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

Rosemary7391

andrewf75 wrote: »

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.

Please explain how they circumvent these issues:

• The idiot in the block who doesn't understand how bins work.
• The one person who can't (or won't!) afford their share of urgent repairs, let alone non urgent or nice-to-haves, slowing things down.
• The odd house party or ceilidh, perfectly normal in a house, now becomes seriously antisocial.

The closer you live to other people the more perfectly normal activities are restricted due to the density of other people around you. You have to put up with more low level annoyances. A single idiot has significantly more impact when they're adjoined to you instead of down the road. Why don't families like to live in flats? Why do we want ever increasing numbers of people in the same place? Efficiency in money generating? Efficiency of space and service provision? Life isn't about doing things the most efficient way possible. You need to enjoy it too!

kabayiri

PasturesNew wrote: »

The problem can also be tackled from the other direction: We have too many people.

You only need more houses when you have more people.

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Too many people chasing work and hence homes in smaller areas. These are often key major cities or strong University towns.

London will grow by 20%. Parts of the Fylde coast will shrink.

Grenfell brought home to me just how many migrants from Africa and elsewhere see London as synonymous with "UK" for work and income.

They are right though aren't they? You don't spend all this effort getting to the UK just to head to Blackburn or Burnley, places of limited opportunities.

kabayiri

Rosemary7391 wrote: »

...
The closer you live to other people the more perfectly normal activities are restricted due to the density of other people around you. You have to put up with more low level annoyances. A single idiot has significantly more impact when they're adjoined to you instead of down the road. Why don't families like to live in flats? Why do we want ever increasing numbers of people in the same place? Efficiency in money generating? Efficiency of space and service provision? Life isn't about doing things the most efficient way possible. You need to enjoy it too!

There are public voices who feel your view is outdated Rosemary.

Hamish argues that we should grow, and he supports his argument with his priorities.

Certain communities in the UK have lived in denser housing for decades now, of course. Bed sharing for Pakistani's living in Rochdale was still fairly commonplace in the 70s and 80s. It used to cause problems if you tried to change worker's shift patterns.

teddysmum

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

posh*spice wrote: »

The boomers will be gone soon and then there will be tons of houses

However, there will be a growing need for homes because many of the incomers have a culture, which produces more children (4+) than our traditional setup, where large families are not the norm.


If 4 children produce 4 children each : 16, who produce 4 each: 64, who produce 4 each: 256; 1024....

GreatApe

kabayiri wrote: »

++

Too many people chasing work and hence homes in smaller areas. These are often key major cities or strong University towns.

London will grow by 20%. Parts of the Fylde coast will shrink.

Grenfell brought home to me just how many migrants from Africa and elsewhere see London as synonymous with "UK" for work and income.

They are right though aren't they? You don't spend all this effort getting to the UK just to head to Blackburn or Burnley, places of limited opportunities.

You head to where the council homes are which is inner London with 40-60% of the stock as social. You don't go to the home counties where it's as low as below 10%

Or rather where did the councils house the refugees and other poor migrants. In the council stock. And where were the council homes? London has more than rUK and inner London has more than outer London.

GreatApe

teddysmum wrote: »

However, there will be a growing need for homes because many of the incomers have a culture, which produces more children (4+) than our traditional setup, where large families are not the norm.

If 4 children produce 4 children each : 16, who produce 4 each: 64, who produce 4 each: 256; 1024....

Only Africa is still having lot of kids. They will go from 1 billion to as much as 4 billion by the end of the centaury. Everywhere else is close to 2 kids per women.

economic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projections_of_population_growth#/media/File:Countriesbyfertilityrate.svg

kabayiri

GreatApe wrote: »

You head to where the council homes are which is inner London with 40-60% of the stock as social. You don't go to the home counties where it's as low as below 10%
...

I was under the impression that these new arrival migrant/refugees did not qualify for council housing stock?

I thought they had to head to the private rental market. The C5 housing program seemed to indicate this anyway.

GreatApe

kabayiri wrote: »

I was under the impression that these new arrival migrant/refugees did not qualify for council housing stock?

I thought they had to head to the private rental market. The C5 housing program seemed to indicate this anyway.

Yes I think that is correct of the recent arrivals (been here 5 years or less) 75% are in private rental and that's overall maybe in London its even higher.

But from 1960s to 1990s London had a population crash + a council house building boom (especially in inner London) There were so many council homes in places like hackney and tower hamlets and even Islington that refugees were taken to 3-4 council flats/houses and told take your pick.

There was so much of an excess and the councils were doing their best to put the poorest most troubled migrants into the stock that places like hackney which before the war was middle class large terraces become a ghetto. By the mid to late 1990s ex council flats were trading for £10-15k before any RTB discount.