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Why Britain doesn’t build

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Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#81

Post by denton-scratch »

blitzar wrote: post #55
dumpsterdiver wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The problem with dentists isn't the shortage of accomodation for clinics; it's the dentists trades union restricting entry to the profession.

All the talk of NHS treatment being "free at the point of delivery" is bollocks when you're talking about dentistry; NHS dentistry isn't free, unless you're a child or a pensioner. And if you need something like a crown, you probably can't get that on the NHS at all.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#82

Post by Jochim »

blitzar wrote: post #60
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.

I don't necessarily agree. Different countries have different issues but in the case of the UK neo-liberal policy has clearly been the root cause.

Social housing stock was sold off, ostensibly to occupiers, at significantly less than market value. This comical scheme is still going on today, imagine the reaction of landlords if private renters were offered a 70% discount[0] on the purchase price of a property.

An interesting phenomenon occurred when the scheme was introduced as well, neighbourhoods were canvassed with offers to purchase the house they rented. Many of the people living in these houses wouldn't be approved for a mortgage, so on the same day many of these houses were sold at their insane discount, they would be sold on immediately to a private investor.

At the same time councils were prevented from reinvesting that capital in the construction of new housing stock. The result is that the UK has some of the highest rents in Europe and also some of the poorest housing quality. Privately rented flats are often full of mold, with tenants are unable to assert their rights due to fear of retaliation.

It has also contributed to the majority of the economy being centralised in London. Putting aside the intentional annihilation of the UK's productive industries for a moment. Private builders are incentivised to invest where demand is currently hottest leaving other regions to deteriorate. The result is that even more economic activity is now occurring in the region which encourages ever more economic concentration.

State provisioned housing is concerned with wider societal benefit. Short term profit matters much less, meaning they can invest in rural or currently unproductive areas in hope of nurturing economic growth there. This simply doesn't occur otherwise.

The power wielded by the kind of large enterprise encouraged by neo-liberal policy prevents the kind of organic growth that makes most communities a pleasant place to live. We can see that in the total dearth of parks, green space, local shops, doctors offices and schools in the UK's new build developments.

I won't go into much detail about the raft of other problems that neo-liberalism introduces but disposable income only recently recovered to 1960s levels, both members of the household are now working and yet they're often struggling to afford basic necessities. All of these contribute to the issue of housing affordability and provision.

[0] https://www.gov.uk/right-to-buy-buying-your-council-home/dis...

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#83

Post by lll-o-lll »

reducesuffering wrote: post #71
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 seems to me much more about group incentives than some nefarious lockstep plan. Existing homeowners incentives are liking things as they are and increasing wealth on paper. What’s more interesting is what changed since the ~60s inflection, since before, things were built. People literally experienced NYC grow into a megalopolis. I’d say it’s more likely that more democracy was the problem in stifling things, when…

> It seems to me much more about group incentives than some nefarious lockstep plan.

Yes, probably, but isn’t this worse? Group incentives favour those that already have capital (material and political), which creates a feedback-loop increasing the rich-poor divide until… what exactly? What’s the end-state? A return to feudalism? Bloody revolution?

It just seems like there was a “once upon a time” where politics was about “this is the society we want”, and they tried to build it. Now it seems we’ve all just given up.

Meaningless! Meaningless! Let’s deconstruct society until we can argue that a future of 1% home ownership is somehow better.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#84

Post by Joeri »

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 67.7 million people = 2.5 people per dwelling

A thought occurred: maybe there are now fewer people per household. This however does not hold up to scrutiny either. The number of UK households rose 19% in 27 years, a rate comparable to the increase in housing stock.

If anything there is more housing than ever in the UK relative to population size. If prices have risen, it's not because of a lack of housing.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#85

Post by Aromasin »

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…

> 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 significant; a highly educated middle class is swinging a way they never normally do, outside of a revolutionary period (war/famine/etc). I see Socialist posters everywhere I go, and everywhere we're seeing strikes in almost every industry. There's inevitably going to be more civil unrest and eventual violence in our countries future.

It feels like we're sliding into some sort of capitalist feudalism, where the rich continue to accumulate property, and people who don't have the means already (through family, inheritance, or a very high paying career) are stuck to a life of renting, with no wealth to pass on to their children. Right now, even if I could afford a 2-3 bed house somewhere (maybe £300k, so a £30k deposit), I'd be paying £1800 a month in mortgage looking at a calculator from Barclays. That's nearing 100% of my take home after tax/student loan. It's obscene.

I work in the semiconductor industry and have done for close to 5 years now. I worked damn hard to get here. All my older colleagues (50+), who's career path I've followed pretty much 1:1, had a house, kids, and some decent savings by the time they were my age. Some were even building up a portfolio of investments. I'm years away from being anywhere close to that. I end up with barely anything left after bills/groceries/other expenses. I've just taken up a second job working three nights a week in a bar just so I can actually afford to go to do anything fun after I've maxed out my ISA so I can maybe get a house in 5 years. It's cripplingly demotivating, and if I had the time to do else but work myself out of this hole I'd probably be on the picket line too.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#86

Post by robertlagrant »

tsukikage wrote: post #75
Jochim wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a limited amount of space and a non-negligible portion of society are unable to afford market rates. When the state doesn't build accommodation, citizens end up transferring ludicrous amounts to private landlords to house foster children, asylum seekers, the poor, or the disabled. The UK experimented with selling off it's social housing in the 70s. It was a colossal failure that has lead to the country having…

> There's a limited amount of space So build denser, taller housing. We sprawl massively compared to developments on the continent. > a non-negligible portion of society are unable to afford market rates If we increase supply, market rates will fall. That's how markets work. Therein lies the real problem, of course: real estate investors with existing holdings don't want the rates to fall, and they have influence ove…

> the decision to not reinvest the proceeds into new housing stock

This wouldn't have mattered, I think. The houses were sold at a massive discount, IIRC.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#87

Post by Jochim »

robertlagrant wrote: post #67
Jochim wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a limited amount of space and a non-negligible portion of society are unable to afford market rates. When the state doesn't build accommodation, citizens end up transferring ludicrous amounts to private landlords to house foster children, asylum seekers, the poor, or the disabled. The UK experimented with selling off it's social housing in the 70s. It was a colossal failure that has lead to the country having…

> There's a limited amount of space and a non-negligible portion of society are unable to afford market rates. When the state doesn't build accommodation, citizens end up transferring ludicrous amounts to private landlords to house foster children, asylum seekers, the poor, or the disabled. Space is limited by regulation and zoning. 90% of the UK is rural. Market rates are high because of the supply not matching the…

> Space is limited by regulation and zoning. 90% of the UK is rural. Market rates are high because of the supply not matching the demand, or being allowed to match it.

This does not square with the fact that private builders are leaving nearly half of approved developments unbuilt. It's almost like private builders are incentivised to squeeze the market rather than bring prices down.

> The same number of people would need housing, regardless of whether the houses were privately owned or state owned.

Publicly owned housing: The state makes an initial capital investment which it recoups through a low monthly rent payment. After 30 years the state only pays maintenance costs for the property, covered by the monthly rent. Any excess rent can be reinvested towards the cost of another unit.

Privately rented housing: The state pays market rate rents forever, burning the money. The private landlord pays off the mortgage and gets to pocket more of the money. There's no benefit to the state.

It's the same with social care. The government could build social care, instead we're paying up to £50k/week per child[0] towards some cunt's yacht.

And it's the same with the NHS. Nurses have a hard time and poor pay and some quit. The government then bring in an agency nurse, paying the agency 2-4x the salary of the NHS nurse that will have to babysit them because they aren't familiar with their ward and refusing to raise the rate of pay for their own nurses. The remaining nurses see this and some more quit, agency work pays more and you get to choose when you work. This spirals into a very avoidable staffing crisis.

> I don't understand this. I didn't say no regulation. But there's a huge gap between that and making it incredibly difficult to build. Citing some basic anti-zero regulation argument in response to what I said is disheartening.

I didn't claim you were arguing for no regulation, arguing that regulations should be made more lax in the face of those events is what's disheartening. Those disasters occurred because existing regulations were not sufficiently strict/enforced.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/apr/18/english-coun...

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#88

Post by foldr »

nradov wrote: post #72
blakblakarak wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The state does need to make houses to provide for lower paid people who do critical jobs.

Which jobs are critical? What would happen if those people decided to take higher paid but less "critical" jobs?

NHS workers such as nurses and porters are the obvious example. Hospitals can't function without them, but they are paid very little.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#89

Post by zimpenfish »

easytiger wrote: post #33
thesaintlives wrote: post #25

One 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.

> And if you think Britain is corrupt I assume you have no familiarity with other countries.

Why would what happens in any other country change whether Britain is (and it demonstrably is) corrupt?

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#90

Post by blitzar »

dumpsterdiver wrote: post #73
blitzar wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

You can build toilets just like you can homes. Toilets are standard in all homes and office buildings. You still can't build a doctor or a dentist. That takes a lot of hard work from someone who isn't you.

As disgusting as the toilets in the shops may be, they dont clean themselves. That takes a lot of hard work from someone who isn't you.
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