Should suburban densification be part of the solution to the housing shortage?

antrobus

economic wrote: »

no. people who do not need to live in Z1/2 for productivity (eg pensioners) should be moved further out. whilst people who are productive and are productive in Z1/2 should be able to live there.

Great.

So your solution to the housing problem is a fascist dictatorship.

GreatApe wrote: »

..Is all that really a lessor benefit than hurting the feelings of one old lady for a few weeks as she adjusted to a new area?

Oh, good God there's another one.

GreatApe

Rosemary7391 wrote: »

Why assume that single people want to live stacked on top of each other?

The same reason why I assume there is a market for fords rather than everyone buying mercs

With people living alone for longer I'd say it's more likely that there would be a demand for 1 or 2 bedroom houses than flats. Who actually wants to live in a flat, all else being equal?

I would prefer the flat in a slightly better location I dont do guarding and less dead space in a flat. Assuming its up to scratch on noise transfer regs.

There are many £1 million plus value flats in London so there is lots of demand for it

They only do it because it's the only affordable option or the location outweighs the inconvenience. If employers weren't so crowded together, and/or encouraged working from home, people could space out more and I suspect be happier for it.

Doenst work well in practice. There is already big incentives for companies to move people out of London eg rents/rates can be 1/10th as much in the midlands but they do not do it as they find they are less productive outside of London.

I do think the rush for ever more people, denser housing etc is a mistake. And getting rid of farmland is a mistake too - by all means make the land more productive, but having our own farmland increases the resilience of the country as a whole to adverse events.

That is nonsense, fearing we cant feed outlives in the case of a war. Who will mess with us we have enough nukes to take out a billion people. And even if this was your true fear the solution is not more farmland the solution is to stoke pile long lasting foods and base ingredients.

GreatApe

antrobus wrote: »

Great.

So your solution to the housing problem is a fascist dictatorship.

Oh, good God there's another one.

Don't worry, i'm all for keeping the pensioners in Hackney.

How could I charge £2k a month for 2 bed flats if the council put up 150,000 competing flats for rent due to removing the pensioners?

boliston

Rosemary7391 wrote: »

Why assume that single people want to live stacked on top of each other? With people living alone for longer I'd say it's more likely that there would be a demand for 1 or 2 bedroom houses than flats. Who actually wants to live in a flat, all else being equal? They only do it because it's the only affordable option or the location outweighs the inconvenience. If employers weren't so crowded together, and/or encouraged working from home, people could space out more and I suspect be happier for it.

I do think the rush for ever more people, denser housing etc is a mistake. And getting rid of farmland is a mistake too - by all means make the land more productive, but having our own farmland increases the resilience of the country as a whole to adverse events.

The problem with "spreading out" is urban sprawl.
Urban sprawl generally means people become dependant on cars to get about instead of walking, cycling or public transport.
I actually prefer flats to houses as to me they seem a much more efficient use of valuable city centre space.

economic

boliston wrote: »

I expect you probably want disabled people cleaned away from zone 1/2 as well yes?

if there was a genuine supply shortage of housing in Z1/2 and if th disabled person was not productive in the area, then yes it would be beneficial for him/her to be rehoused.

Rosemary7391

GreatApe wrote: »

The same reason why I assume there is a market for fords rather than everyone buying mercs



I would prefer the flat in a slightly better location I dont do guarding and less dead space in a flat. Assuming its up to scratch on noise transfer regs.

There are many £1 million plus value flats in London so there is lots of demand for it



Doenst work well in practice. There is already big incentives for companies to move people out of London eg rents/rates can be 1/10th as much in the midlands but they do not do it as they find they are less productive outside of London.




That is nonsense, fearing we cant feed outlives in the case of a war. Who will mess with us we have enough nukes to take out a billion people. And even if this was your true fear the solution is not more farmland the solution is to stoke pile long lasting foods and base ingredients.

For your first points - I can only assume we're very different people. My hobbies are difficult in a flat as they're noisy, I would enjoy gardening. I don't enjoy picking past other peoples' rubbish to put mine out (and it only takes one in the block!), or the length of time it takes to sort out repairs. Noise transfer regs... well, I'm in an old flat, I don't know what the modern ones are like. Still not sure they'd stand a ceilidh happening above you! The question then is how many are more like you and how many more like me?

I wonder how much of the "more productive in London" is just inertia? If a bunch of them upped and moved would that work?

For your last point - I wasn't actually thinking war. More mundane things like recessions, other countries increasing populations meaning importing food gets more difficult, or keeping tabs on what chemicals are used more effectively.

Sapphire

No. Any development /redevelopment will ruin the character and lead to overcrowding

GreatApe wrote:

Humanity is far far more important than all of the other animals on this planet combined.

What complete and utter tosh. :rotfl::T

stator

No. Any development /redevelopment will ruin the character and lead to overcrowding

GreatApe wrote: »

I used to think that but now I believe that there simply isnt the demand/income to be able to afford large homes. A lot of the additional demand is going to be from single person households who probably could not afford nor want large 150 sqm homes. They will either need to be housed in HMOs (good quality ones) or small flats

I think it's a lot simpler than that actually. Supply and demand will sort out the house prices and who can afford what.
All you need to do is build the houses.
If you build big houses, people will buy them, people will buy any type of house in south and south west england. If you build 4 bedroom houses with nice gardens they will sell and the people who buy them will be vacating other houses, perhaps 3 bedroom victorian terraces. So if loads of big new build houses come on the market, the price of victorian terraces might go down. And if that happens, the people living in 2 bedroom edwardian terraces might be able to afford an upgrade. The people living in flats might be able to afford a small house.
With a system like the UKs there is so much demand that it doesn't matter what you build, it will be bought (as long as the price is right).
If we build large houses, the average house size will go up and the UKs quality of life will go up. If we build flats and matchboxes, the average house size goes down and quality of life goes down.
That's why we need to get rid of the government requirements for 'affordable housing' and other silly schemes. Just let developers build and the more housing there is, the more people will be able to afford it. They might not buy the new build, but there will be other housing available.
It reminds me of all the people moaning about student housing being built in Plymouth. But they're building high rise student flats that won't create more students. The number of students will remain the same. The effect is that there will be fewer student HMOs and hence more professional HMOs and more terraced housing will become available for families. It's a win-win. But everyone wants to look at the simplistic view.

michaels

Bungalows in back gardens are OK but the street scene should be preserved

stator wrote: »

I think it's a lot simpler than that actually. Supply and demand will sort out the house prices and who can afford what.
All you need to do is build the houses.
If you build big houses, people will buy them, people will buy any type of house in south and south west england. If you build 4 bedroom houses with nice gardens they will sell and the people who buy them will be vacating other houses, perhaps 3 bedroom victorian terraces. So if loads of big new build houses come on the market, the price of victorian terraces might go down. And if that happens, the people living in 2 bedroom edwardian terraces might be able to afford an upgrade. The people living in flats might be able to afford a small house.
With a system like the UKs there is so much demand that it doesn't matter what you build, it will be bought (as long as the price is right).
If we build large houses, the average house size will go up and the UKs quality of life will go up. If we build flats and matchboxes, the average house size goes down and quality of life goes down.
That's why we need to get rid of the government requirements for 'affordable housing' and other silly schemes. Just let developers build and the more housing there is, the more people will be able to afford it. They might not buy the new build, but there will be other housing available.
It reminds me of all the people moaning about student housing being built in Plymouth. But they're building high rise student flats that won't create more students. The number of students will remain the same. The effect is that there will be fewer student HMOs and hence more professional HMOs and more terraced housing will become available for families. It's a win-win. But everyone wants to look at the simplistic view.

100% agree. The odds are that those 'needing' a home will be looking for a 1 or 2 bed place, however that doesn't necessarily mean we don't have enough 1 and 2 bed flats and starter homes because it is almost certainly the case that many who currently have a 1 or 2 bed would ideally like a 3 or 4 bed but can not afford to move up. Thus as you say, it is more likely that we actually need to build 3 and 4 bed homes in the suburbs to free up some of the many smaller flats that we have built over the last decades.

Why have we only built small places? Because land is (artificially) scarce and therefore expensive we have built high density housing - ie mostly flats and who wants to live in a flat? People who need 1 or 2 beds and want to live somewhere lively, families who need more bedrooms, a garden safe streets and good schools away from polluted centres do not want flats so there is little incentive to build 3/4 bedroom flats.

Thus if we need more larger homes, does it make more sense to build them on virgin green land or to fit them in among existing suburbs where the infrastructure is already in place that were built at much lower densities than we currently look to achieve due to the larger population.

andrewf75

Rosemary7391 wrote: »

Who actually wants to live in a flat, all else being equal? They only do it because it's the only affordable option or the location outweighs the inconvenience. If employers weren't so crowded together, and/or encouraged working from home, people could space out more and I suspect be happier for it.

I think flats have that reputation in this country but it doesn’t have to be that way. Look at flats on the continent and they all have balconies for a start which makes a huge difference. More flats makes sense on so many levels, we are just conditioned to the way our housing market works.