Loosen Britain’s Green Belt. It Is Stunting Our Young People
Loosen Britain’s Green Belt. It Is Stunting Our Young People
22 September 2017 By Jonn Elledge Read More: https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...lanning-policy Quote:
https://i.imgur.com/4q7tskO.jpg |
In a word, no.
The Greenbelt is one of the best and most forward-thinking policies of postwar Britain. The housing shortage needs to be solved by housing density, not covering more and more open space with single-family homes. There is a ton of unremarkable mid-20th century housing in England that should be torn down and replaced with small apartment buildings (the 5-6 story terraces that used to be build). They're right that it should be done with existing transportation links in mind, but it should be densification of housing (and commercial streets) to create walkable areas around transit, not building new single-family housing subdivisions. Save the green space. England has 55 million people in 50,000 square miles, it needs to preserve all that it can, so that it doesn't turn into New Jersey or the Netherlands. |
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Copenhagen's green wedge finger plan might be something worth considering:
https://danishbusinessauthority.dk/s...1_13052015.pdf http://web.pdx.edu/~rueterj/courses/...inger-plan.jpg |
Build up, not out
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I mean yeah, if you're Tokyo you can get away with only building the core, but Britain has a growing population and is unlikely to allow Tokyo levels of new construction in the city center. |
By European standards, London's core isn't very dense. That's both the townhouse vernacular and the enormous parks. Good luck changing either of those, and that's a third rail (even more than the greenbelt perhaps) but it's certainly related to the lack of supply. Redevelopment of brownfields and midcentury crap can go far but a multi-pronged approach would go farther.
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One could increase London's population by 50% or more without building skyscrapers or over green space, just by emphasizing midrise apartments over single-family. You're right that their will be NIMBY resistance to this anyway (even residents of the Rotherhithe peninsula are protesting plans to redevelop the area around Surrey Quays, which is an absolute postwar abomination), but it's an objectively better plan. |
There's lots of room to build on brown belt sites and there are to be new Garden Towns and Villages, under present proposals.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017...-ease-housing/ Britain has lots of green belts and national parks that need protecting to prevent a further decline in our native wildlife. This kind of opion is typical of the Guardian which constantly contradicts itself in relation to the environment and nature. Indeed what is the Guardian suggesting, massive building in the beautiful Thames Valley and Cotswolds, I think not. |
^ Exactly.
These pieces tend to be written in Britain by a) people with no interest in aesthetics or quality of life, just a singular focus on housing costs; and b) by people who aren't themselves affected by this proposed change in policy because they live central London and have houses far enough outside to not care about Greenbelt. |
England is already super-dense, with relatively little open land. I would think that overall quality of life would be much diminished if green spaces were plowed over for suburban housing, even if you could modestly move the needle on housing affordability.
Also, is England really crazy expensive outside the Southeast? I would guess that basically all of England outside the London radius is pretty reasonably priced, and roughly comparable to other Western European countries. |
There are cheaper and more expensive places around the country but yes, once you get far enough from London that not many people are commuting to the capital then prices are a lot lower in general.
https://s26.postimg.org/l8t5i9ubt/Snip_Image-3.jpg |
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Anecdotally, British homes seem a lot smaller/more modest on average than German homes, but Germans tend to have multigenerational homes, so not sure if directly comparable. |
Germany has a much higher proportion of people living in apartments, houses are less common and tend to be bigger i think, the UK has fewer people in apartments but many of the terrace/row houses are of apartment type size.
Taking all homes together, apartments, attached houses and detached houses, the average size in the UK is around 90-95m2, not sure how that compares with Germany. |
UK has the smallest sized housing in the West, for new builds anyhoo. In London it would be even worse.
818 sq ft=76 sq m. It's halved in size since the 1920s. http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/wp-co...sesizeft21.gif http://shrinkthatfootprint.com http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/...43_634x468.jpg http://i3.mirror.co.uk/incoming/arti...properties.jpg http://i3.mirror.co.uk The average size of a new build one bedroom property is 46 sq m, or the size of a tube carriage: https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/660/cp...82_zedpods.jpg https://ichef.bbci.co.uk |
And the average house price (asking) in London is currently £607,686 ($817,000).
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/house-prices-in-London.html For a one bed: http://www.homesandproperty.co.uk/pr...6.html#gallery |
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