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Those proposals were extreme, specially Ringway 1, but getting around London is far worse than in Paris, which has the benefit of Haussmann's boulevards pierced
by fmajid 5y ago
Those proposals were extreme, specially Ringway 1, but getting around London is far worse than in Paris, which has the benefit of Haussmann's boulevards pierced after the upheavals of revolutions, and the Périphérique. Political stability entrenches vested interests and NIMBYism, like the fact much of London's choicest property is still owned by descendants of the feudal aristocracy and people don't own the land their houses are built on, they just lease them like medieval serfs would have, since land reform never happened in England.
At one point, there was even a proposal to build massive highways underground instead, but Paris' friable limestone (just as in London) and long history of undocumented quarries make any tunneling effort fraught.
- bb123 5y ago> people don't own the land their houses are built on, they just lease them like medieval serfs would have, since land reform never happened in England. I’m curious about this - are you referring to leaseholds? Because that seems to mainly exist for flats. If you have a freehold (like almost every house has) you definitely own the land.
- ealexhudson 5y agoFreehold didn't apply to much of London. Many areas are still technically owned by large landowners, Dukes and so forth. Not a huge amount of London, and not most of greater London, but definitely applicable to the Royal boroughs.
- samizdis 5y agoYou might find Guy Shrubsole's book, Who Owns England?, an interesting read. It deals with land ownership, so not directly with freehold v leasehold for householders, but it contains some startling statistics. There's a decent review of the book (from 2019) here: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/apr/28/who-owns-england-guy-shrubsole-review-land-ownership https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/apr/28/who-owns-engla...
- cnorthwood 5y agoFreehold houses aren't as common as you think, especially in London. Across England about a third of houses are leasehold.
- algesten 5y agoTechnically the Queen (the crown) owns all the land. In practice it doesn't make much difference, but it does kick in if a freehold suddenly has no owner.
- desas 5y agoIn reality, all nations have dealt with that problem in roughly the same way, the land reverts to the state. In the US if an owner of property can't be identified, then it's given to the state to deal with and in France it goes to the local authority. In most of the UK, the land is given to the Crown Estate (not the monarchs personal property but to fund the country). The exception is Cornwall and Lancashire, where it's given to the relevant duchies (i.e. the prince of wales and the monarch), who by convention sell it and donate the proceeds to charity.
- kmlx 5y ago> but getting around London is far worse than in Paris not sure about this. every time i go to Paris i'm stuck in traffic. at least in London i've got at least 5 routes i could take. and this is exactly because there are no boulevards.
- fmajid 5y agoThe roads in Hampstead where I live are too narrow for two cars to pass in opposite directions, but are not made one-way, which is a prescription for gridlock, and this is hardly central. Then you have blocks like this one in Belsize Park that is nearly a kilometer long and and an impassable obstacle to traffic flowing NW—>SE towards Central London: https://i.redd.it/m41b4ibr3jn81.png https://i.redd.it/m41b4ibr3jn81.png