4 ms·

might not realise how strange the idea of emptiness is to many Brits This is certainly not true of all Brits, mostly Londoners think this way. "What this green

by gaius 8y ago

might not realise how strange the idea of emptiness is to many Brits This is certainly not true of all Brits, mostly Londoners think this way. "What this green empty space really needs is an exciting development of exclusive executive apartments... say, why do they call them flood plains anyway?". Most of the UK is uninhabitable, it's just the bits that are habitable are very densely packed with people, who rarely venture out of them and see the rest of the country.

gambiting 8y ago
Yep - cities are very densely packed, but if you live even slightly north, drive for 30 minutes away from the city and the chances are you will end up in the middle of completely empty moors or farmland, with nothing of any significance for miles in every direction.
ben_w 8y ago
Flood plains can be dealt with (Netherlands). Although I grew up with pretty much your attitude, I now suspect the UK’s green belt policy caused more harm than good — it is a significant contributor to the house price problem, and creates a perverse incentive to promote unsuitable land for housing projects wherever and whenever that parcel of land can be squeezed through the rules, rather than when a natural market (or a sane government program) would.
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  Hmm, the green belt policy prevents companies from going "this bit of land needs concrete removing, lets just use a fresh field for our block of flats" which leads to settlements spreading excessively often encompassing large "dead" areas. House price problems are down to landlords being able to earn a living by doing nothing other than owning land. Green belt also protects farm land, which when Brexit hits is going to be a major thing for us again; if we'd been able to sell out all our farms for housing developments then we [or the poor at least] would be a considerably more dangerous position when food import prices rise. Of course housing developers instead of spending the money to properly develop on flood plains, if they needed to, decided as they weren't living there and the government was turning a blind eye that they could get away with it. So now we have tighter laws on building in flood prone areas -- though they still get ignored somewhat, in my area of the UK for political reasons a school has recently been built on land marked as "by law you can not build here, high flood risk" (idiots!).
  - 7952 8y ago
    Green belt is often not particularly special. You tend to get a mix of golf courses, ugly stable blocks, compound style houses, and garden centres. It is a blunt instrument to prevent urban sprawl that completely ignores the specifics of the location in question. A good development in green belt should be possible. You should be able to avoid sprawl using other methods which could be applied to the entire country. There are hundreds of towns that are sprawling that are outside of green belt. It is a terrible policy. Also, some agricultural fields are not particularly valuable for food production or as habitat for nature. People just see green and assume that it is special and important. We need to actually judge these things in a scientific way.
    - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
      Ah, you should be able to use more finesse; and probably could except property development is full of bad actors who will exploit any edge they have. All those stables ... in my parents rural village developers put animals in a field, apply for planning for a "feed shed" or "stable". Which gives then legal reason to put in utilities. Then they need a workers cottage and in the space of 10 years you turn a £4k piece of rubbish field in to £600k+ of triple-garaged greenbelt housing.
  - ben_w 8y ago
    > House price problems are down to landlords being able to earn a living by doing nothing other than owning land. Only 21% of the UK rents. I rented for ages because houses were too expensive to buy. Then I inherited some money from my grandmother and was finally able to buy the fourth cheapest flat in the set of all in every town, city, or village within 45 minutes cycling distance of work. This was only a few years ago, and I moved out because of Brexit and became a landlord myself because the alternative was selling and I still don’t think I understand enough German to know what my responsibilities would be as a property owner here in Germany. Rents are exactly what the market bears. Charge a million a month and nobody rents your place, charge a hundred a month and you fire your estate agent. House prices follow rather than lead rental rates: follow, because if it’s cheaper to rent then people are less interested in buying (and vice versa); not lead, because rental rates are always and solely about maximising revenue and therefore influenced only about what the competition charges, not how much the assets are “worth”. Build more houses, get more competition, rent and prices both go down. On the other hand, speculative house purchases and people who buy with the expectation of selling for more, they did raise house prices; indeed, that’s pretty much what “speculative bubble” means.
mattnewport 8y ago
I grew up in rural England and now live in Canada. While there are relatively remote areas of the UK, Canada really takes it to another level. British Columbia for example is 4 times the size of the UK but has about 1/14th the population, more than half of which is in the Greater Vancouver area which represents a tiny fraction of a percent of the total land area of the province. Even the highlands of Scotland are dense hubs of human activity compared to much of BC.

by gaius 8y ago

gambiting 8y ago

Yep - cities are very densely packed, but if you live even slightly north, drive for 30 minutes away from the city and the chances are you will end up in the middle of completely empty moors or farmland, with nothing of any significance for miles in every direction.

ben_w 8y ago

Flood plains can be dealt with (Netherlands). Although I grew up with pretty much your attitude, I now suspect the UK’s green belt policy caused more harm than good — it is a significant contributor to the house price problem, and creates a perverse incentive to promote unsuitable land for housing projects wherever and whenever that parcel of land can be squeezed through the rules, rather than when a natural market (or a sane government program) would.

pbhjpbhj 8y ago
Hmm, the green belt policy prevents companies from going "this bit of land needs concrete removing, lets just use a fresh field for our block of flats" which leads to settlements spreading excessively often encompassing large "dead" areas. House price problems are down to landlords being able to earn a living by doing nothing other than owning land. Green belt also protects farm land, which when Brexit hits is going to be a major thing for us again; if we'd been able to sell out all our farms for housing developments then we [or the poor at least] would be a considerably more dangerous position when food import prices rise. Of course housing developers instead of spending the money to properly develop on flood plains, if they needed to, decided as they weren't living there and the government was turning a blind eye that they could get away with it. So now we have tighter laws on building in flood prone areas -- though they still get ignored somewhat, in my area of the UK for political reasons a school has recently been built on land marked as "by law you can not build here, high flood risk" (idiots!).
- 7952 8y ago
  Green belt is often not particularly special. You tend to get a mix of golf courses, ugly stable blocks, compound style houses, and garden centres. It is a blunt instrument to prevent urban sprawl that completely ignores the specifics of the location in question. A good development in green belt should be possible. You should be able to avoid sprawl using other methods which could be applied to the entire country. There are hundreds of towns that are sprawling that are outside of green belt. It is a terrible policy. Also, some agricultural fields are not particularly valuable for food production or as habitat for nature. People just see green and assume that it is special and important. We need to actually judge these things in a scientific way.
  - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
    Ah, you should be able to use more finesse; and probably could except property development is full of bad actors who will exploit any edge they have. All those stables ... in my parents rural village developers put animals in a field, apply for planning for a "feed shed" or "stable". Which gives then legal reason to put in utilities. Then they need a workers cottage and in the space of 10 years you turn a £4k piece of rubbish field in to £600k+ of triple-garaged greenbelt housing.
- ben_w 8y ago
  > House price problems are down to landlords being able to earn a living by doing nothing other than owning land. Only 21% of the UK rents. I rented for ages because houses were too expensive to buy. Then I inherited some money from my grandmother and was finally able to buy the fourth cheapest flat in the set of all in every town, city, or village within 45 minutes cycling distance of work. This was only a few years ago, and I moved out because of Brexit and became a landlord myself because the alternative was selling and I still don’t think I understand enough German to know what my responsibilities would be as a property owner here in Germany. Rents are exactly what the market bears. Charge a million a month and nobody rents your place, charge a hundred a month and you fire your estate agent. House prices follow rather than lead rental rates: follow, because if it’s cheaper to rent then people are less interested in buying (and vice versa); not lead, because rental rates are always and solely about maximising revenue and therefore influenced only about what the competition charges, not how much the assets are “worth”. Build more houses, get more competition, rent and prices both go down. On the other hand, speculative house purchases and people who buy with the expectation of selling for more, they did raise house prices; indeed, that’s pretty much what “speculative bubble” means.

mattnewport 8y ago

I grew up in rural England and now live in Canada. While there are relatively remote areas of the UK, Canada really takes it to another level. British Columbia for example is 4 times the size of the UK but has about 1/14th the population, more than half of which is in the Greater Vancouver area which represents a tiny fraction of a percent of the total land area of the province. Even the highlands of Scotland are dense hubs of human activity compared to much of BC.