Around London SE1 there are at least half a dozen large sites (some under construction) being used to build vast amounts of purpose built student housing, for students at King's College London, London South Bank University and University of the Arts London which are all nearby. There are predictable complaints from locals asking "Why aren't they building housing for*us*?" This is understandable but wrong headed. The mass of students currently live in the local community, mainly in the rental sector, so creating thousands of new student rooms frees up space in the private rented sector and exerts a downward gravitational pull on demand and prices. More housing is good for those who need housing, even if the new housing is not directly available to them.
Currently fighting a town expansion in Hertfordshire. It's all "garden town" this and "sustainable travel" that. My complaint is first that the new build estates are so damn ugly. And second that the big money for the developers is executive houses in cul-de-sacs where you need a car to buy a pint of milk. I can accept the need to build houses, and especially homes for social rent rather than "affordable" but they should be built for 100-150 years, long after private transport. And they exist in the current world where the roads are already grid-locked. It's not just YIMBY. It's also do it right as best as we can.
Help to buy and all those other schemes are really developer profit subsidies. If the gov throws in £5000 and helps the customer save £5000 on a bad savings deal, the developer just bumps the price by £10,000 pure profit because the costs didn't change.
Yes we need to build, the heritage-obsessed status quo is unacceptable. But..
A bit late to this one sorry. I don't believe the principle of more high end capacity relieving low end supply and thereby reducing pricing works in your typical British town works in practice, because:
A. Sticky pricing. This is a well known phenomenon where suppliers do not respond rationally to changes in supply. They stubbornly refuse to lower prices because they have a view on value that is independent from price. Because the majority of landlords act like this, the price stays high, like an accidental cartel. Of course there are also tons of middlemen and agents who support them in this because that helps their businesses too.
B. Transient small populations. The average provincial town or city is 10 miles away or less from a cheaper suburb. Rental values might come down if a city's population was ring fenced in some way, but people just move away instead. This is paradoxical because it should also undermine demand, but if course there is also inward pressure from people moving in from rural areas who expect to pay more. Or student populations.
Overall we still have a frightening lack of supply that is keeping prices up, a shortfall in the millions, and the only workable solution is mass housing at affordable rates. Even if that seems dumb.
A bit late to this one sorry. I don't believe the principle of more high end capacity relieving low end supply and thereby reducing pricing works in your typical British town works in practice, because:
A. Sticky pricing. This is a well known phenomenon where suppliers do not respond rationally to changes in supply. They stubbornly refuse to lower prices because they have a view on value that is independent from price. Because the majority of landlords act like this, the price stays high, like an accidental cartel. Of course there are also tons of middlemen and agents who support them in this because that helps their businesses too.
B. Transient small populations. The average provincial town or city is 10 miles away or less from a cheaper suburb. Rental values might come down if a city's population was ring fenced in some way, but people just move away instead. This is paradoxical because it should also undermine demand, but if course there is also inward pressure from people moving in from rural areas who expect to pay more. Or student populations.
Overall we still have a frightening lack of supply that is keeping prices up, a shortfall in the millions, and the only workable solution is mass housing at affordable rates. Even if that seems dumb.
You may be getting the celebrations going a bit early. Local newspaper sites still fan nimbyism, let alone Facebook groups, even where the admins are future focused. Lib Dems and Greens use nimbyism, and I'm thinking that Tories will follow to keep some seats, where Trussism doesn't work (everywhere).
Around London SE1 there are at least half a dozen large sites (some under construction) being used to build vast amounts of purpose built student housing, for students at King's College London, London South Bank University and University of the Arts London which are all nearby. There are predictable complaints from locals asking "Why aren't they building housing for*us*?" This is understandable but wrong headed. The mass of students currently live in the local community, mainly in the rental sector, so creating thousands of new student rooms frees up space in the private rented sector and exerts a downward gravitational pull on demand and prices. More housing is good for those who need housing, even if the new housing is not directly available to them.
Currently fighting a town expansion in Hertfordshire. It's all "garden town" this and "sustainable travel" that. My complaint is first that the new build estates are so damn ugly. And second that the big money for the developers is executive houses in cul-de-sacs where you need a car to buy a pint of milk. I can accept the need to build houses, and especially homes for social rent rather than "affordable" but they should be built for 100-150 years, long after private transport. And they exist in the current world where the roads are already grid-locked. It's not just YIMBY. It's also do it right as best as we can.
Help to buy and all those other schemes are really developer profit subsidies. If the gov throws in £5000 and helps the customer save £5000 on a bad savings deal, the developer just bumps the price by £10,000 pure profit because the costs didn't change.
Yes we need to build, the heritage-obsessed status quo is unacceptable. But..
A bit late to this one sorry. I don't believe the principle of more high end capacity relieving low end supply and thereby reducing pricing works in your typical British town works in practice, because:
A. Sticky pricing. This is a well known phenomenon where suppliers do not respond rationally to changes in supply. They stubbornly refuse to lower prices because they have a view on value that is independent from price. Because the majority of landlords act like this, the price stays high, like an accidental cartel. Of course there are also tons of middlemen and agents who support them in this because that helps their businesses too.
B. Transient small populations. The average provincial town or city is 10 miles away or less from a cheaper suburb. Rental values might come down if a city's population was ring fenced in some way, but people just move away instead. This is paradoxical because it should also undermine demand, but if course there is also inward pressure from people moving in from rural areas who expect to pay more. Or student populations.
Overall we still have a frightening lack of supply that is keeping prices up, a shortfall in the millions, and the only workable solution is mass housing at affordable rates. Even if that seems dumb.
A bit late to this one sorry. I don't believe the principle of more high end capacity relieving low end supply and thereby reducing pricing works in your typical British town works in practice, because:
A. Sticky pricing. This is a well known phenomenon where suppliers do not respond rationally to changes in supply. They stubbornly refuse to lower prices because they have a view on value that is independent from price. Because the majority of landlords act like this, the price stays high, like an accidental cartel. Of course there are also tons of middlemen and agents who support them in this because that helps their businesses too.
B. Transient small populations. The average provincial town or city is 10 miles away or less from a cheaper suburb. Rental values might come down if a city's population was ring fenced in some way, but people just move away instead. This is paradoxical because it should also undermine demand, but if course there is also inward pressure from people moving in from rural areas who expect to pay more. Or student populations.
Overall we still have a frightening lack of supply that is keeping prices up, a shortfall in the millions, and the only workable solution is mass housing at affordable rates. Even if that seems dumb.
You may be getting the celebrations going a bit early. Local newspaper sites still fan nimbyism, let alone Facebook groups, even where the admins are future focused. Lib Dems and Greens use nimbyism, and I'm thinking that Tories will follow to keep some seats, where Trussism doesn't work (everywhere).
And maybe get the archaeologists on board, like your Rochester example on a main Roman road, could usefully be excavated.