OK, the previous pic was a bit extreme, but maybe like this..?

Densification by OA-City would enhance and beautify our city-scapes and offer a much higher standard of liveability and convenience than time-wasting sprawl suburbs

Sir Terry Farrell (Architect-Planner-Landscaper) BBC Hardtalk 12/08

“London’s sprawling suburbs ‘must be densified’ in order to make big energy savings.”

“Starchitect” Lord Norman Foster

“The biggest challenge today is to provide for increasing density, at the same time as improving the quality of urban life.    This proposition is not as contradictory as it might first appear, as the most affluent areas of London are several times denser than the most deprived parts.”   

“There is a direct relationship between density and consumption of energy.   The compact city, whether low or high rise, consumes significantly less energy than the sprawling metropolis.”  

Norman Foster (Sunday Times 23/01/05)

Although it is very gratifying to know that Britain’s most famous Starchitect agrees with me on the detrimental effects of sprawl, what precisely did he have in mind when he said…

“The biggest challenge today is to provide for increasing density, at the same time as improving the quality of urban life”?  

DOES HE PROPOSE CONVERTING MORE SINGLE FAMILY HOMES INTO FLATS?

What could the government do to accelerate a process which has been going on for decades already?  Sub-dividing older suburban houses into HMO’s transforms formerly pleasant and peaceful suburban streets into ugly LINEAR CAR PARKS and untidy streetscapes of concreted-over front gardens, scruffy cars parked head-to-tail, long lines of over-flowing WHEELIE-BINS, builders rubbish skips, and other kerbside junk. 

At night or at weekends when most people are at home, cars are parked inconsiderately and haphazardly on both sides, and even on the verges.  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.  Is the plan to crate more grotty HMO’s (houses in multiple occupation) or “Beds in Sheds”, which is what “densification” amounts to in  many “ethnic” parts of London..?   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.    

OR WAS HE SUGGESTING THE WHOLESALE DEMOLITION OF VAST SWATHES OF "INTER-WAR" LOW-DENSITY HOUSING..?

 In theory this approach could easily triple the density of many suburbs, but it is politically and economically impossible due to the reality that most of London’s housing is owned piecemeal by individuals, every one of whom would expect to make a nice profit when they sell.   In Britain property-ownership is the one big investment that everyone is urged to climb onto because, as the old saying goes, “you can’t lose by investing in bricks and mortar”.   The only thing which could end the British obsession with the “property-ladder” is a long price slide lasting a decade or more, as has happened in Japan.  But Japan (sensibly) discourages immigration and thus has a declining population whereas “multi-cultural” 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 (like sub-division) and 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 political miracle for it to happen – surely it would be so much better to build beautiful sustainable OA-Cities on those cleared sites?

“Densification” is a good soundbite, but the sad truth is that neither Foster or anyone else knows how to “densify London” to any significant degree

 Britain cannot afford to buy out property owners at highly inflated market prices.

The FUNDAMENTAL FLAW with OβeCities is that PRIVATELY-OWNED PROPERTY has created a VAST LOW-DENSITY SUBURBAN SPRAWL

Except in a few locations or in piecemeal ways, any significant DENSIFICATION OF LONDON (or any OβeCity) could only be achieved by CCP-style totalitarian methods involving the compulsory purchase and/or confiscation of all privately-owned land and buildings at well below “market value”.

1980’s medium-density flats in Brighton – pretty they are not..!