8 ms·

It sounds like your underarching problem here is housing costs.

gambiting 4y ago
Sure but like.........people always say that (for example) in London you can't live closer to work because houses/flats are too expensive. Ok, I mean that's true, but how are you going to solve that? It's a gigantic city which is already full to the brim, with literally 1000+ years of building on top of every single square inch of land available. You would probably have to demolish large areas of London and replace them with high-density housing to match demand - but obviously that's never going to happen. What other options are there? Maybe the only inevitable conclusion is that not everyone can live in London(or any other major city). You can't fix expensive housing in them by just wishing they were cheaper, or with regulations(or I'd love to hear how any regulations would help, beyond banning things like AirBnb).
- mrcartmeneses 4y ago
  40-year Londoner here. The truth is that commuting costs compensate for cheaper rents. And where there is a difference you can also factor in the extra “work” time from spending 3 hours commuting every day. This changes when you work from home, but even then there are few places in suburban England where a decent cargo bike can’t replace a car. England isn’t like America where the towns were built around cars. Our towns pre-date them . (Except Milton Keynes) Also, re-property costs. It’s mostly speculative. If we banned foreign non-resident buyers and disincentivised buy-to-let landlords then prices would be much lower.
  - coderenegade 4y ago
    You probably aren't renting further out. Owning a place versus just renting it changes the calculus quite a bit, and you are coming out ahead compared to paying 25% more to live closer in. Working from home also makes a huge difference. A longer commute is tolerable if you only have to do it a few times a week. The days where you don't commute add up to pay rise.
    - Tanjreeve 4y ago
      The problem is everyone else realises this too. Pricing in the south east of England is based around proximity to London commuter lines. You can go a huge distance to Southampton and you're still paying a large premium on housing because it's on an express line to London. Or the tiny town of Fleet which is in Hartley Whitney but has some of the highest prices and desirability in the country, again it's on an express train route to London. Ticket pricing works by marking up prices on these commuter routes to London and using those to subsidise the rest of the customers. The model somewhat falls apart as the wealthier commuters were far more likely to be in jobs that moved to flexitime/remote hence the scramble for revenue now post pandemic. To answer your point to "live further out" as in actually pay enough for housing that it covers the ticket costs you're talking about Birmingham and beyond hour commutes.
- throw8383833jj 4y ago
  It always comes down to two things: Land cost, and building cost. You get those two down and you'll see housing costs come down. Land cost can be brought down by building furthere away from the center or in the countryside -> have smaller villages or towns outside of london. As for building costs. How about we talk to developers and ask them what the biggest building costs are? Often times, it's regulation, regulation regulations. Get rid of all the ones that are causing high prices: at least this should be done in certain areas to allow those who want low cost housing some options. 200 years ago, Henry david thoreagh built a cabin for 28$. That's about 3000 dollars in today's cost. and back then the average person was able to pay off their house in just 10 years! The average house cost about 800$ which was about 800 days of unskilled labor (1/5th of what it is today if you include prop taxes) If it could be done then, then why can't it be done now? why has our standard of living dropped so much, that it's actually considerably lower than it was 200 years ago?
  - desas 4y ago
    You say he built a cabin but it was basically a shed. One room, one floor. No insulation against noise or heat loss, no electricity, no running water, no toilet. Our standard of living had massively increased since Thoreagh's shed, in part because of regulation requiring it. I'd be surprised to learn you can't build a shed for $3000.
- hnlmorg 4y ago
  London has really good public transportation and, as this article mentions, lots of people in London do cycle to work (half of all the offices I’ve had in London has had an on-premises bicycle “shed”). In fact I’ve met so many Londoners who never even bothered to learn to drive. In my experience, it’s generally American cities that require a car rather than European cities. Generally speaking of course, you get good and bad city designs in all countries.
  - pjmlp 4y ago
    European cities only don't require a car for those lucky enough to live in the city center of major capitals. The further away from city suburbs, one might get a lucky 1 bus per hour if at all.
    - adrianN 4y ago
      I lived in the suburbs of a medium sized city. Everything was easily accessible by bike, but of course many people still preferred the convenience of a car. It took about 25 minutes from my apartment to the city center. My wife grew up in the suburbs of an even smaller city. It took about 10 minutes to reach that city center by bike, but almost everybody drove because the road connecting the suburb to the city center feels very unsafe on a bike.
      - pjmlp 4y ago
        Two anecdotes, plenty of European cities aren't as fortunate, specially in southern countries. Many cities are only city in name, and in practice more towns aspiring to be cities, specially in southern and eastern Europe. Here is one anecdote, Portalegre might be a nice city, as Northen Alentejo capital in Portugal, yet those 20 km on average from the neighbouring villages aren't that nice to do on bycicle specially during Summertime with temperatures up to 45 degrees celsius. And if you're thinking about taking a bus, better save money for a taxi, unless you're willing to spend the whole day in the city, as there is only one bus into each direction connecting the neighbouring villages to the city.
- novok 4y ago
  Lol Tokyo and many other mega cities in the world are great examples how none of those things are actual barriers. London's issue is political will, because too many wealthy and politically connected people currently profit from the current status quo at the expense of the exploited supermajority.
  - wolverine876 4y ago
    How much does housing cost in Tokyo?
    - midoridensha 4y ago
      Fairly cheap. A guy working in a convenience store can afford his own apartment. The problem is that housing in Tokyo is very small, and most Westerners (particular Americans) simply can't fathom living in it, and it would never be allowed to be built there. Westerners need to change their expectations.
  - gambiting 4y ago
    Just saying "look at Tokyo" doesn't mean anything. How exactly would you change London to be more like tokyo? As the simplest question - which areas of London would you demolish to make room for high density Japanese housing? Alternatively, if you're going to build wide, how would you connect those areas with the centre, if building new metro lines is pretty much impossible in London for historical reasons? "London's issue is political will, because too many wealthy and politically connected people currently profit from the current status quo" That just sounds like saying "it's the elites fault, dude". Like, sure, but please propose any actual solution.
    - slifin 4y ago
      On street parking is banned in Tokyo When buying a car you have to prove you have access to a drive way that's step one
    - plugin-baby 4y ago
      > building new metro lines is pretty much impossible in London for historical reasons Didn’t they open a new one last year?
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  The population is only 20% of the problem -> look at Berlin, it's population has grown 0.3% over the past 30 years, but the house prices have gone stratospheric just like they have in every other major city. 40% of the housing problem is whatever the fuck is going on in the banking system -> it enables us to commit all of our life savings for the rest of our productive lives to pay for a roof over our heads. It's like a hostage situation with the highest bidder. > You would probably have to demolish large areas of London and replace them with high-density housing to match demand - but obviously that's never going to happen. So true, my friend is not even allowed to raise your roof by 20 cm to create an extra room in the loft. The planning system here is so crazy, I am confident it's like 40% of the problem.
  - thrashh 4y ago
    The price going up has probably reduced population growth though, so pointing to low growth but high prices doesn’t tell us that much. Not to say that there isn’t something else going on.
    - piva00 4y ago
      Pointing to low growth and high prices tell us that isn't simple supply and demand pushing the prices up. Berlin even more as large swaths of the city are still underdeveloped after losing 2 million inhabitants since the 1940s-1950s. How can Berlin, a city with ample free space and free buildings still see a massive increase in housing prices if it was a simple issue of supply and demand? There's undoubtedly something else much fishier going on.
      - thereisnospork 4y ago
        (American POV): Here in most places it is because supply is suppressed by government policy and the planning and approval process. Want to add a room to your house? That could be 10's of thousands in planning fees if it is even allowed and it still could be denied. Want to turn your laundromat into an apartment complex? Denied: the proposal will cast shadows across a lot where the city is thinking of building a playground for a local school[0]. Overall its very much in the interests of those who own property to keep more from being built and they naturally act for those interests. [0]Not hyperbole - this is an actual example.
- Reason077 4y ago
  > "You would probably have to demolish large areas of London and replace them with high-density housing to match demand - but obviously that's never going to happen." Nah. There's still many areas of fairly low-quality, low-density housing near the centre of London. In fact, just about everywhere you look there are residential towers under construction: there must be hundreds of them going up right now! There is still plenty of scope to greatly improve the quality and efficiency of housing in London without sacrificing open, green spaces.
- KPLS 4y ago
  In terms of regulations, I'd propose we bring back bigger down payment requirements (20%) and end the infinite availability of artificially low-interest debt. The absurdly cheap debt has driven speculation by bigger entities on housing, driving up the prices, and eased lending standards have just attempted to give individuals and families a fighting chance at competing for homes, also driving up the prices. I'm not sure how financing of homes in London compares to the US, but the effect of near zero interest rates (which is behind us at the moment but I wouldn't hold your breath) have been global. I don't know how you encourage mom and pop landlords while cutting out a lot of the wild speculative money looking for a home in real estate, but it seems pretty important to figure out.
  - alvah 4y ago
    There are ways to fix it, but none of them are politically palatable - for a couple of generations now, homeowners have come to believe their house is an investment. If you propose any action that will reduce the value of their "investment", you will be voted out at the earliest opportunity. Unfortunately, I can't see a way this gets fixed under the current political systems in the West, so it will eventually be fixed one of the more old-fashioned ways.
  - mjevans 4y ago
    Tax the undesired behavior. Using housing as an _investment_ should be heavily taxed based on the behavior's negative impact to society. Live somewhere for at least 35% of a year (more than 1/3rd), then most of that tax goes away since it's a 'primary residence'. (35% to allow for moving as well as possible 'sunbird' / 'winter/summer homes', while still catching anyone who treats housing as an 'investment' (a tax upon the poor))
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - b112 4y ago
      So landlords, who provide housing for those not ready/able to buy, now raise rents dramatically? So the end result, the poor pay more? Instead, what Vancouver did was simply tax empty housing.
- bluecalm 4y ago
  One problem is huge swatch of premium land being dedicated to cars (parking lots, wasted whole floors of residential building for parking, huge highways through the city etc.
  - dan-robertson 4y ago
    How much of a problem is this in London? New towers sometimes have parking underneath (ie where people don’t really want to live), others don’t; lots of the suburban part of the city has driveways or garages. I’m curious which huge highways you’re talking about?

Sure but like.........people always say that (for example) in London you can't live closer to work because houses/flats are too expensive. Ok, I mean that's true, but how are you going to solve that? It's a gigantic city which is already full to the brim, with literally 1000+ years of building on top of every single square inch of land available. You would probably have to demolish large areas of London and replace them with high-density housing to match demand - but obviously that's never going to happen. What other options are there? Maybe the only inevitable conclusion is that not everyone can live in London(or any other major city). You can't fix expensive housing in them by just wishing they were cheaper, or with regulations(or I'd love to hear how any regulations would help, beyond banning things like AirBnb).

mrcartmeneses 4y ago
40-year Londoner here. The truth is that commuting costs compensate for cheaper rents. And where there is a difference you can also factor in the extra “work” time from spending 3 hours commuting every day. This changes when you work from home, but even then there are few places in suburban England where a decent cargo bike can’t replace a car. England isn’t like America where the towns were built around cars. Our towns pre-date them . (Except Milton Keynes) Also, re-property costs. It’s mostly speculative. If we banned foreign non-resident buyers and disincentivised buy-to-let landlords then prices would be much lower.
- coderenegade 4y ago
  You probably aren't renting further out. Owning a place versus just renting it changes the calculus quite a bit, and you are coming out ahead compared to paying 25% more to live closer in. Working from home also makes a huge difference. A longer commute is tolerable if you only have to do it a few times a week. The days where you don't commute add up to pay rise.
  - Tanjreeve 4y ago
    The problem is everyone else realises this too. Pricing in the south east of England is based around proximity to London commuter lines. You can go a huge distance to Southampton and you're still paying a large premium on housing because it's on an express line to London. Or the tiny town of Fleet which is in Hartley Whitney but has some of the highest prices and desirability in the country, again it's on an express train route to London. Ticket pricing works by marking up prices on these commuter routes to London and using those to subsidise the rest of the customers. The model somewhat falls apart as the wealthier commuters were far more likely to be in jobs that moved to flexitime/remote hence the scramble for revenue now post pandemic. To answer your point to "live further out" as in actually pay enough for housing that it covers the ticket costs you're talking about Birmingham and beyond hour commutes.
throw8383833jj 4y ago
It always comes down to two things: Land cost, and building cost. You get those two down and you'll see housing costs come down. Land cost can be brought down by building furthere away from the center or in the countryside -> have smaller villages or towns outside of london. As for building costs. How about we talk to developers and ask them what the biggest building costs are? Often times, it's regulation, regulation regulations. Get rid of all the ones that are causing high prices: at least this should be done in certain areas to allow those who want low cost housing some options. 200 years ago, Henry david thoreagh built a cabin for 28$. That's about 3000 dollars in today's cost. and back then the average person was able to pay off their house in just 10 years! The average house cost about 800$ which was about 800 days of unskilled labor (1/5th of what it is today if you include prop taxes) If it could be done then, then why can't it be done now? why has our standard of living dropped so much, that it's actually considerably lower than it was 200 years ago?
- desas 4y ago
  You say he built a cabin but it was basically a shed. One room, one floor. No insulation against noise or heat loss, no electricity, no running water, no toilet. Our standard of living had massively increased since Thoreagh's shed, in part because of regulation requiring it. I'd be surprised to learn you can't build a shed for $3000.
hnlmorg 4y ago
London has really good public transportation and, as this article mentions, lots of people in London do cycle to work (half of all the offices I’ve had in London has had an on-premises bicycle “shed”). In fact I’ve met so many Londoners who never even bothered to learn to drive. In my experience, it’s generally American cities that require a car rather than European cities. Generally speaking of course, you get good and bad city designs in all countries.
- pjmlp 4y ago
  European cities only don't require a car for those lucky enough to live in the city center of major capitals. The further away from city suburbs, one might get a lucky 1 bus per hour if at all.
  - adrianN 4y ago
    I lived in the suburbs of a medium sized city. Everything was easily accessible by bike, but of course many people still preferred the convenience of a car. It took about 25 minutes from my apartment to the city center. My wife grew up in the suburbs of an even smaller city. It took about 10 minutes to reach that city center by bike, but almost everybody drove because the road connecting the suburb to the city center feels very unsafe on a bike.
    - pjmlp 4y ago
      Two anecdotes, plenty of European cities aren't as fortunate, specially in southern countries. Many cities are only city in name, and in practice more towns aspiring to be cities, specially in southern and eastern Europe. Here is one anecdote, Portalegre might be a nice city, as Northen Alentejo capital in Portugal, yet those 20 km on average from the neighbouring villages aren't that nice to do on bycicle specially during Summertime with temperatures up to 45 degrees celsius. And if you're thinking about taking a bus, better save money for a taxi, unless you're willing to spend the whole day in the city, as there is only one bus into each direction connecting the neighbouring villages to the city.
novok 4y ago
Lol Tokyo and many other mega cities in the world are great examples how none of those things are actual barriers. London's issue is political will, because too many wealthy and politically connected people currently profit from the current status quo at the expense of the exploited supermajority.
- wolverine876 4y ago
  How much does housing cost in Tokyo?
  - midoridensha 4y ago
    Fairly cheap. A guy working in a convenience store can afford his own apartment. The problem is that housing in Tokyo is very small, and most Westerners (particular Americans) simply can't fathom living in it, and it would never be allowed to be built there. Westerners need to change their expectations.
- gambiting 4y ago
  Just saying "look at Tokyo" doesn't mean anything. How exactly would you change London to be more like tokyo? As the simplest question - which areas of London would you demolish to make room for high density Japanese housing? Alternatively, if you're going to build wide, how would you connect those areas with the centre, if building new metro lines is pretty much impossible in London for historical reasons? "London's issue is political will, because too many wealthy and politically connected people currently profit from the current status quo" That just sounds like saying "it's the elites fault, dude". Like, sure, but please propose any actual solution.
  - slifin 4y ago
    On street parking is banned in Tokyo When buying a car you have to prove you have access to a drive way that's step one
  - plugin-baby 4y ago
    > building new metro lines is pretty much impossible in London for historical reasons Didn’t they open a new one last year?
ClumsyPilot 4y ago
The population is only 20% of the problem -> look at Berlin, it's population has grown 0.3% over the past 30 years, but the house prices have gone stratospheric just like they have in every other major city. 40% of the housing problem is whatever the fuck is going on in the banking system -> it enables us to commit all of our life savings for the rest of our productive lives to pay for a roof over our heads. It's like a hostage situation with the highest bidder. > You would probably have to demolish large areas of London and replace them with high-density housing to match demand - but obviously that's never going to happen. So true, my friend is not even allowed to raise your roof by 20 cm to create an extra room in the loft. The planning system here is so crazy, I am confident it's like 40% of the problem.
- thrashh 4y ago
  The price going up has probably reduced population growth though, so pointing to low growth but high prices doesn’t tell us that much. Not to say that there isn’t something else going on.
  - piva00 4y ago
    Pointing to low growth and high prices tell us that isn't simple supply and demand pushing the prices up. Berlin even more as large swaths of the city are still underdeveloped after losing 2 million inhabitants since the 1940s-1950s. How can Berlin, a city with ample free space and free buildings still see a massive increase in housing prices if it was a simple issue of supply and demand? There's undoubtedly something else much fishier going on.
    - thereisnospork 4y ago
      (American POV): Here in most places it is because supply is suppressed by government policy and the planning and approval process. Want to add a room to your house? That could be 10's of thousands in planning fees if it is even allowed and it still could be denied. Want to turn your laundromat into an apartment complex? Denied: the proposal will cast shadows across a lot where the city is thinking of building a playground for a local school[0]. Overall its very much in the interests of those who own property to keep more from being built and they naturally act for those interests. [0]Not hyperbole - this is an actual example.
Reason077 4y ago
> "You would probably have to demolish large areas of London and replace them with high-density housing to match demand - but obviously that's never going to happen." Nah. There's still many areas of fairly low-quality, low-density housing near the centre of London. In fact, just about everywhere you look there are residential towers under construction: there must be hundreds of them going up right now! There is still plenty of scope to greatly improve the quality and efficiency of housing in London without sacrificing open, green spaces.
KPLS 4y ago
In terms of regulations, I'd propose we bring back bigger down payment requirements (20%) and end the infinite availability of artificially low-interest debt. The absurdly cheap debt has driven speculation by bigger entities on housing, driving up the prices, and eased lending standards have just attempted to give individuals and families a fighting chance at competing for homes, also driving up the prices. I'm not sure how financing of homes in London compares to the US, but the effect of near zero interest rates (which is behind us at the moment but I wouldn't hold your breath) have been global. I don't know how you encourage mom and pop landlords while cutting out a lot of the wild speculative money looking for a home in real estate, but it seems pretty important to figure out.
- alvah 4y ago
  There are ways to fix it, but none of them are politically palatable - for a couple of generations now, homeowners have come to believe their house is an investment. If you propose any action that will reduce the value of their "investment", you will be voted out at the earliest opportunity. Unfortunately, I can't see a way this gets fixed under the current political systems in the West, so it will eventually be fixed one of the more old-fashioned ways.
- mjevans 4y ago
  Tax the undesired behavior. Using housing as an _investment_ should be heavily taxed based on the behavior's negative impact to society. Live somewhere for at least 35% of a year (more than 1/3rd), then most of that tax goes away since it's a 'primary residence'. (35% to allow for moving as well as possible 'sunbird' / 'winter/summer homes', while still catching anyone who treats housing as an 'investment' (a tax upon the poor))
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - b112 4y ago
    So landlords, who provide housing for those not ready/able to buy, now raise rents dramatically? So the end result, the poor pay more? Instead, what Vancouver did was simply tax empty housing.
bluecalm 4y ago
One problem is huge swatch of premium land being dedicated to cars (parking lots, wasted whole floors of residential building for parking, huge highways through the city etc.
- dan-robertson 4y ago
  How much of a problem is this in London? New towers sometimes have parking underneath (ie where people don’t really want to live), others don’t; lots of the suburban part of the city has driveways or garages. I’m curious which huge highways you’re talking about?