed in the UK. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/housing/...
When you consider there are decades of under supply to make up for, this is still a paltry figure.
Still doesn't excuse quoting a wrong figure. I for one appreciate the correction.
Re: Why Britain doesn’t build
#36I 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…
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…
Not really. It would also have to tax hoarding them to prevent driving rents higher. Which would hurt landlords sitting in the Parliament. All 100% of them.
Re: Why Britain doesn’t build
#37Britain's energy-per-capita has collapsed since 1965 [0]. How are they meant to build houses and live in them without energy? Construction is one of the most energy-intensive activities we have, and maintaining a warm home is up there. Britain is one of the usual suspects who listened to environmentalists, fought nuclear, let fossil fuels slide and bet big on renewables. They're going to need to have a bit of a focus…
energy- use -per-capita. Not sure what switching to energy efficient lightbulbs and vacuum cleaners has to do with the collapse in housing supply.
Run me through, order of magnitude, where you think this 25% reduction in per capita energy use is coming from. Lightbulbs and vacuum cleaners aren't going to cover anything interesting.
Re: Why Britain doesn’t build
#38I 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 worst part is that all of the new building projects are absolutely terribly built. It has gotten to the point where buying a house that was last worked on 20 years ago is more reliable than a new build, since so many new builds have borderline dangerous mistakes, and also huge illegal corner cuts that the government does nothing about. Not only is the construction bad, but so is the planning. Many of these new bu…
I've lived in houses built in the 60s, 80, 00s, and 10s.
The ones in the 10s were by far the best build quality, however the plots were tiny, and they come with extra taxes. The estates were full of cars parked over the pavements because of the limited parking (claiming a garage as a parking space for example), and the green spaces were poorly maintained (due to the privatised companies that own them)
Re: Why Britain doesn’t build
#39I 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…
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 problem is land. Land is not a normal commodity. Nobody makes it - all land rights are derived ultimately through legal fiat and violence, not labor.
Somebody who consumes a lot of high value land doesnt create the conditions for making more like somebody who, say, buys a lot of cars. They just create more profits for nearby land owners. Hoarding drives more hoarding and higher prices in a positive feedback loop unless arrested via a tax.
The elites can accomodate their market dysfunction by building public housing. They can neuter this market dysfunction by applying a steep land value tax (or by increasing property taxes).
Or they can sit back and profit, parasitically extracting ever higher land rents from the real economy.
Re: Why Britain doesn’t build
#40Earlier 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.
To be fair, you can't "build" a dentist or a doctor like you can a home. First the homes come, then the residents move in. Those residents will have demands, such as health and dental care. Once those demands are heard, the doctors and dentists will finally build their offices.