Quote:
Originally Posted by heero_yuy
You seem to be forgetting things like planning permission, lack of finance, lack of skilled trades persons, lack of raw materials, inertia, NIMBYism etc. There are any number of reasons that house building doesn't go ballistic.
Perhaps the most unmentionable is just like the argument against new roads: cars will come to drive on them. Build more houses and people will flock from everywhere to fill them.
What we really need to do is to use the existing stock more efficiently. Time was when several generations lived in a single small property. Now we have singles living in multibedroomed properties. Something the so called "bedroom tax" was bought in to try and solve.
Of course if we had a fully Soviet Stallinist government and all housing was owned by the state then people would be forced to move to properties deemed sufficient for their needs and also forced to share with others if there were spare bedrooms. Problem solved.  |
I forgot nothing even in spite of a couple of the things on your list being erroneous, two of the biggest hurdles to house building aren't even on your list, house builders having gotten used to making 20% on the cost of a house and councils like Kensington and westminster not only not enforcing house builders legal obligation to provide a certain amount of social housing according to the numbers of houses they build but they've actively encouraged them not to build any.