31–40 of 62 posts
Sadly, general public don't read Economist or at least look at the facts. Govt "subsidies" public housing instead of land supply and ppl seems to complain but not analyze the issue.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not so very long ago, there seemed to be a movement in quite the opposite direction: live somewhere car-friendly and work on out-of-town campuses with ample parking. While I'm another one who believes that the ideal commute is "step across the hallway" (or perhaps an office at the bottom of the garden...), I'd argue that the old low-density promise of commuting 20 or 30 minutes on open roads isn't so bad (and certain…
I don't know why there's such "new-urbanist lobby" in the US, but in Europe you can't realize the dream of "open-road commuting" and low-density employment, not without turning the entire continent into one big suburbia. I don't think we have enough land for that. I'm personally for public transit because of efficiency. Even if you could somehow get that "old low-density promise of commuting 20 or 30 minutes on open…
Of course, the UK population is very unevenly distributed at the moment...
It's funny how HN people are all like "capitalism is awesome!" and then they complain when housing prices are high.
If investment was made to comparable levels in any of the 10 or more other large cities in the UK so companies don't feel the need to work in London, perhaps we would solve productivity without producing a Mega-city.
It sounds easy and I know there are loads of bureaucratic hurdles and it doesn't help that local councils don't always want the change that is needed in their nice cities to create the influx of jobs...
Housing is the #1 money sink in developed economy it consumes by far more money out of people's pockets than anything else. And the banks and the owners of capital are totally okay with this. And as the housing crisis showed, it's in no way a sure bet. It's a gamble just like anything else.
What makes houses in developed countries so expensive? I live in Kazakhstan. I can buy some land near city, it would cost me $5-10k for 100 sq. meters of land. I can build my own house for $40-80k (including materials and workers). It might not be the huge house, but it will be fine to live in. Is land more expensive in developed countries? Are materials more expensive? Are workers more expensive? (probably all compo…
If Alice and Bob want to hang out then they have to pay a big proportion of their wage to Charlie the Capitalist for the privilege. The land owners sell us to each other.
> One paper published in 2010 found that absenteeism among German workers would be 15-20% lower if they did not commute. If it were somehow possible to scrap commuting altogether, the British economy would see a productivity boost worth £12 billion a year, according to the Centre for Economics and Business Research, a think-tank. Allowing occasional working from home has the same effects, and require no investment in…
I'm about to start a remote job, and this is the bit I'm most looking forward to. I'll be able to claw back that 2 hours I'm losing every day to a pointless commute.
It is a self-feeding problem in London. It attracts job so massive government investment is made, which attracts more people but also pushes prices up so high that we need to give benefits to certain people who can't afford to live there. If investment was made to comparable levels in any of the 10 or more other large cities in the UK so companies don't feel the need to work in London, perhaps we would solve producti…
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/london-proper...
Also why do we "need" to give housing benefits to people? They don't go to people they go to landlords who have set their prices higher than the market can bear.
I'm afraid I disagree with you - the jobs aren't paying for the cost of land. The state, corruption and printing money via land are. And without it all the UK economy would have collapsed.
They will never try to stop the cheap money and money laundering.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What makes houses in developed countries so expensive? I live in Kazakhstan. I can buy some land near city, it would cost me $5-10k for 100 sq. meters of land. I can build my own house for $40-80k (including materials and workers). It might not be the huge house, but it will be fine to live in. Is land more expensive in developed countries? Are materials more expensive? Are workers more expensive? (probably all compo…
In Kazakhstan you would have to save for that housing. In developed countries banks loan you the money for the housing. Which essentially means that housing price is determined by how much money people make. The more money people make, the more the people selling the house demand because the banks are willing to loan them that money, based on their ability to pay the amount on their mortgage. So in essence housing al…
Land value tax.
> One paper published in 2010 found that absenteeism among German workers would be 15-20% lower if they did not commute. If it were somehow possible to scrap commuting altogether, the British economy would see a productivity boost worth £12 billion a year, according to the Centre for Economics and Business Research, a think-tank. Allowing occasional working from home has the same effects, and require no investment in…
> in Poland people constantly complain about overregulation of construction In Poland people constantly complain about overregulation of pretty much everything (I'd say complaining itself is our national sport, but that's another topic) - but that's probably typical of humans. It's easy to complain about overregulation when the government tells you you can't do whatever you want and dump externalities on everyone aro…
You can't predict where you will work in 10 years, why expect to live in the same house for 10 years? Of course - not wanting to move kids to a different school is valid reason, but still kids change school every few years. Many people could reduce commute with no bad side-effects, if not for the problems with renting flats.
People are very careful about renting flats to families with kids, because it's very hard to expel them if they stop paying right now.
Housing is the #1 money sink in developed economy it consumes by far more money out of people's pockets than anything else. And the banks and the owners of capital are totally okay with this. And as the housing crisis showed, it's in no way a sure bet. It's a gamble just like anything else.