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Why Britain doesn’t build

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Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#51

Post by quickthrower2 »

leg100 wrote: post #22

The 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.

So China has an overbuilding problem, right? To the point of demolishing apartment blocks, etc.

How does this marry up? Is it the age old problem of building too much in suburbs people don't want to actually live in? Or the old problem of new build apartments being too expensive for most people, so require a bubble?

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#52

Post by dumpsterdiver »

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.

> Something cannot both be a good investment and accessible to all.

Roads are a perfect example of a good investment that is accessible to all. It's called a "common good", and it exists.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#53

Post by jen20 »

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…

Put more simply: to be a conservative, one must have something to conserve.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#54

Post by bluescrn »

hsjqllzlfkf wrote: post #45
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…

Sounds like a problem that will fix itself? According to you, do nothing and the Tories will be out.

A change of government won't fix any fundamental problems with housing/infrastructure. These are long-term problems and government thinking is inherently short-term.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#55

Post by blitzar »

dumpsterdiver wrote: post #40
muteor wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> To be fair, you can't "build" a dentist or a doctor like you can a home.

Sure you can. When you build an office block or a shopping mall do you put in toilets or do you wait till the shoppers start shopping then see if their demands include going to the bathroom?

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#56

Post by notahacker »

bluescrn wrote: post #41
notahacker wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Infrastructure isn't perfect, but we talk about housing shortages because people earning double the national average wage rent rooms with other professionals in houses designed for a single family whilst trying to save up double their annual wage for a deposit on a >25 year mortgage on a flat. Whereas for all the UK's infrastructure problems, power brownouts due to lack of generation capability or lack of a local pol…

This comment shows up the other issue, the London-centric nature of UK politics. If you think the UK transport network is OK, but pick the most extreme examples of housing costs, you're probably a Londoner. The housing situation is awful elsewhere, but still a long way from London's extremes. But if you live elsewhere, try getting anywhere by road or by rail, and it's usually a grim experience.

I don't live in London any more. Probably won't again, for reasons of housing cost.

But I also live in a real world where most developed countries have significantly cheaper housing but nowhere near as many rail lines as the UK as a whole, and where it's a lot easier to build more affordable homes than to ensure there are enough roads for nobody to ever experience a traffic queue.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#57

Post by mavhc »

robertlagrant wrote: post #10
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…

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…

Also depends on the average number of people per house, and rate at which houses are destroyed.

Why are we still building houses like it's 1800 though? Hand crafted houses built by local artisans are always going to be expensive

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#58

Post by dauertewigkeit »

pydry wrote: post #39
robertlagrant wrote: post #10

Earlier 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…

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…

Land is fixed, but only valuable because of the location it is situated in. And what happens as the location is not fixed. You cannot make more land, but you can alter the value of locations with incentives and taxes and government programs.

Part of the solution could be governments shifting people and jobs around to secondary less popular cities.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#59

Post by DrBazza »

That article has one chart in it that isn't emphasized enough - home ownership in the UK is a new thing, and historically not typical. Perhaps it's going to become the 'new normal'.

Britain isn't flat, especially compared to Belgium and Holland, or even France, which is twice the size. And everyone wants to live in the South East because London is the economic centre, for better or worse.

The situation in the south east where we can either grow crops on flat land, or build houses, on the same flat land. And then house builders have the bare faced cheek to name the streets of the new estates after things they've destroyed or you'll never see again.

Which brings us to the spoke (and no wheel) arrangement of railway lines into London. HS1, and soon HS2 allowing more dormitory towns further out from London where the land is cheaper.

London also had a historic height restrictions on buildings, and even now, has restrictions if they block the view of St Paul's Cathedral.

When the 'new tallest building', the NatWest tower was built to a colossal... 600ft (183m), it was controversial [1] in the 1970s.

At least now there are tower blocks getting built in London that are tall. Except they're expensive, get bought out by foreign investors. And then left empty. So they're not much help to anyone other than speculators and developers.

It feels like something is going to break in the UK, but it's been like this for at least 30 years. It seems like far too much of the UK economy is based on this Ponzi scheme of property. You get better returns on property than any other kind of investment.

There's whole industries based off of the back of it too (personal investment, and corporate investment, and pension investment funds, estate agents, legal, builders, development, architects, etc.) and the vast amount of tax the govt. takes from all of that.

If the UK somehow gets the property market under control (whatever that means), it would have serious implications for the economy as a whole.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_42#Design_and_developmen...

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#60

Post by blitzar »

Jochim wrote: post #50

Planning permission was granted for 2.78m homes between 2011-2021. Only 1.6m homes were built[0]. I find it interesting, given the length of the article, that this wasn't mentioned. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/may/08/over-1m-home...

Housing, housebuilding, planning etc is such a divisive topic, where everyone has anchored in to a heavy bias that there is little rational conversation. The problems are so poorly diagnosed that the solutions (that people then double down on) only worsen all the problems.
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