Interesting Links for 25-9-2011

[andrewducker]

• Government plans could cut a third or more off thousands of house prices. Yaaaaaay!
  (tags: housing uk politics)
• Some great analysis of Labour's announcement on student fees
  (tags: labour education politics)
• First Clip From ‘Batman: Year One’ – looks good to me.
  (tags: batman FrankMiller)
• Ghostery - tells you what is tracking you on any particular web page, and allows you to block them.
  (tags: technology internet security software privacy)
• Brain scans and hallucinogenics. This is a picture of your brain on Ayahuasca.
  (tags: Ayahuasca drugs mri brain hallucinogenics)

Comments

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

IMO, relaxing building regs on the Green Belt is not an totally un-qualified YAY...

[andrewducker]

Not an unqualified one, but personally I prioritise cheap housing over the size of our green belts.

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

I am not convinced that it would necessarily lead to the end you are expecting. The article itself is(as I read it) talking about possible devaluing of large edge-of-country properties - which are in the silly-money range even after any possible 30% price cut. I'm also not convinced that the obssession with house *ownership* is healthy (had a bit of interesting reading one that lately as least as regards some of the US's post-war policy aims in encouraging it - basically that a man looking after a smallish 4-bed detached house with a garden hasn't then got TIME to be a Commie/other malcontent...)

The only people that would definitely benefit from more green belt building are big building firms (and maybe those who get political backhanders/favours to approve developments). I wonder how many of our politicos have links with these type of building firms???

Of course, being prey to overcharging landlords is not ideal either.

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

oh and, of course, people who already own big country houses who can now get permission to build other properties on their land and sell them...

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

precisely.

there is nothing to celebrate here

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I wonder if this article is part of the propaganda war about preserving the green belt.

If you (owner of large house in the country) don't get busy supporting the opposition to rezoning the green belt the value of your house will go down.

[matgb]

The only people that would definitely benefit from more green belt building are big building firms

Not true. I was convinced of this when I read through some excellent work on this by Tim Leunig of the LSE, he had some interesting analysis and a wide variety of even more intereting, and intriguing, solutions.

He favours brown belt building, but also complete small housing developments to create complete communities-less than 3% of England's land is currently housing, most is green field/green belt.

A primary objective was to sort out both overpricing in London and decline elsewhere. If you were to remove the green belt for one mile around London, and rezone some of the reseverved for commercial use land in London, you could get 700,000 homes (ish, this is from memory, the file got lost in a PC crash), which would signficantly push down prices.

In addition, some commercial companies currently based in London as that's where to be can be encouraged, as a result of the rezoning, to relocate elsewhere, where there's a shortage of investment, creating massive knock on effects (a business based in London that doesn't need to be can get much cheaper deals in, say, West Yorkshre where there's places standing empty or half used0, etc.

More housing puts prices down, and some 'green field' and 'green belt' land is close enough to an existing centre that it effectively expands a town.

I have no links with those building firms, and neither does Tim (I've met him a few times, partially as a result of his work), but the desire to substantially reduce the cost of housing, especially for the lower income brackets, is a good one to solve. Assuming it's all about profits for the currently-going-bust building firms is so far from the truth as to be problematic-we need more, cheaper, homes, the gren belt, as a specific, is what's giving landlords and property owners within residential zones massive subsidies and making life very expensive for the rest of us.

(IIRC Andy linked to some of Tim's work a few years back, not sure if it was before or after I met him but I didn't know him very well then if I did. I now mostly know him as he's a senior Lib Dem policy adviser and I've worked with him on some stuff, his land bank auction idea is superb and I hope it gets implemented).

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

this will do very little - almost nothing - to provide the sort of housing you mean.

the article makes it perfectly clear that we're talking about country estates here. The sort of houses that only millionaires can afford anyway.

that's not affordable housing, and will not in any way help the actual crisis, which is affordable inner-city housing.
this seems to be, unsurprisingly, the Tories thinking about their rich friends again

to that extent, the green belt is vastly more important.

[naath.livejournal.com]

Yeah.

What we need is cheap medium density housing. And where we need it is within walking/cycling distance of employment, schools, shops, etc.

What we do NOT need is expensive low density housing 30 miles from the nearest anything useful; on land that could be usefully used to grow food.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

There are a couple of attempts at pre-fab, modular 30 story buildings.

Basically Ikea skyscrappers.

Because they are mass produced and pre-fabbed they cost much less than bespoke skyscrappers to build and are quicker to put up. So the theory goes.

Granted there are problems with just sticking people into fairly cheap skyscrappers but I hope we've learned enough about what didn't work last time to do a decent job of it this time round.

Also, I recall this factoid from the last time we had a housing crisis and prices were nuts. The flat roof space of London is equivalent to the surface area of Leeds.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

First Clip From ‘Batman: Year One’

Much coolness, I'll definitely be watching that when it comes out.

[andrewducker]

Remember the days when Frank Miller made entertaining comics? Haven't seen _that_ in about ten years.

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

The "a third or more off thousands of house prices" quoted in the title of that article refers only to "substantial country houses" in green belt areas with "picturesque" views. This will not affect one iota the sort of house most people live in, only very large houses with price-tags way out of reach of the vast majority of people.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

I was about to say the same thing, the houses that will be developed in the green belt will not be houses you or I can think about purchasing.

It will just result in slightly cheaper country manors for the bankers and other assorted super rich hangers-on. Finally letting them build on all of those lovely sites the pesky oiks at the planning departments have been telling them they can't develop.

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

Well not quite, I expect the homes they will build in the green belts will be housing estates comprising 2/3/4-bedroom houses like you find in any town across the country. Just because they are built in a green-belt seems unlikely to affect their value. The houses that will have their value significantly reduced will be the already existing large manor houses with their grand views which will then be blighted by the new housing estates.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

I shouldn't imagine the manor houses will have estates built anywhere near them. Given the people who own the manor houses are generally the same ones that are building the estates.

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

the chap in the article states that it *wont* amount to lots of little houses peppered along the green belt.

pretty sure we're talking about more country manors

[matgb]

We're not, FWIW, that's a scare story aimed at Telegraph readers, some of the planned developments are in places close to where I currently live.

One "green belt" development that's having problems is a planned housing estate on what was a bus graveyard and is currently full of rotting hulks.

It'll be a standard estate with normal, standard houses, the sort of place I'd love to be able to afford but, due to restrictions on where building is allowed, am priced out of the market for. The policy is designed to allow for more housing for real actual people, as that's what's absolutely needed.

Will it also allow posh people to build mor emanor houses? Possibly. I care not.

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

d'oh, hit post too soon


even if it did, an awful lot of existing green belt is essential stuff like wildlife sanctuary and flood plane.


we've already seen what happens when people build on flood planes. Buildings tend to get flooded.

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

Year One

yeah. I think I'll be buying that.


saw a Batman triple bill DVD in Glasgow [Begins, DK, anime] and totally regret not buying.
may also check out the animated series, which I recall being of consistently high quality


Also, Ghostery is exactly what I've been looking for. yes.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

What we need isn't more houses, it's fewer people. Concrete over the countryside and it's gone for a century. Far better to restrict immigration and use the tax and benefits system to penalise breeders and reward the childless. And guess what, that has other green benefits too. And even better, benefits for the deficit and public services.

[d-c-m.livejournal.com]

First Clip From ‘Batman: Year One’ – looks good to me.
Wait uh Bats, are you sure you aren't talking to the bloodsuckers in all of America and not just Gotham?

Sorry. Just had to write that.