4 ms·

“To do so, it need simply remove the barriers that stop the private sector from doing what it already wants to do.” Which is fine if resources were infinite or

by sgt101 2y ago

“To do so, it need simply remove the barriers that stop the private sector from doing what it already wants to do.” Which is fine if resources were infinite or distribution was equal, but neither are true and the private sector will not safe guard the public sphere of the environment. In any case, plain as day, the big problem with the UK economy was and is the 2008 financial crisis that chopped 5% of GDP off the economy. Since then every government has been faced with either doing what would be needed to make things right, or doing what is needed to get reelected. They have all picked the second option apart from Boris Johnson's administration through to Truss, who picked electoral destruction through magical thinking (on Northern Ireland and then by raising spending without raising tax to pay for it, precipitating first a crisis of politics and second a crisis of finance).

rickdeckard 2y ago
> Which is fine if resources were infinite or distribution was equal, but neither are true and the private sector will not safe guard the public sphere of the environment. On top of that there is a part of the private sector which currently benefits tremendously from the imbalance of supply and demand. Approximately one in five Members of UK Parliament are landlords or have investments in the property market. So a part of the private sector is ALREADY "doing what it wants to do", and surely supports the political direction in its favor.
TheSpiceIsLife 2y ago
> private sector will not safe guard the public sphere of the environment. In what sense are homes for people to live in not the public sphere of the environment? What do you expect people to do? Go back to freezing in the dark?
- sgt101 2y ago
  I don't expect the private sector to fix it spontaneously if left to it's own devices. This is (as you flag) a specifically political problem - not a commercial one. There are political fixes which are available, but have not been taken. There are planning reforms, and fiscal reforms, that could change the housing market very significantly - without enabling a free for all that would simply result in the creation of thousands of five bedroom des res's all over the home counties. This would not salve the real social ills that bad and limited housing have created, but it would destroy what's left of the countryside. England is as densely populated as India, and we need to manage what happens to land in our country in a way that Australia and the USA doesn't.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 2y ago
    Thanks for the thoughtful response. Australia does sort of have a land constraint problem too, insofar as there aren't a lot of places in Australia where anyone would really want to live. Agriculture in Australia accounts for about 55% of land use.[1] About 70% of Australian land is arid or semi arid.[2] About 87% of the population lives within 50 kilometres of the coast.[3] About 0.5% of Australian land area is used for housing.[4] About 50% of Australian land area is suitable for and used for grazing.[4] Dryland cropping, dryland horticulture, irrigated pastures, irrigated cropping, irrigated horticulture, intensive horticulture and animal production, account for about 5.14% of Australia's land area.[4] New housing development in Australia is largely done by encroaching on some of the best land for growing food, where there used to market gardens, crazing, vegetable cropping, etc, close to towns and cities, that production is being pushed further out. New housing development is largely captured by businesses and companies that can afford to develop the land and cope with all the regulatory burden. Even in the regional areas, a block of land suitable for building a house goes for about $280,000[5] - about 5 years median income.[6] Then you'll probably want a build a house on that land, and that's going to cost you about $300,000.[7] For a total of about $550,000. Even in the fairly average, fairly ordinary area I live in, house prices are up about 110% since about 10 years ago. I don't know if there's some alternate timeline where housing in Australia is more evenly distributed, or if that would result in a better life for the majority of Australians, or how to get there if we think that's good idea. Also see my other recent comment here[8] for a breakdown of ownership of the housing stock. Thanks for motivating me to put this comment together, I had been meaning to review this data since the last time I look at it over five years ago. 1. https://www.agriculture.gov.au/abares/products/insights/snapshot-of-australian-agriculture https://www.agriculture.gov.au/abares/products/insights/snap... 2. https://www.dcceew.gov.au/environment/land/rangelands https://www.dcceew.gov.au/environment/land/rangelands 3. https://soe.dcceew.gov.au/coasts/pressures/population https://soe.dcceew.gov.au/coasts/pressures/population 4. https://www.agriculture.gov.au/abares/aclump/land-use https://www.agriculture.gov.au/abares/aclump/land-use 5. https://hia.com.au/our-industry/newsroom/economic-research-and-forecasting/2025/01/land-price-growth-outpaces-cpi-and-home-building-costs#:~:text=The%20HIA%2DCoreLogic%20Residential%20Land,%24366%2C510%2C%E2%80%9D%20added%20Mr%20Tapang. https://hia.com.au/our-industry/newsroom/economic-research-a... 6. https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/labour/earnings-and-working-conditions/personal-income-australia/2021-22-financial-year https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/labour/earnings-and-workin... 7. https://www.residentialattitudes.com.au/building-advice/the-costs-of-building-a-new-house-in-australia/ https://www.residentialattitudes.com.au/building-advice/the-... 8. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43257766 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43257766

by sgt101 2y ago

rickdeckard 2y ago

> Which is fine if resources were infinite or distribution was equal, but neither are true and the private sector will not safe guard the public sphere of the environment. On top of that there is a part of the private sector which currently benefits tremendously from the imbalance of supply and demand. Approximately one in five Members of UK Parliament are landlords or have investments in the property market. So a part of the private sector is ALREADY "doing what it wants to do", and surely supports the political direction in its favor.

TheSpiceIsLife 2y ago

> private sector will not safe guard the public sphere of the environment. In what sense are homes for people to live in not the public sphere of the environment? What do you expect people to do? Go back to freezing in the dark?

sgt101 2y ago
I don't expect the private sector to fix it spontaneously if left to it's own devices. This is (as you flag) a specifically political problem - not a commercial one. There are political fixes which are available, but have not been taken. There are planning reforms, and fiscal reforms, that could change the housing market very significantly - without enabling a free for all that would simply result in the creation of thousands of five bedroom des res's all over the home counties. This would not salve the real social ills that bad and limited housing have created, but it would destroy what's left of the countryside. England is as densely populated as India, and we need to manage what happens to land in our country in a way that Australia and the USA doesn't.
- TheSpiceIsLife 2y ago
  Thanks for the thoughtful response. Australia does sort of have a land constraint problem too, insofar as there aren't a lot of places in Australia where anyone would really want to live. Agriculture in Australia accounts for about 55% of land use.[1] About 70% of Australian land is arid or semi arid.[2] About 87% of the population lives within 50 kilometres of the coast.[3] About 0.5% of Australian land area is used for housing.[4] About 50% of Australian land area is suitable for and used for grazing.[4] Dryland cropping, dryland horticulture, irrigated pastures, irrigated cropping, irrigated horticulture, intensive horticulture and animal production, account for about 5.14% of Australia's land area.[4] New housing development in Australia is largely done by encroaching on some of the best land for growing food, where there used to market gardens, crazing, vegetable cropping, etc, close to towns and cities, that production is being pushed further out. New housing development is largely captured by businesses and companies that can afford to develop the land and cope with all the regulatory burden. Even in the regional areas, a block of land suitable for building a house goes for about $280,000[5] - about 5 years median income.[6] Then you'll probably want a build a house on that land, and that's going to cost you about $300,000.[7] For a total of about $550,000. Even in the fairly average, fairly ordinary area I live in, house prices are up about 110% since about 10 years ago. I don't know if there's some alternate timeline where housing in Australia is more evenly distributed, or if that would result in a better life for the majority of Australians, or how to get there if we think that's good idea. Also see my other recent comment here[8] for a breakdown of ownership of the housing stock. Thanks for motivating me to put this comment together, I had been meaning to review this data since the last time I look at it over five years ago. 1. https://www.agriculture.gov.au/abares/products/insights/snapshot-of-australian-agriculture https://www.agriculture.gov.au/abares/products/insights/snap... 2. https://www.dcceew.gov.au/environment/land/rangelands https://www.dcceew.gov.au/environment/land/rangelands 3. https://soe.dcceew.gov.au/coasts/pressures/population https://soe.dcceew.gov.au/coasts/pressures/population 4. https://www.agriculture.gov.au/abares/aclump/land-use https://www.agriculture.gov.au/abares/aclump/land-use 5. https://hia.com.au/our-industry/newsroom/economic-research-and-forecasting/2025/01/land-price-growth-outpaces-cpi-and-home-building-costs#:~:text=The%20HIA%2DCoreLogic%20Residential%20Land,%24366%2C510%2C%E2%80%9D%20added%20Mr%20Tapang. https://hia.com.au/our-industry/newsroom/economic-research-a... 6. https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/labour/earnings-and-working-conditions/personal-income-australia/2021-22-financial-year https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/labour/earnings-and-workin... 7. https://www.residentialattitudes.com.au/building-advice/the-costs-of-building-a-new-house-in-australia/ https://www.residentialattitudes.com.au/building-advice/the-... 8. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43257766 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43257766