Densification for Dummies..!

Sub-dividing older suburban houses into small flats – or worse, HMO’s – has transformed vast acreages of pleasant and peaceful suburban streets into ugly LINEAR CAR PARKS and untidy streetscapes of UNKEMPT and OVERGROWN or CONCRETED-OVER front gardens, cars parked head-to-tail, long lines of over-flowing WHEELIE-BINS, builders rubbish skips, old mattresses and sofas and other kerbside junk.

At night or at weekends when most people are at home, with cars parked haphazardly on both sides such streets become slalom-like obstacle courses, difficult to navigate when met with oncoming vehicles.  Since the most appropriate sub-dividable properties – the big Victorian and Edwardian townhouses – have long since been converted into flats, the potential additional density increases are quite modest.  “Densification” in  “ethnic” parts of London usually means grottyHMO’s (houses in multiple occupation) or “Beds in Sheds”.   Sub-dividing old houses is an uninspiring and unimaginative idea that does not “improve the quality of urban life”, but creates the slums of the future.    

This drastic approach could easily triple the density of many suburbs, but it is politically and economically impossible due to the reality that most UK houses are owned piecemeal by individuals, every one of whom would expect to make a tidy profit – especially if the “government” is doing the buying.  Property is the one big investment that everyone in Britain is urged to buy into because, “you can’t lose by investing in bricks and mortar”, or so we have had drummed into us.   The only thing which could end the British obsession with the “property-ladder” is a long price slide lasting a decade or two, as has happened in Japan.  But, whereas Japan (quite sensibly) discourages immigration and thus has a steadily declining population, “multi-cultural” swinging Britain has massive immigrant-fuelled population growth.  It would be politically and financially impossible to compulsorily purchase sufficient private property to enable densification of even a small area of London’s vast sprawl. Furthermore, large scale re-development would be a slow process and it would take many decades to achieve any significant densification. And how would it “improve the quality of urban life”?   If large-scale urban clearances are to be the “densification” solution, it would be unimaginatively short-sighted to build conventional blocks of boring flats, especially given the huge cost of compulsory purchase and demolition.   Although it would take a miracle for it to happen – surely it would be so much better to build beautiful sustainable OA-Cities on those cleared sites?