Britain’s delusions about the green belt cause untold misery
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Re: Britain’s delusions about the green belt cause untold misery
#2I don't see a byline for the article, so I can't Google to see what sort of connections to the UK real estate industry that the author has. Oh well.
Re: Britain’s delusions about the green belt cause untold misery
#3This might be a problem down South, I don't dispute it; but over here in the North, it's anything but. There is still a huge amount of brownfield to regenerate, and we desperately need to hold on every little bit of greenfield the Victorians failed to build mills on.
The urban developments this pieces glorify, like New Islington, compound the problem by being completely unbalanced towards the young and childless: small flats built for profit, not for people to live in with kids. Medium- and High-rise are also very much at odds with typical English individualism, and people simply won't live in them if they can afford anything else. A lot of these fancy new towers around Manchester are half-empty.
What we need up North is a serious policy of brownfield cleanup. Give local authorities more money to dispose of all shit resulting from 200 years of environmental abuse, instead of enabling more abuse on what little good greenfield is left.
Re: Britain’s delusions about the green belt cause untold misery
#4What an odd article, lambasting green area's and pushing that they must be built upon. Sorry but we like to have cleaner air as best we can and think of the green belt as the UK's Amazon.
When you view it like that then you see how silly this whole article is.
Re: Britain’s delusions about the green belt cause untold misery
#5What an odd article, lambasting green area's and pushing that they must be built upon. Sorry but we like to have cleaner air as best we can and think of the green belt as the UK's Amazon. When you view it like that then you see how silly this whole article is.
And there is plenty of room to build up. There is a lot of low density housing that could be replaced with nice highrise buildings.
We need greenbelt, even the crap that PEOPLE don't like, wildlife does, especially on the stuff that dog walkers avoid. It's full of rabbits, badgers, invertebrates etc.
Re: Britain’s delusions about the green belt cause untold misery
#6I don't see a byline for the article, so I can't Google to see what sort of connections to the UK real estate industry that the author has. Oh well.
[deleted]
Re: Britain’s delusions about the green belt cause untold misery
#7I don't see a byline for the article, so I can't Google to see what sort of connections to the UK real estate industry that the author has. Oh well.
The Economist famously doesn't use bylines:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2013/09/ec...
https://andreaskluth.org/2008/11/20/why-the-economist-has-no...
Generally, I imagine they're reputable enough that they should disclose any conflicts of interest, but who knows...
Re: Britain’s delusions about the green belt cause untold misery
#8I don't see a byline for the article, so I can't Google to see what sort of connections to the UK real estate industry that the author has. Oh well.
Ha! Cynical!
Personally I think raising taxes on second homes, rentals, etc would free up a lot of housing to purchase. Do we want to do that? Are people happy renting and not buying? I'm not sure.
Re: Britain’s delusions about the green belt cause untold misery
#9What an odd article, lambasting green area's and pushing that they must be built upon. Sorry but we like to have cleaner air as best we can and think of the green belt as the UK's Amazon. When you view it like that then you see how silly this whole article is.
Who's this "we" you speak of? I guess it's Fuck-You-Got-Mine baby-boomer Tory brigade, who bought cheap suburban houses in the 1970s and 80s and have watched them rocket in value ever since.
Because it certainly isn't the rest of us, who have no prospect of ever buying a home, or getting a pension, but are still expected to pay hundreds of thousands in taxes to subsidise over our lifetime the retirement of the aforementioned baby-boomers, while listening to their lectures about how we don't work hard enough, and don't value the precious green belt that keeps their house prices buoyant.
England is ~10% urban[1]; the figure is even lower in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The green belt isn't about protecting some dwindling remnant of unspoilt land, it's about propping up the house prices of people too stupid and selfish to even admit to themselves how stupid and selfish they're being.
Re: Britain’s delusions about the green belt cause untold misery
#10I don't see a byline for the article, so I can't Google to see what sort of connections to the UK real estate industry that the author has. Oh well.
Wouldn't it be better to address the article on its own merits, whatever those may be, instead of looking for the author trying to make an ad hominem argument?