Sure but like.........people always say that (for example) in London you can't live closer to work because houses/flats are too expensive. Ok, I mean that's true, but how are you going to solve that? It's a gigantic city which is already full to the brim, with literally 1000+ years of building on top of every single square inch of land available. You would probably have to demolish large areas of London and replace them with high-density housing to match demand - but obviously that's never going to happen. What other options are there? Maybe the only inevitable conclusion is that not everyone can live in London(or any other major city). You can't fix expensive housing in them by just wishing they were cheaper, or with regulations(or I'd love to hear how any regulations would help, beyond banning things like AirBnb).
The population is only 20% of the problem -> look at Berlin, it's population has grown 0.3% over the past 30 years, but the house prices have gone stratospheric just like they have in every other major city.
40% of the housing problem is whatever the fuck is going on in the banking system -> it enables us to commit all of our life savings for the rest of our productive lives to pay for a roof over our heads. It's like a hostage situation with the highest bidder.
> You would probably have to demolish large areas of London and replace them with high-density housing to match demand - but obviously that's never going to happen.
So true, my friend is not even allowed to raise your roof by 20 cm to create an extra room in the loft.
The planning system here is so crazy, I am confident it's like 40% of the problem.
Pointing to low growth and high prices tell us that isn't simple supply and demand pushing the prices up. Berlin even more as large swaths of the city are still underdeveloped after losing 2 million inhabitants since the 1940s-1950s.
How can Berlin, a city with ample free space and free buildings still see a massive increase in housing prices if it was a simple issue of supply and demand? There's undoubtedly something else much fishier going on.
Here in most places it is because supply is suppressed by government policy and the planning and approval process. Want to add a room to your house? That could be 10's of thousands in planning fees if it is even allowed and it still could be denied. Want to turn your laundromat into an apartment complex? Denied: the proposal will cast shadows across a lot where the city is thinking of building a playground for a local school[0].
Overall its very much in the interests of those who own property to keep more from being built and they naturally act for those interests.
I would also not trust that number of 0.3% population growth. Were did you get it from? There are a lot of refugees from Ukraine, for example, which may have given prices another boost in the last year.
Lol Tokyo and many other mega cities in the world are great examples how none of those things are actual barriers. London's issue is political will, because too many wealthy and politically connected people currently profit from the current status quo at the expense of the exploited supermajority.
Just saying "look at Tokyo" doesn't mean anything.
How exactly would you change London to be more like tokyo? As the simplest question - which areas of London would you demolish to make room for high density Japanese housing? Alternatively, if you're going to build wide, how would you connect those areas with the centre, if building new metro lines is pretty much impossible in London for historical reasons?
"London's issue is political will, because too many wealthy and politically connected people currently profit from the current status quo"
That just sounds like saying "it's the elites fault, dude". Like, sure, but please propose any actual solution.
You adopt the housing law of japan, which is set at the federal level and not the local level, where zoning is set in large regional areas, where if something is zoned for a 'high nuisance level' you can build anything of a lower nuisance level inside of those zones.
You don't need your neighbors permission to build, everything is basically by-right where you follow well a well defined housing code vs. needing special approval for every little thing. Just get out of the way and stop needing a license to do anything and you will see how quickly the market will sort it out in London. The people of London will decide THEMSELVES, what to demolish or not once given permission to do so, no central planning needed.
But it doesn't because the current system benefits those elites. Any time large amounts of special permission is needed to get anything done, creates the space for corruption in which a bureaucrat can benefit through bribes of one form or another.
What your basically acting like is acting like you can't exercise and eat right to lose weight while you have no mental issues, financial issues, health issues, disability or age issues blocking you from doing the basic things. London has the money, ability and ground where all this is possible. It's a form of learned helplessness in front of a system that has given you no way out.
Mate there is no other group campaigning harder to relax building requirements in London than the elites. There are so many rich people complaining they can't add another conservatory or floor or dig up a basement in their Victorian mansion in London. If you made it easier to build you'd basically hand a giant fat present to the hands of the elite. The idea that the elites keep the status quo by making bureocracy complex in London is almost naive.
This seems pretty silly to me. 30 story blocks of flats tend to be prevented by the planning permission system (potentially before they are proposed as developers may know what won’t succeed) which is roughly a combination of local government and local residents. There are other things which may make building difficult – historical preservation (eg listed buildings) applies to much of the more central parts of the city, construction can be expensive, etc.
Perhaps the real London elites are the clay underneath the city which makes tall buildings more expensive.
I'm sure everybody would like the right to build on their property as they see fit. That doesn't mean that they would want to grant their neighbors the same privilege.
Have you heard the expression cutting off your nose to spite your face? That's exactly what you're doing here.
Yeah, maybe some elites will get to renovate their houses. Who cares. Large apartment buildings would get built with huge numbers of units to help drive down rent.
I think you’re not accounting for the density of Tokyo dropping. By the 4th millennium there will only be five Japanese people left, two of them catgirls.
Fairly cheap. A guy working in a convenience store can afford his own apartment.
The problem is that housing in Tokyo is very small, and most Westerners (particular Americans) simply can't fathom living in it, and it would never be allowed to be built there. Westerners need to change their expectations.
> "You would probably have to demolish large areas of London and replace them with high-density housing to match demand - but obviously that's never going to happen."
Nah. There's still many areas of fairly low-quality, low-density housing near the centre of London. In fact, just about everywhere you look there are residential towers under construction: there must be hundreds of them going up right now! There is still plenty of scope to greatly improve the quality and efficiency of housing in London without sacrificing open, green spaces.
London has really good public transportation and, as this article mentions, lots of people in London do cycle to work (half of all the offices I’ve had in London has had an on-premises bicycle “shed”).
In fact I’ve met so many Londoners who never even bothered to learn to drive.
In my experience, it’s generally American cities that require a car rather than European cities. Generally speaking of course, you get good and bad city designs in all countries.
of course, which is why a staggering 1 million of people commute in and out of london every day. But again, I'm just asking how exactly can we address the high price of housing near workplaces in London specifically, if London is already full to the brim and new housing isn't happening not because of regulations or lack of political will - there's just no space to build any more.
I think the main drives are real estate investments and centralisation... Tokyo doesn't really have these issues in part due to cultural differences but also due to better regulations on urbanism. []
Depends on the city but generally what you’ve described is completely untrue. Usually European cities try to pedestrianise their centre as much as they can and have all sorts of public transport schemes from Park and Ride to regular underground and overground rail services.
I live miles out of from London and get the train in. Almost nobody I work with live in the city and none of them drive in. In fact you wouldnt want to drive in London.
This has been true for so many European cities, Cambridge, Chelmsford, York, Amsterdam, Paris, Berlin, etc. all are very accessible for non-car owners.
Anyone who claims you need a car to live in a European city is someone who hasn’t experienced many European cities ;)
The first three, so literally half that list, are relatively small cities. Certainly not “capital sized”.
I’ve noticed this trend you have of defining things in absolute terms despite the evidence being transparently not. Which I normally make an effort not to reply to your silly comments however on this occasion didn’t check who the commenter was before responding. Which is basically a longwinded way of saying I’m not going to continue on with this absurd exchange any further.
I live in the countryside now. I’m not oblivious to the benefits of driving. What I’m doing is providing counter arguments to the ridiculous absolutes you’re coming out with. Comments like “only” are simply bullshit.
But I suspect that’s intentional behaviour. You don’t want people to agree, you are actively seeking out an argument. Because if you wanted a sensible discussion you’d see that our two points were complimentary rather than contradictory.
I lived in the suburbs of a medium sized city. Everything was easily accessible by bike, but of course many people still preferred the convenience of a car. It took about 25 minutes from my apartment to the city center.
My wife grew up in the suburbs of an even smaller city. It took about 10 minutes to reach that city center by bike, but almost everybody drove because the road connecting the suburb to the city center feels very unsafe on a bike.
Two anecdotes, plenty of European cities aren't as fortunate, specially in southern countries.
Many cities are only city in name, and in practice more towns aspiring to be cities, specially in southern and eastern Europe.
Here is one anecdote, Portalegre might be a nice city, as Northen Alentejo capital in Portugal, yet those 20 km on average from the neighbouring villages aren't that nice to do on bycicle specially during Summertime with temperatures up to 45 degrees celsius. And if you're thinking about taking a bus, better save money for a taxi, unless you're willing to spend the whole day in the city, as there is only one bus into each direction connecting the neighbouring villages to the city.
How can they rent cars when they don’t have a driving license?
And no, they weren’t all capital sized cities.
I also don’t understand what vacationing has to do with anything when I was talking about backpackers, nomads and expats. Basically the polar opposite of people who vacation.
But this conversation is about people who don’t drive. Not people who do.
You’ve warped the discussion so far off it’s original topic that your entire premise here is now just one stupid straw man argument.
To get back on topic: nobody is disputing that there are people out there with driving licenses (well durrr!). It was to explain why some people (ie not all) are content without learning to drive.
It seems so bizarre that an adult would never learn to drive. Like you might not need to drive for daily city life but it really limits your options if you ever want to travel.
I agree. I know it's complete herecy, but I've done Europe-by-train and Europe-by-rental-car each many times, and I much prefer the latter. If you're talking about travel in America it's not even a question. You learn how to drive or you're going to be stuck in the same 10 mile redius for the rest of your life.
I'm one of the no-license London populace, and travel more frequently than most. I don't find that it has limited me at all. On the occasions when I absolutely need a car instead of the existing options, taxis are available.
That seems like a very limited perspective. I've been to many places in the world where taxis don't run. Being able to drive is a basic life skill, like knowing how to swim or cook a meal.
Many of the people I’ve met who cannot drive are actually some of the most traveled people I know. In fact spending short periods in lots of different countries makes it a whole lot harder to learn to drive.
I didn’t learn to drive until I was in my 30s and used to spend my 20s travelling the length and breadth of the U.K. and Europe. I even had a long distance relationship at the time too. A long distance relationship that worked because we are now married.
Sometimes I might have to plan a journey in advance (to figure out the route) but there were plenty of times I just went where the wind took me (proverbially speaking). And frankly even after learning to drive, smart phones weren’t invented yet and satnavs were luxuries, so you’d often still need to plan ahead even if you could drive.
So no, driving needn’t be an essential life skill for everyone. And that doesn’t mean they have a limited perspective either. On the contrary, if you cannot imagine life without driving then it is your perspective which is limited.
Learning to drive in some countries and for some individuals can take months, be hugely costly and still only result in a license that isn’t immediately transferable to other countries (eg you have to hold a license for x years before you can drive abroad and/or older than x years old).
Other countries might not even allow you to apply for a learners licence unless you have a specific visa.
So if you’re a young adult and travel a lot, it might not even be possible, let alone practical, to earn a license.
Which is precisely why I didn’t learn to drive until I was in my 30s and ready to start a family.
The what now? Please name a single country where you can't just enter and drive with an international driving permit straight away, I can't think of one off the top of my head. If you are going to live in a different country that's a whole different kettle of fish, but typically you can use your international permit for anywhere between 6 months - 3 years depending on the country. And the problem doesn't exist at all anywhere in the EU/EEA/UK, the licences can be used in any country without any time limit, or can be exchanged for the local equivalent without re-taking the exam.
You’re solving the wrong problem. The problem we are discussing is the difficulty of learning to drive when you’re travelling. If you already have a driving license then this entire discussion is moot because you don’t need to learn to drive if you can already drive. Pretty obvious stuff I’d have thought but a few on here seem surprised by this fact. Go figure.
"be hugely costly and still only result in a license that isn’t immediately transferable to other countries (eg you have to hold a license for x years before you can drive abroad and/or older than x years old)"
So I'm going to ask again, what kind of countries issue you with a licence that isn't immediately transferable to other countries? You can get an international driving permit literally the same day you pick up your regular licence, there is no time limitation on that - or if there is where you live, please educate me so I know better.
Maybe the rules had changed, but when I was considering learning to drive in the U.K., I couldn’t use that driving license in the EU unless I had been driving for more than 5 years (or something in that region) and was over 25 years old (again, something in that region).
So you couldn’t pass your driving test then immediately drive abroad.
Edit: I cannot find any detail on that so maybe this isn’t the case any longer. Learn something new everyday :)
What? Most countries support an International Driving Permit [1] which allows you to drive there on a tourist visa if you're licensed to drive in your home country.
I know. I already addressed the issues with that in my post. In short, your suggestion only works if someone has already had a valid driving license before travelling. Which plenty of people who travel lots (and I don’t mean holidays but backpacking for months/years on end or constantly moving from one country to another for work, moving on whenever they get bored) don’t have licenses.
Okay, so "short periods" that add up to significantly more than half the time? Since even if you spend every other week or every other month in another country that leaves you plenty of learning time if you want to.
That scenario adds up, it just wasn't what I thought when I saw "short periods".
“Travelling” in this context means people who spend months or years away from home. Or don’t even have a fixed place they call “home”. A bit like nomads, backpackers, etc.
Sure, some of them will drive. But I’ve also known plenty of people who cannot drive because they spend their time backpacking or who work a couple of years in one county then move to another.
But a couple of years is a huge amount of time. If you put in just 4 hours a week you'll be done in no time. Not knowing how to drive in that situation is because of not caring very much, not because of moving around. And the vast majority of what you learn stays relevant when you move.
> But a couple of years is a huge amount of time. If you put in just 4 hours a week you'll be done in no time.
Sure, if you put 4 hours a week into any activity you’ll soon get good at it. But the crux of the issue is whether that activity is seen as a priority or not.
> Not knowing how to drive in that situation is because of not caring very much, not because of moving around.
They didn’t care because they were moving around a lot.
And frankly it doesn’t really matter what the reason is. Regardless of whether it is a practical or preferential justification, the end result is the same: plenty of people manage just fine without learning to drive.
I find it weird that this concept is so alien to some people. But I guess that’s a good example of the diversity of the readership on here.
You can take a car with you when you move. And leases exist.
This doesn't seem to be about travel at all. It's just that some people don't get a license.
It's not that the concept is alien, it's that the justification you gave isn't really true. It doesn't make it a "whole lot harder to learn to drive". Moving around has almost no effect on getting some driving lessons.
> You can take a car with you when you move. And leases exist.
But you’re not going to have a car if you haven’t already learnt to drive.
> This doesn't seem to be about travel at all. It's just that some people don't get a license.
They don’t get licenses because they’re travelling.
Time is finite, not everyone wants to use it learning to drive.
> It's not that the concept is alien, it's that the justification you gave isn't really true.
It was literally the reason I learnt to drive so late in life. It was the reason many of my friends either learnt to drive later in life or still don’t even drive now.
You might not relate to us but that doesn’t make it untrue.
> It doesn't make it a "whole lot harder to learn to drive". Moving around has almost no effect on getting some driving lessons.
It does if you don’t have a fixed residence. What address are you even going to put on your provisional license?
And if you’re going to spend 2 years max in any one place then you’re there to soak up experiences, not spend it learning to drive.
Look, I get some people see driving as a priority. But not everyone is programmed that way and not every place on earth requires a car to get around. You say this isn’t an alien concept to you yet you fail to accept that people like me exist. So I don’t really know what I can say further
Different perspectives, perhaps. I'm sure it is a basic life skill if cars are necessary. For me and people around me, they aren't, and so it isn't. Any places without taxis have their replacements, or - much more likely - aren't suited for car travel at all. Swimming and cooking are skills of far greater necessity. It's strange to me to see driving compared to them.
Woodworking and the wiring of houses are also basic life skills, I imagine. I'll try to learn them when I get there. But so far, I've never wanted for the need to drive a car.
Traveled all over the world. Lived in 8 different cities. Never needed a car.
I am confused what you think you need a car for?? It is such a strange stance. Where have you gone that I can not go? Public transport exists. So do private tour buses.
There might be a survivorship bias here. You will have travelled to large cities with public transport because those are the most viable places to go if you can't drive. If you want to go to places that are remote/not got tourist infrastructure with buses (e.g Vietnam et Al) then you'd seem somewhat stuck. TL:DR A lot of the world is not located in metropolitan cities.
40-year Londoner here. The truth is that commuting costs compensate for cheaper rents. And where there is a difference you can also factor in the extra “work” time from spending 3 hours commuting every day. This changes when you work from home, but even then there are few places in suburban England where a decent cargo bike can’t replace a car. England isn’t like America where the towns were built around cars. Our towns pre-date them . (Except Milton Keynes)
Also, re-property costs. It’s mostly speculative. If we banned foreign non-resident buyers and disincentivised buy-to-let landlords then prices would be much lower.
You probably aren't renting further out. Owning a place versus just renting it changes the calculus quite a bit, and you are coming out ahead compared to paying 25% more to live closer in. Working from home also makes a huge difference. A longer commute is tolerable if you only have to do it a few times a week. The days where you don't commute add up to pay rise.
The problem is everyone else realises this too. Pricing in the south east of England is based around proximity to London commuter lines. You can go a huge distance to Southampton and you're still paying a large premium on housing because it's on an express line to London. Or the tiny town of Fleet which is in Hartley Whitney but has some of the highest prices and desirability in the country, again it's on an express train route to London. Ticket pricing works by marking up prices on these commuter routes to London and using those to subsidise the rest of the customers. The model somewhat falls apart as the wealthier commuters were far more likely to be in jobs that moved to flexitime/remote hence the scramble for revenue now post pandemic.
To answer your point to "live further out" as in actually pay enough for housing that it covers the ticket costs you're talking about Birmingham and beyond hour commutes.
In terms of regulations, I'd propose we bring back bigger down payment requirements (20%) and end the infinite availability of artificially low-interest debt. The absurdly cheap debt has driven speculation by bigger entities on housing, driving up the prices, and eased lending standards have just attempted to give individuals and families a fighting chance at competing for homes, also driving up the prices. I'm not sure how financing of homes in London compares to the US, but the effect of near zero interest rates (which is behind us at the moment but I wouldn't hold your breath) have been global. I don't know how you encourage mom and pop landlords while cutting out a lot of the wild speculative money looking for a home in real estate, but it seems pretty important to figure out.
Tax the undesired behavior. Using housing as an _investment_ should be heavily taxed based on the behavior's negative impact to society.
Live somewhere for at least 35% of a year (more than 1/3rd), then most of that tax goes away since it's a 'primary residence'. (35% to allow for moving as well as possible 'sunbird' / 'winter/summer homes', while still catching anyone who treats housing as an 'investment' (a tax upon the poor))
Landlords don't provide housing, buildings do. If they are taxed out of owning the building, they'll sell it to somebody who can live in it.
Yes, the world needs some amount of rented housing, but a huge percentage of people renting now want to own, just to have stability and control over their living environment.
They don't reduce housing supply. The same number of people are living in that building as would be if the building had been sold to them.
If you want to get to the root of the problem, look at the development process. Start with your local zoning laws. It is insane how tightly prescriptive they are, usually, and they generally have lots of density-limiting provisions like mandatory parking, maximum floor to area ratios, maximum heights, minimum setbacks, etc.
They don't reduce housing supply for living, but they do reduce housing supply for owning. Normal people being able to own the house that they live in seems like a reasonable societal goal to me, but the current economic climate is making that harder and harder as houses move into the hands of landlords (private and commercial).
Hotels, apartments, etc; things designed for such rentals should be in an entirely different category than (intended as single owner / dwelling) housing.
Regulatory structures and methods of oversight differ. It also impacts civic planning, and as we're seeing in real time, inelastic market needs as the basis of an ''investment'', cause extreme inflation.
There are ways to fix it, but none of them are politically palatable - for a couple of generations now, homeowners have come to believe their house is an investment. If you propose any action that will reduce the value of their "investment", you will be voted out at the earliest opportunity.
Unfortunately, I can't see a way this gets fixed under the current political systems in the West, so it will eventually be fixed one of the more old-fashioned ways.
It always comes down to two things: Land cost, and building cost. You get those two down and you'll see housing costs come down.
Land cost can be brought down by building furthere away from the center or in the countryside -> have smaller villages or towns outside of london.
As for building costs. How about we talk to developers and ask them what the biggest building costs are? Often times, it's regulation, regulation regulations. Get rid of all the ones that are causing high prices: at least this should be done in certain areas to allow those who want low cost housing some options.
200 years ago, Henry david thoreagh built a cabin for 28$. That's about 3000 dollars in today's cost. and back then the average person was able to pay off their house in just 10 years! The average house cost about 800$ which was about 800 days of unskilled labor (1/5th of what it is today if you include prop taxes) If it could be done then, then why can't it be done now? why has our standard of living dropped so much, that it's actually considerably lower than it was 200 years ago?
You say he built a cabin but it was basically a shed. One room, one floor. No insulation against noise or heat loss, no electricity, no running water, no toilet.
Our standard of living had massively increased since Thoreagh's shed, in part because of regulation requiring it. I'd be surprised to learn you can't build a shed for $3000.
One problem is huge swatch of premium land being dedicated to cars (parking lots, wasted whole floors of residential building for parking, huge highways through the city etc.
How much of a problem is this in London? New towers sometimes have parking underneath (ie where people don’t really want to live), others don’t; lots of the suburban part of the city has driveways or garages. I’m curious which huge highways you’re talking about?
