Green Belt - what's it good for?

CLAPTON

ukcarper wrote: »

Just pointing out that 25sq km will not accommodate 500 thousand people and all infrastructure.

yes, a useful point well made;

but I was just wondering whether overall you think that new building should be high density (whether high rise or just small) or favour a lower density (larger properties, nice gardens, parks etc.)

ukcarper

CLAPTON wrote: »

yes, a useful point well made;

but I was just wondering whether overall you think that new building should be high density (whether high rise or just small) or favour a lower density (larger properties, nice gardens, parks etc.)

In would be nice if it could be the same or lower density than now but I think it will have to be higher.

SunReader

What is 'green' about 2 million of commuters driving for 3 hours every day to get to work?

Our forebears reluctantly tolerated food rationing during the war: not in the interests of hoarding, preserving or maintaining value of food stocks, but a simple supply/demand necessity.

Now we have a whole generation of life renters, living in crappy overpriced housing miles from where they want to be, starved by land rationing all in the interests of saving the greenbelt.

If the greenbelt is really so sacred, how about demolishing the nimby's homes and rebuilding them on an old and disused chemical factory plant brownfield site? no, thought not.

ukcarper

In London that is not new. Most of that green belt is not where people work and if you think adding another couple of hundred thousand people to those already stretched and overcrowded commuter routes will help I think you are mistaken.

MrsE_2

CLAPTON wrote: »

yes, a useful point well made;

but I was just wondering whether overall you think that new building should be high density (whether high rise or just small) or favour a lower density (larger properties, nice gardens, parks etc.)

Crawley is a sucess story, lots of people enjoy living & working there.

Maybe whats needed is more "Crawleys" in another direction a similar distance from London.

cells

ukcarper wrote: »

Just pointing out that 25sq km will not accommodate 500 thousand people and all infrastructure.

It can if you build at a density equal to inner paris (over 2k persons per km2)

If you limit it to 13k persons per sqkm which is the density of Kensington/Hackney/Islington etc then 25km2 gets you over 325k persons

But recall that these places were built out over more than 100 years and the vast majority of the housing in these areas are just two stories high. So if done from the outset you could/should expect more than 13k persons per km2

also the big advantage of such a town/city is that it can be car lite

Prothet_of_Doom

Where I live, (L37) the town is separated from other towns by countryside and MOD owned land (an airfield to the north and a riffle range to the south)

To the East the Border between Merseyside and Lancs seems to create a no build zone that way. To the West there is a beach and dunes and a nature reserve.

Personally I think that one house at the corner of each field as long as the total use is less than 10% of the field should be allowed.

cells

CLAPTON wrote: »

yes, a useful point well made;

but I was justparing whether overall you think thin tht new building should be high density (whether high rise or just small) or favour a lower density (larger properties, nice gardens, parks etc.)

Generally most people would favour and benefit from larger homes on the inside. The space around the property in the form of front and back gardens is less important.

To that end I would much rather the UK built 100+ sqm homes with small gardens or even 120sqm apartments than the average semi today with 70-80sqm inside and gardens around.


You can fit about 6-7k 120sqm three floor terrace homes on a km2 of land. That would be about 14k persons per sqkm which is high density equivalent to the higher end of inner london. But all these terrace homes would have 120sqm of indoor space which is about twice as mich space as a typical uk home. So its high density outside but low density inside.

imagine a grid of 5km by 5km. 22km2 with 140k homes housing 300-330k people and 2km2 of commercial and service buildings and 1km2 of park in the middle. Everywhere within walking distance

cells

ukcarper wrote: »

In would be nice if it could be the same or lower densitypopulation but I think it will have to be higher.

There is the space to do low or high density

Both are needed. London probably needs to build ten new boroughs of some 300-400k population each. Those will have to be high density. Other parts of the country it may be more suitable to build lower density.

But in all this the main thing to understand is that you can have high density and big homes. You don't need crap 40sqm homes. You can build 120sqm terrace homes and still achieve 10k+ persons per sqkm

chucky

cells wrote: »

It can if you build at a density equal to inner paris (over 2k persons per km2)

If you limit it to 13k persons per sqkm which is the density of Kensington/Hackney/Islington etc then 25km2 gets you over 325k persons

But recall that these places were built out over more than 100 years and the vast majority of the housing in these areas are just two stories high. So if done from the outset you could/should expect more than 13k persons per km2

also the big advantage of such a town/city is that it can be car lite

Do you believe that apples and oranges are the same?

Comparing them is all a bit pointless unless you are trying to tell us that one has more people living per km2 but that would be too obvious right...