“The Housing Crisis”
ENGLAND’S “HOUSING CRISIS”
Obliterating cherished countryside beneath housing estates is un-necessary, car ownership is un-necessary, and – grand heresy that it is to say so – home ownership is also un-necessary.
The storied landscape of ENGLAND – that “green and pleasant land” of yore – is rapidly being buried beneath hutch-houses, parking lots, retail parks, and endless “road improvements”.
“To solve the HOUSING CRISIS we must DOUBLE the rate of home building”, sayeth politicians eyeing-up the “youth vote”
But wait…England is already more built-over than any other country..!
So much for the 6% theory..!
A quick internet search misleadingly informs that the % of built-over land in Britain is “about 6%”. But this figure includes Scotland, Wales and N. Ireland – accounting for about half the UK’s land area – and which only have about 10 million people (compared to England’s 57 million+). I also suspect this figure doesn’t include a lot of extra-urban ribbon infrastructure, roads, highways, and god only knows what else that has been ruined in some way.
This map gives a good indication of the true scale of England’s built-overdness, and it looks more like 20% to me.
What 1000 new homes might look like (I didn’t count them, there may be less..!). “Solving the housing crisis” means building at least 300 such sprawls every year
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MR BLAND’S DREAM HOUSES
MR BLAND’s useless “GREEN SPACES”
If you can afford £500,000 + (maybe double that in outer London)
If we want a “booming economy” (do we?) we must accept a growing population, diminishing household sizes, and more people owning 2nd homes they only use occasionally – because all those things grow the economy..! Sadly most people have been misled into believing that covering our countryside with bland brick boxes is a necessary evil if it “solves the housing crisis”, makes it easier for young people to climb on the “housing ladder”, and delivers the “economic growth” we are constantly reminded is a many-splendored thing..!
If England has to have millions of new homes, why not build them in a way that conserves time, energy and resources AND actually beautifies the landscape?
If we are really serious about reducing carbon emissions we must
EXCLUDE VEHICLES FROM CITIES
But that would only work if we were to live near where we work, shop, and play – thus
ELIMINATING COMMUTING..!
Such aims can only be achieved if we totally re-think our concept of cities
As BuckmInster-Fuller said “You can only make marginal improvements by adapting an existing model – to greatly improve something you must build a completely NEW MODEL”.
Despite much higher-density, OA-Cities will not feel “over-crowded” as OB-Cities do at rush-hour.
“Over-crowding” is largely a perception caused by noisy and congested traffic, crowded and narrow pavements, and packed buses & trains – none of which will exist in OASIS CITIES
Cruise-ships are EXTREMELY densely-populated, but usually don’t feel “over-crowded” except when embarking and disembarking
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