I also see Seattle adding an unprecedented number of new housing units. Here, people bid up the typically small Seattle single-family houses to such an extent that finally "townhouses" (typically four-unit structures, occupying what had been a one-house lot with each unit approximately the same square footage as the previous house) make so much economic sense that even bungalow-loving Seattlites have given up and are tearing down the old housing stock.
Again, it seems so perfectly clear that the problem is landlords and not houses. Cities can become more dense in a positive way. It has happened. It can happen. Cities are desirable places to live - they are convenient and full of options. People pay MORE to live in cities for this reason.
Yes there are also people who want to live in the countryside and virtually all of those people lament the development of the countryside once they move in and it keeps developing.
I understand that Britons are tired of living in small apartments, but the problem is not the apartments, but the people who own them.
Do you want trailer parks in Britain? If you do, that's great because opening land favors the "manufactured housing" sector of the market.
Boddi
On 10/17/06, James Heartfield <Heartfield at blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>
> This is a familiar saw for long-term readers of LBO.
>
> An imaginary continent called 'Europe' (no less!) is lauded, for no other
> reason than to pour scorn on the perceived flaws in American society.
>
> On the housing question, this is doubly bizarre, since most Europeans -
> insofar as one can aggregate those disparate societies, and social strata -
> are of the opinion that their own housing market is dysfuntional, that house
> prices are out of control, that Europe has too great a rented sector in
> comparison to owner occupation, that social housing is a social disaster
> associated with the institutionalisation of poverty. Now, then, let's
> acknowledge that these Europeans might well be wrong, but that is where the
> weight of opinion lies on these things, insofar as anyone thinks that hard
> about them.
>
> First off, the differences are wildly exaggerated.
>
> Taking Britain, a majority of Britons live in Suburbia, not cities. And that
> trend is pretty common across Europe. Those who big up European cities are
> kidding themselves - or rather they have not seen the edges of those cities.
> Nor could they, since their edges generally blend into the adjoining cities.
> Europe is a continent of conurbations, with varying densities between inner
> city, suburb and exurb. Pretty much like America, in fact.
>
> There are a few freakish exceptions, like that living mausoleum Bath or
> Venice (Marinetti said they should fill in the canals with concrete and make
> proper roads) - but those are artificially sustained by wierd bye-laws.
>
> (Similarly, and in spite of the LBOers belief that we all travel by cart and
> horse, Europeans are only marginally behind Americans in car use, and in
> trend, moving in the same direction.)
>
> What is more, the planning regimes that seem to recommend Europe to LBO
> contributors, are seen as problematic in those countries that they are
> adopted. Britain, New Zealand and Australia are all debating, or in the
> process of amending their restrictive planning laws, because they are widely
> seen as contributing to a housing crisis, where, for example, Britain is
> building fewer homes than it has at any time since the Second World War.
>
> Nor indeed is the US as liberalised a planning regime as is supposed in the
> comparison of 'Social Europe' vs Free Market America. Robert Bruegmann
> records the extensive limits on growth imposed under Oregon's Land
> Conservation and Development Act, the greenbelt in Boulder, Colorado,
> Washington's 'Wedges and Corridors' plan, and so on. Bruegmann's point is
> that the no-growth policies in Portland have only succeeded in bidding up
> the price of homes, and pushing the new building out to out-lying suburbs -
> exactly what has happened beyond London's green belt in fact.
>
> It would be interesting to have an informed discussion about housing policy,
> but it won't happen if LBO continues to project a fantastic image of
> 'Europe' whose purpose is to offer a positive example to the self-loathing
> of Americans.
>
>
>
>
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>
>