London housing in the decades to come?

pragmatic

Hong Kong's metal cage homes: How tens of thousands live in 6ft by 2ft rabbit hutches | Mail Online

Really sobering to see this, almost made me well up seeing people live like this, all the current ingredients that make london housing market boom, foreign 'investment', too great a demand and rising etc we already have people/families living in backyard coalsheds which isn't far from the idea of the cube apartments, never mind the more directly comparable slum lords with multiple families living to a single house.

The capsule hotel idea is fine, but it is no way to live long term, these simple cages are worse living conditions than most prisons around the world.

I would state that this is absolute poverty, not the relative crap we have spouted over here, we should never reach this spot, but I have anecdotal stories from travelers working in the UK of conditions approaching these, although young fit men can endure the hardship by choice to have some more money in their pocket, non of the people in the article are there by choice, but effectively by market forces.

domtheone

Could easy see this happening in decades to come.

Uncontrolled population levels will eventually lead to this in more areas.

Either they sort the land owning/not in my back yard stuff out and start building more towns/cities/homes (say a city the size of B'ham every few years and 1 million new homes per year) else many are doomed.

Be 20 million in London before long

johntheexpat

How many houses have been built in the UK over the last ten years?


And why so few?  If the housing market is booming and the economy needs a boost and there is a massive shortage of homes (even unaffordable ones), why is UK house building moribund?  Who is gaining from this massive clamp down on making land available?

And if the problem is London and London alone, why aren't houses being built away from London and an infra-structure being built which can make London accessible from further afield in a reasonable timeframe?

So, in the middle of a massive recession, one problem which desperately needs an answer is deliberately not being addressed.  Even though that answer will provide a huge boost to the economy and a shed-load of really pretty good jobs.  Why is it being ignored?  Who is benefitting from HMG having its head in the sand?

fluxo

I have read that many developers have been hoarding land waiting for prices to spike up. Is there any truth in that?

Random link:

Start building or I’ll make you sell land, Mayor Boris Johnson tells developers - Politics - News - London Evening Standard

"There are thought to be up to 177,000 new housing units in the capital with planning permission in place but where the development has stalled [...]"

domtheone

Given how mad house prices are in London, I'm amazed that house builders are not falling over themselves to put as many of these cheap and nasty new builds up pronto.

Profit margins must be pretty amazing.  At least before the cost of the land wipes most of it out lol.

Building millions of new homes can only have a negative effect on current house prices.

Given that so much of GB PLC is propped up by massively inflated house prices, I can only assume that a bursting of the bubble would bring the government, land owners, banks etc etc to their knees.

Therefore, they'll always be a chronic shortage.

alan280170

Was speaking to a Singaporean friend, housing their is bad, he payed $800,000 for a 3 bed 1000sqft apt as he does not qualify for the local subsidized housing. His brother does and bought the same floor plan for a 1/3 of the price.

Here in China, their are very small houses and sometimes just one room for 4 people.

paulr

You get the feeling that the UK is run by property owners, for property owners.
I mean, who gains from loads of foreigners buying up property in London?

Ed Selley

There's no reason at all why London should have this issue- the space inside zone 3 let alone the M25 is vast. Before this degenerates into a spot of meaningless idealism, consider the following.

Every other major city with property demands like London has no difficulty going high rise. Thanks to the piss poor job that this country did in the 50's and 60's (another state effort IIRC), as a population, we are not keen on flats.

Even when people can be persuaded to give flats a go, London makes it pointlessly hard to build them. Have a quick look at the Protected View list and you start to realise that big chunks of one of the most expensive cities in the world has to be low rise to ensure that an indifferent populace get to see a big church they never visit.

Cliff

The reason we don't have unlimited building is mainly down to the people who live there already. We can't put all the blame on nasty governments/ landlords/ foreign investors. English people, especially those in the suburbs, like to see a bit of countryside. That's why we live there! We are the fly in the ointment!

Look at the M25. We can't even build it with the right number of lanes without swampy or some other group of nimbys popping up..

High rise buildings, like in New York, were a problem to build in London due the ground formation making foundations expensive and difficult.
Low rise flats, that were supposed to be the answer in the 60s went horribly wrong. Unlike Singapore, where people are proud of their high rise accommodation and look after them, flats in the '60s became ghettos. And were pulled down for that reason.

We have to look at open spaces or farmland to build with new railway connections. Cramming more rabbit hutches into London is not the answer.

Sonic67

There was a premiership footballer who shared his bed with four women, if a rich footballer has had to live like that what will life be like for everyone else?