Quizzes & Puzzles1 min ago
Do We Hate High Density Housing?
94 Answers
I've been waiting for an excuse to start a thread about this for some time and found just the thing I needed
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emmie wrote:-
//from figures elicited some time ago to the same sort of thread, 70 percent on UK is farmland, so suggest we start getting rid of much of it and build more houses, because that is what we will have to do, and i reiterate i was not just talking of London, where the majority of you don't live, and it has never been as cosmopolitan as it is now. //
Why pave over yet more fields? Goodness knows with the world's population heading for 11 billion by 2050, we're going to need all the growing capacity we've got AND continue to import vast quantities from overseas.
Don't forget that, in WWII, farmers were pretty much ordered (by the Ministry) to bring all their scrubland, marshy and semi-useless marginal farmland into producing some crop or other. Even though the population, then, was less than it is now, we were still heavily dependent on imported food.
To my mind, we became overpopulated in the first place because we had the empire and had the collective wealth to support large families all round.
I think the mistake Britain made was to build tower blocks and put the poor people into them, whilst the middle class retained their ideal of own-house-with-garden.
In America, they had the sense to build apartment blocks for the wealthy and make a packet in the process.
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I'd welcome your thoughts. I wasnted to ask "Why do we hate high density housing" but let's first establish whether we do or we don't, eh?
http://
emmie wrote:-
//from figures elicited some time ago to the same sort of thread, 70 percent on UK is farmland, so suggest we start getting rid of much of it and build more houses, because that is what we will have to do, and i reiterate i was not just talking of London, where the majority of you don't live, and it has never been as cosmopolitan as it is now. //
Why pave over yet more fields? Goodness knows with the world's population heading for 11 billion by 2050, we're going to need all the growing capacity we've got AND continue to import vast quantities from overseas.
Don't forget that, in WWII, farmers were pretty much ordered (by the Ministry) to bring all their scrubland, marshy and semi-useless marginal farmland into producing some crop or other. Even though the population, then, was less than it is now, we were still heavily dependent on imported food.
To my mind, we became overpopulated in the first place because we had the empire and had the collective wealth to support large families all round.
I think the mistake Britain made was to build tower blocks and put the poor people into them, whilst the middle class retained their ideal of own-house-with-garden.
In America, they had the sense to build apartment blocks for the wealthy and make a packet in the process.
http://
I'd welcome your thoughts. I wasnted to ask "Why do we hate high density housing" but let's first establish whether we do or we don't, eh?
Answers
The race to modernise the housing stock in the 1960s and 1970s resulted imn many mistakes. Communities were forced out of slums, but the modern blocks were often built in the wrong places, and away from amenities. Over the next 20 years they failed to develop into communities and were badly maintained. The result was that no one wanted to live there. The worse...
10:35 Mon 30th Dec 2013
//biggest problem of all is work, if there is no industry, in the village, town, city, what's the point of putting more housing, people in them //
Precisely. Perhaps it helps justify running the local schools, hospital and so on. A bit desperate though, that kind of reasoning.
So, the next question is how do we get multinationals to stop gravitating towards our major cities and get them to build an office in this town, a factory in another town, a distribution centre in a third town and so on?
Yes, alright, it's economics again, isn't it?
Off topic but in a similar vein:
All this nonsense with extra runway capacity for London. We have numerous regional airports which could shoulder some of the load. But can you imagine thousands of Londoners driving a hundred miles to park the car (somewhere non-exhorbitant) or using an airport-car service before flying abroad?
Precisely. Perhaps it helps justify running the local schools, hospital and so on. A bit desperate though, that kind of reasoning.
So, the next question is how do we get multinationals to stop gravitating towards our major cities and get them to build an office in this town, a factory in another town, a distribution centre in a third town and so on?
Yes, alright, it's economics again, isn't it?
Off topic but in a similar vein:
All this nonsense with extra runway capacity for London. We have numerous regional airports which could shoulder some of the load. But can you imagine thousands of Londoners driving a hundred miles to park the car (somewhere non-exhorbitant) or using an airport-car service before flying abroad?
how do we get them to stop leaving those rural, country areas, which has been a problem for years, friends who used to work in a local factory, lost their jobs because it closed, and it wasn't replaced by a comparable sized business. once the factory closed, others followed suit, closed or moved abroad...
@emmie
//lost their jobs because it closed, and it wasn't replaced by a comparable sized business. once the factory closed, others followed suit, closed or moved abroad... //
Yup. How many times have you heard the Dragon's Den hopeful say that they'll get their product manufactured in China?
There's patriotism for you. I know, let's give them a tax cut, shall we?
//lost their jobs because it closed, and it wasn't replaced by a comparable sized business. once the factory closed, others followed suit, closed or moved abroad... //
Yup. How many times have you heard the Dragon's Den hopeful say that they'll get their product manufactured in China?
There's patriotism for you. I know, let's give them a tax cut, shall we?
and frankly that has been the biggest problem, because once this large factory closed, many of the locals who had worked there for donkeys years lost their jobs, and many too old to get another, 40 years in the same place and by by, small remuneration and then nothing, that story is repeated by family and friends elsewhere round the country.
//Londoners don't need to drive to an airport, trains aplenty, and having once had to use Luton airport, i confess i wouldn't want to do it again. //
I was attempting to use absurdity to make a point actually. If you forced Londoners to go through what the rest of the country has to do to get to an airport and go on holiday, there would probably be uproar.
Being sensible again, my guess is that some routes out of Heathrow/Gatwick/Stansted are made to be economically viable by the fact that people are crossing the country to be on them. Whilst they could just as easily fly from a regional airport closer to where they live, perhaps the demand in that city and region alone is not enough, so the airlines either run no service at all or they set the price based on this low demand and, even then, may lose business to whoever is flying people in bulk, out of London.
So, London airports are out of capacity for no better reason than they are so good at what they do and they are drawing in 'excess customers' from hundreds of miles away. Logic tells you to distribute that demand to the regional airports but doing so renders certain holiday routes uneconomic.
It's a bu55er, isn't it?
I was attempting to use absurdity to make a point actually. If you forced Londoners to go through what the rest of the country has to do to get to an airport and go on holiday, there would probably be uproar.
Being sensible again, my guess is that some routes out of Heathrow/Gatwick/Stansted are made to be economically viable by the fact that people are crossing the country to be on them. Whilst they could just as easily fly from a regional airport closer to where they live, perhaps the demand in that city and region alone is not enough, so the airlines either run no service at all or they set the price based on this low demand and, even then, may lose business to whoever is flying people in bulk, out of London.
So, London airports are out of capacity for no better reason than they are so good at what they do and they are drawing in 'excess customers' from hundreds of miles away. Logic tells you to distribute that demand to the regional airports but doing so renders certain holiday routes uneconomic.
It's a bu55er, isn't it?
Heathrow our biggest airport is not just for our holidaymakers, but business folk from around the globe, it's the reason business leaders here have long asked for a third run way.
and i can fully appreciate those who go on holiday abroad, to have to travel down south perhaps to do so, a massive inconvenience.
and i can fully appreciate those who go on holiday abroad, to have to travel down south perhaps to do so, a massive inconvenience.
//so how to get the big businesses to invest and set up in the North of England //
It's the same story worldwide. If you want a big company to set up in your town it always -always- involves some kind of tax break.
On the local news in Wales, it would be a major headline about a factory setting up in the valleys, all thanks to the "ingenuity of the local authority". They usually spell out that a tax break was given and even say that this will last for the first 5 years of the tenancy.
I began to make a mental note of that last little detail because I'd started to notice a pattern whereby the factory would mysteriously shut down, or production would be shifted to Spain or whatever the excuse was.
Big corporations don't get big or get to stay big by sticking around and being faithful to their workforce. They survive by tax-break surfing their way around from country to country. Zero sense of social responsibility.
If they don't pay their taxes - a hostile act - why shouldn't we send the tanks in?
It's the same story worldwide. If you want a big company to set up in your town it always -always- involves some kind of tax break.
On the local news in Wales, it would be a major headline about a factory setting up in the valleys, all thanks to the "ingenuity of the local authority". They usually spell out that a tax break was given and even say that this will last for the first 5 years of the tenancy.
I began to make a mental note of that last little detail because I'd started to notice a pattern whereby the factory would mysteriously shut down, or production would be shifted to Spain or whatever the excuse was.
Big corporations don't get big or get to stay big by sticking around and being faithful to their workforce. They survive by tax-break surfing their way around from country to country. Zero sense of social responsibility.
If they don't pay their taxes - a hostile act - why shouldn't we send the tanks in?
Bus services were not Nationalise, if only.
They were deregulated. Previously bus companies were licensed to run a collection of routes. The groups were usually collected so there were 50% very profitable routes and 50% less profitable ones. Which in effect meant the very profitable routes were subsidising the other routes. So everyone got a service.
Deregulation meant the private bus companies didn't have to bid for the less profitable routes. So people in those areas lost services, isolating them. The bus companies could all bid for all the profitable routes which meant the best routes have 3 or 4 companies competing for the same customer. So lots of near empty buses congesting the busy roads and whole communities without a service.
The only place this crackpot scheme was not introduced was London, where MPs work and travel. And 30 years later London is still the only place not to have deregulated buses.
They were deregulated. Previously bus companies were licensed to run a collection of routes. The groups were usually collected so there were 50% very profitable routes and 50% less profitable ones. Which in effect meant the very profitable routes were subsidising the other routes. So everyone got a service.
Deregulation meant the private bus companies didn't have to bid for the less profitable routes. So people in those areas lost services, isolating them. The bus companies could all bid for all the profitable routes which meant the best routes have 3 or 4 companies competing for the same customer. So lots of near empty buses congesting the busy roads and whole communities without a service.
The only place this crackpot scheme was not introduced was London, where MPs work and travel. And 30 years later London is still the only place not to have deregulated buses.
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