A few days back, Perry de Havilland wrote about the sheer weight of regulations which empower officials to tell homeowners what sort of windows and fitting they can have in their own homes and mused as to whether such laws might, given their sheer impertinence, help provoke Britons to revolt. Maybe. I hope so but I want to mention another related thought – how the state makes it harder for us to carry out practical tasks in our daily lives, and what this does to our society.
Let’s face, it, home maintenance or ‘Do It Yourself’ (DIY) is not every man or woman’s idea of fun. In today’s hectic world, it makes a lot of rational economic sense to ‘outsource’ work to plumbers, electricians, plasterers and carpenters, and such folk can make a good living thereby (I read somewhere that a lot of ex stockbrokers have retrained as plumbers – it pays better). The usual Adam Smith arguments apply. But there will always be folk who, for either economic reasons or plain love of working with their hands, will want to look after their homes themselves. My dad is such a person and built the very house my parents now live in. It is a very good building.
Some of the satisfaction people get in buying a home – as I am about to do – is knowing that you can paint, decorate and shape your possessions as you like, subject to getting insurance cover, which tends to be rather more effective in promoting quality than government rules. In today’s world, of course, things like preservation orders and planning regulations impose tight limits on certain alterations, but even with such restrictions, owning a home gives us the chance to make a small physical mark on our world in a tangible way. This matters to people. Owning your own bit of bricks and mortar touches something in our psyche deeper than abstract political treatises on liberty ever can.
By telling us whether we should be able to wire a plug or put in double glazing, the State officials is continuing to infantilise the public, and also alienate us from our physical surroundings by telling us that we are not allowed to alter anything without a permit. By frustrating our desires to enjoy the simple pleasures of property ownership, our splendidly caring masters may be denying many of us the chance to to grab those small but priceless parts of daily life.
I recall reading somewhere that our passion for DIY originated as a response to post-war red tape and regulations of tradesmen, which inevitably made their services more expensive.
Anyone else know more about that?
Some of this stuff comes from an excess zeal to eliminate risk, some from the pieties of global warming. Some of it is sensible, but much is absurd.
However, the Building Regulations do understand and accept that many DIY tasks are well within the safe competence of the average DIY person – wiring plugs, changing sockets and switches, replacing a light fitting, plumbing in a sink, etc – and it is perfectly permissible to do this without bothering the organs of the state. In general, it is reasonable to say that the sort of DIY tasks the average householder is likely to take upon himself are not regulated. More complex things, like completely rewiring your house, installing a pressurised heating/hot water system, making structural alternations, etc., are not generally doable by the average Joe, and are regulated. In the vast majority of cases, the householder would hire a contractor to do this sort of work anyway, legal obligation or no.
For better or worse, we do not live in a bucolic paradise where each house is a hundred yards from the nearest neighbour and it really wouldn’t affect anyone else if it explodes, floods or falls down. We live generally in dense urban areas, and a problem in one house can have a serious effect on several others. This brings many forms of convenience and comfort, but the price for this is the sacrifice of other conveniences and comforts, and accepting a degree of regulation.
On the other hand, the burden of reporting the work and requesting permission lies with the householder. If you decide to do the work anyway and not tell anyone, then unless it is visible likely no-one would ever find out. But if your DIY wiring is faulty and the house burns down, your insurance would be invalid.
Basically, you can’t have absolute liberty. When you live in densely populated urban environments, you need to accept an even greater degree of regulation because the potential effects on others are far greater. I do think current regulation goes too far – much too far in some cases – but I think as a general principle the need for some degree of regulation where our lives overlap with the lives of others is simply inescapable.
EG
Indeed. Some years ago, a Danish guy was up on his roof doing some maintenance. Some government officials happened to pass by and fined him under the health and safety regulations for not wearing a hard hat and using scaffolding.
Oh, and there’s a strict legislation for what you can and cannot repair yourself in Denmark.
Let’s not let UK turn into Scandinavia. Please. I’ve already emigrated once and I like it here.
EG: The trouble with the regulations is that they do not apply solely to “the average householder”, they apply to all and sundry, including those who are fully capable of replacing a window or re-wiring a house, but happen not to be professionals. Let’s face it, wiring is probably the simplest of all DIY activities. It requires some background knowledge, a bit of knack and a modicum of common sense, but no real skill; it’s just join-the-dots. People should be encouraged to consider employing a professional if the task is beyond them, but to legislate all electrical work out of the hands of the DIY-er is to miss the point.
I think EG gets it right. And replacing Govt. beaurocracy by private (e.g. insurance company) beaurocracy is no improvement at all (see privatised healthcare, US style).
The exterior of a house obviously affects other people, because the have to look at it. Structural and flood/fire risk modifications will likely affect your neighbours. So I’ve no trouble with regulating these areas.
I have to say I’m not aware of any regulations in the sort of DIY I do. Some of the carbon monoxide regulations are overzeaous in private property (they are fine in rented property), and I know many tradesmen will turn a blind eye, or else make it easy for you to undo the damage when they’ve gone.
Regulations like this reinforce the Orwellian message of government in today’s Europe: ‘We own you (as well as your house)”. Seen from the US (and I came from the UK) it’s a return to a society of deferential serfs.
It sounds OK for a moment to put this off on the need to deal with the consequences of having so many people living so close together. But why do so many people live packed so close together while so much of the UK is close to empty, virtually depopulated? Exactly the same set of planning regulations.
Given the US planning environment the UK population would be spread much more widely, in newer towns constructed in ways which reflect the way people live now, and citizens could choose for themselves whether to live in dense urban environments or not. The most likely outcome would be the same as in the US: people with children would choose to move out of the cities, and their jobs would over time move with them. The overall result would be far more effective and sensible than occasional spastic efforts to move a few thousand civil servants and BBC employees to ‘the provinces’ where many of them, being young and/or single, are very sure that they don’t want to live.
I can hear the shrieks of horror from six thousand miles away, but take a deep breath and allow yourselves to consider for a moment: there’s actually nothing wrong with living more spread out like this. Especially if commute distances don’t lengthen because jobs are allowed to move along with the people (which sometimes is allowed to happen here and sometimes is not).
British people suffer under this crazy regime because of an intellectual failure – their inability to see what is right in front of their nose. 99 out of 100 of them don’t know that the planning regulations which oppress them and which they never question date only from 1947. If they knew that they might start to wonder why it is that all of the wonderful architecture they admire was built before 1947, without the benefit of planning restrictions, while virtually all of the ghastly eyesores which litter the urban environment have been constructed since that date, every one of them approved and in effect required by the planners.
Of course the only sensible thing to do is blame the whole mess on George Bush.
I don’t feel like a serf. I don’t imagine anyone else who posts here does. In fact, do we know anyone who does? Or are we really tut-tutting over the way other people behave, and blaming the state?
I have as much belief in the idea of individual rights as anyone else, but ultimately that means that I shouldn’t care if other people feel like ‘serfs’, either to the state or to the economy (their employer, landlord or bank). Saying “it makes other people feel bad” isn’t a good reason to change the system. Personally, I think it would take more than a few self-important council officials to make me feel like a slave to the government machine.
I don’t think there’s really much room to spread the population more widely. The north of England is (or was when I did geography at school) the largest continuous conurbation in the world. You can drive for hundreds of miles without ever leaving a developed area. We might be able to spread out a tiny bit, but not much – certainly not enough to give everyone their own detached house, which (I assume) would be the necessary prerequesite for allowing everyone to do their own gas installations without blowing anyone else up.
Yes, they pretty much have to. In a similar way, regulations imposed by fiat of the insurance company apply to anyone who wants to take out a policy with them.
And the regulations DO NOT do this. Read Part P of the Building Regulations for further info. Contrary to Boris Johnson’s diatribe on Newsnight, it is not the case that the private householder cannot replace a light switch on his own. The regulations state that the addition of a new circuit to the wiring system needs to be certified, however. Most DIY enthusiasts will NOT do this kind of work themselves, although I am well aware that there are many (myself included) who although not certified tradesmen are perfectly capable of doing the work to a proper professional standard.
This is true, of course, and it leads to a more pleasant and spacious life in so many ways. However, there is a problem the American might overlook – the population density of the US is roughly 32 per square kilometre, but in Britain the figure is about 245. Really. The State of California alone has a land area some 65% larger than the entire United Kingdom, and only a little more than half the population. Spread out living in this manner is much harder to do in Britain.
Similar factors apply to most of western Europe. France (109 people/sq.km), Germany (232), Italy (190) and Holland (382).
EG
Neville, you are dead right. The problem I have with arguments for ever-more state regulations is that even when rules do make sense, the best ones invariably tend to have emerged from the market, by responding to incentives, rather than from a civil servant. Libertarians are not against regulations, but favour the sorts which evolve from below, rather than from the state (Hayek’s spontaneous order).
One thing you notice these days in driving near modern housing estates is how bland and unimaginative a lot of the buildings are. This might be all very safe and sound and please the control freaks, but Kerist these houses look dull.
As Chekov once is said to have remarked, “We must squeeze the serf out of our soul, drop by drop.”
nice )
Partly, I suppose, because they are built in batches and the contractor wants to save money by having a standard design which reduces his costs. Seems like a perfectly good market solution to me 😉
EG
EG,
Apparently the difference between voluntary insurance and State Force still seems lost on you, which is unfortunate since it really is a lynch pin of the argument.
There is a huge difference between abiding by contractual terms for mutual benefit and oblique laws which wind endlessly through the bureaucracy. It reminds of a Frontline episode (shown on PBS here in the US) in which the commentators were teary-eyed over the tri-folded, small printed contract that made up a credit card agreement. They, of course, skirted the issue that much of what is in the material is State mandated, but also seem to ignore the most complex set of rules and regulations eminate from government itself, and ignorance of which is not an excuse. How a tri-fold contract was supposed to rate against layer upon layer of laws and regulation, I don’t know. Of course the tri-fold eminated from self-interested parties, while the laws represent Good and are created by people who Care.
A previous commentator also touched on a theme I was about to, and that is behaviors will likely change if houses are going up like roman candles left and right. State interference changes the way people behave. It becomes a circular function – State intrudes in the market, behaviors change, demands are made on the State to provide even more ‘protection’. Unfortunately much of regulation is not for Public Safety, but is an artificial barrier to entry to certain professions, thereby changing the market function. It is nothing more than Labor protectionism. Images of fiery deaths and mass destruction are sold to make the public give its assent.
At the end of the day, through State intrusions, via regulation and stimulation of certain technologies, more Statism results. Whether the cat is fully out of the bag or not I don’t know, that is, is there no turning back to a pure market structure with independent values. But there is no doubt in my mind that Statism breeds more Statism.
It isn’t, I am perfectly well aware of the distinction. However, I think altogether too much is made of it by the libertarians who fantasise that by dispensing with the state they can revert to some mythical golden age when everything was done by voluntary contract between consenting rational people. Such a time never existed, not least because people en masse aren’t sensible and rational enough to ever achieve such earthly paradise – the theory is correct, but unfortunately it won’t work in practice.
Most people would probably not agree that the unnecessary death of dozens of innocent people is a price worth paying just because you don’t want to have someone inspect your DIY handiwork. As I said before, the impact of this specific regulation on the average householder is minimal – most won’t in any case do themselves the kind of work which needs testing, and a competent installer will test it anyway even if not under a legal obligation to do so.
And in an anarcho-capitalist Nirvana, much of corporate activity would not be for the maintenance of a perfect free market but an artificial barrier to competition. Corporations want to defend their own interests, just as people and states do, you know.
In the context of the UK Building Regulations, it is actually not hard to get qualified to self-certify your own electrical and plumbing work. Then, you don’t need to pay someone to check it – and quite likely you’ll discover a whole series of things about the subject you had no idea about before. There are many DIY people who are quite capable of, say, replacing the socket power circuit (‘ring main’ in UK) in their house – but how many of these know how to thoroughly test it, going from socket to socket, in order, with notebook, pencil, plug and test meter? And the testing is not to meet some arbitrary legislative requirement, it is just to determine it is wired correctly such that it will work reliably and consistently without earth faults, etc.
It’s a trade-off between public safety and intrusion into everyday life. Most people will take a little intrusion in return for increased public safety.
EG
Four mini-sermons, out of thirteen comments, on a fairly trivial subject… must be some sort of record.
If I wanted to be preached at, I would go to church!
As the saying goes, ‘There’s one in every group’. – So much enthusiasm, so much knowledge, so much spare time…
I said “to legislate all electrical work out of the hands of the DIY-er is to miss the point” and EG said “And the regulations DO NOT do this.”
Fair enough, they don’t; they do legislate major electrical work out of the hands of the DIY-er, despite the fact that I and many others are more capable of re-wiring a house (which is prohibited) than some people are of changing a plug (which is not). The regulations take some arbitrary level of potential risk, then permit everything below it and forbid everything above regardless of the individual circumstances. It becomes illegal to do a particular thing safely but it remains legal to do a much simpler thing unsafely.
I’ve already expressed my doubts about the usefullness of inspection processes in the previous thread on the subject.
I can accept a certain degree of state intrusion to ensure a reasonable level of public safety, and I don’t have a problem with the idea that safety-critical work may benefit from a check to ensure it is done right.
However, I have to keep coming back to the point that 99% of safety lies in design and workmanship, and that a cursory inspection will not find flaws in either. It’s axiomatic in my line of work that ‘you can’t inspect quality into a product’, and the same applies here.
For every horror story dredged up of fire or explosion casued by un-inspected work done by unskilled amateurs, I’ll drag up a matching story of fire or explosion caused by work which was done by licensed professionals and which passed inspection. Tests and instrumentation checks may make inspectors and insurance companies happy, but even they do little to actually ensure safety or long-term durability. For example, I can do you an electrical installation using all-approved materials, which will pass every instrument check that you can think of, and yet which is horrifically dangerous. I know of at least one house which was seriously damaged by fire only weeks after finishing construction and being inspected. Reason? A staple through the electrical wire instead of over it. Not enough current was leaking to ground when the inspector hooked up his ground-fault tester, but a few weeks later, in the fall, when the humidity was much higher – bingo. Fire in the enclosed space and half the house burned down. You could have inspected for a week and never found the mistake.
The other issue I have with inspection is that its whole focus has changed from public safety to ensuring compliance with a hundred-and-one regulations which have nothing to do with public safety, but which are easy to check. The example that sticks in my mind is the daft US requirement for commodes which use no more than 1.6 gallons per flush. This has nothing to do with public safety, but is a feel-good ‘green’ regulation. An inspector will take 10 seconds to pass an eye over the waste and vent piping – which is where the health and safety issues really are – and then spend a half-hour checking and certifying that every stool is duly certified at 1.6 gallons.
Inspection has become a combination of three things – a revenue source for the inspecting agency, a make-work program for both licensed professionals and inspectors, and a vehicle for enforcing regulations which have nothing to do with the general well-being. Most professionals know to the inch the exact things they have to do to pass inspection, most will do exactly that and not a jot or tittle more.
I won’t even go into the matter of inspectors who inspect down to the standard – who reject work that exceeds the standard because ‘that’s not what it says here in my book’. The inspection business has more than its share of mindless drones, and a mindless drone is not a good person to have ensuring the public well-being.
llater,
llamas
You, know EG, it might be possible that the local Nanny-ism you are used to is not acceptable or needed elsewhere … or perhaps not even needed where you live.
I have been through areas in Idaho, Alaska, Montana, and Wyoming that had absolutely no building codes, zoning, or civic planning.
The new houses built there were perfectly sound.
A bank won’t finance a house without insurance. And in areas with no codes, insurance companies use their own building inspectors.
a lot of ex strockbrokers have retrained as plumbers – it pays better
Reminds me of the time my friend from the UK was visiting. We were talking about house repairs and how she had to replace all the plumbing in her house near London (two baths, kitchen, laundry and outside pipes) which was hugely expensive. As talked in my car, I was giving her a tour of the fancy neighborhoods in Princeton, and as we drove past the fanciest mansions, she said,
“This must be where the plumbers live!”
“So much spare time,” sneers Mr Ernest Young. What are you doing here then?
If the subject bores you EY, then tough.
EG:
” I think altogether too much is made of it by the libertarians who fantasise that by dispensing with the state they can revert to some mythical golden age when everything was done by voluntary contract between consenting rational people”
Revert!? I think that rather misses the point. I sincerely doubt anyone here believes in a golden age; the farther you go back in political history, the less free things get, the more power is held by a central state (or monarch, or chieftain, or whatever.) Market forces, contractual arrangements and such have grown in importance with time. We want to dispense with the State because it no longer serves the purposes for which it was once well suited, and in fact has become inimical to them, not because we think we can ‘revert to a mythical golden age.’
Good god man. Give us some credit, here.
Jonanthan,
It’s not the subject that bores me, it’s the pompous preaching that is boring…after all, isn’t the idea of this blog to promote discussion – rather than indoctrination?
That so many of you ‘twenty-thirties’, recently graduated, types seem to have so much spare time during the working day, does rather prompt the thought of what they might achieve, if they spent as much time and thought on their day jobs. My excuse is that I am retired…
That you consider my remark a ‘sneer’, may indicate that you have a small ‘guilt’ problem…
Infantalize the public is exactly right. I really think that the socialist ideology makes a victim out of each person and makes them dependent on the government. Whether it is on purpose or not. Socialism teaches you:
Work is hard, people should not have to do stuff they don’t like, everyone deserves a decent life, people are generally good so you needen’t protect yourself or be careful of people but instead trust people and give them the benefit of the doubt, guns and weapons are bad so don’t go near them or learn about them, it is more important to be creative than to learn factual things, heart is more important than mind, government ought to take care of you so hold them to account for all things that you require, companies and private things are all bad because those people are greedy, sharp things are bad because you might hurt yourself, call the cops if anything happens because government provides them to take care of you, etc etc.
Is it any wonder that people raised liberal are so often drug using victims and jobless freaks?
It is so confusing and leaves you dependant on government. People are good, no wait, people are greedy — no, wait, only those with jobs are greedy! …
Well put, llamas. I was going to post on similar lines but will restrict myself to adding that, even if approved and certified contractors are used,
1. The insurance company will do its best to avoid paying out if there is a disaster.
2. Trying to sue the contractor will result in them donning a false beard and assuming a new trading title.
Of course, the “get it done by a licensed professional — for safety’s sake!” argument doesn’t hold much water when the licensed professionals are morons. Here in the States, at least, a lot of the work done by professional electricians is shoddy, not even close to meeting common-sense or even code standards of safety. If I had a dollar for every “professional” wiring error I’ve (illegally) fixed during my DIY projects, I’d be a rich, rich man.
In short — check the premises. If the pros do a shoddy job, there’s nothing gained by requiring them under even the most elaborately paternalistic and safety-focused of assumptions.
–G
Euan wrote:
I keep hearing that old canard or some variation on it, telling me ‘what libertarians think and why’ yet I can count the number of real live libertarians who I have met who actually do thinks like that on my fingers. And I suspect I know considerably more libertarians that Euan does.
In reality most libertarians do not want the state regulating their lives BECAUSE they realise that many, perhaps most people are neither rational nor reasonable, and know full well that this has always been so… hense giving some people wide ranging force backed political power and assuming THOSE people will be more rational and reasonable is utter madness.
The fact that modern industrial era cities grew up without monthly catastrophic conflagrations (and in times in which open fireplaces was the usual way of heating) does rather suggest that state regulation is NOT the only way to ensure the survival of urban civilisation.
Euan:
“the population density of the US is roughly 32 per square kilometre, but in Britain the figure is about 245”
Lies, damned lies etc.
This actually works out at 3 acres per head. That is a huge amount of space for one person.
The real reason why we are forced to live cheek by jowl in England in tiny and expensive houses is not because there are so many of us, but because of insane planning laws that prevent almost all construction on agricultural land, unless it’s a cow shed.
Earnest, how do you know how old I or other commenters are? Have you been stalking us or something? Anyway, on to other things.
Jonathan,
Don’t kid yourself, it is surprising how much can be deduced from the style of writing, and the degree of passion shown for the subject under discussion.
The style adopted for doing term papers etc, has a certain ‘woodenness’ about it, no doubt to please some old fart of a professor, and takes a few years to grow out of…:-)
Of course – I could be totally mistaken…..
As someone remarked, this is partly the fault of builders & developers who, apart from wanting to maximise profits (commendable in itself) seem almost universally bereft of imagination, good taste and creativity.
But mostly I suggest it’s the planners. For professional reasons I see lots of houses, interview people who self-build, or commission new/renovated houses. Universally, they experience obstruction at best, or hostility at worst, from planning departments. It’s classic bureaucracy: over-complex regulations keep the public confused & cowed, baffled by bullshit, and it’s always safer to refuse anything original or different because something new sets precedents. And precedents mean more work because things have to be assessed on individual merit rather than according to the standard template. By playing safe and refusing something creative or interesting, the bureaucrat covers his arse because he can plead that he was just following the regulations…
In my experience there are few more dismally philistine, oppressive branches of local government than planning departments.
Ernest, stop making an ass of yourself. Go away.
If he didn’t want discussion why would Johnathan post it on a site with comments?
Like most self-centred egotists he is assumimung that I was referring to him – I wasn’t…
That much would be obvious if he had taken the time to count – four sermons in thirteen posts!..
The man is pathetic….
Ernest, it is the tyranny of the word processor. Spell checkers and grammer editors tend to produce the same style. Lets face it, if the immortal Bard had used Word, he would have been just another hack writer. I try to make at one egregious spelin mistake per post. It shows I’m not using a word processor and it also pisses off the overly anal. Blowing the head gasket on the ocasional English teacher is fun too.
A perfect example of why Samual Johnson claimed to love all manner of men, EXCEPT Americans.
Stehpinkeln,
Point taken on the tyranny of word processors – up to a point… my gripe was really on the matter of style, something dictated more by personality than grammar.
While it all too easy to sit at a keyboard to dash of a piece in reply to a post, and if, for example, the writer is used to instructing others, then the style of the writing may well reflect a certain sermonising, more from habit than any intent to ‘talk down’ to a reader.
I tend to think of a discussion, as being between equals, with a degree of respect given to all viewpoints, rather than as a course of instruction…
Okay, I have calmed down a bit now, but Ernest, I am not aware of anyone trying to “impose” any viewpoint on anyone. This is a libertarian blog, it does what it says on the tin. Most of the views expressed in the main part and indeed in the comments will tilt in that direction. It comes with the territory.
Anyway, I am bored with this. Let’s turn to something else. We await your unique contribution.
And hence need to be constrained and regulated to some degree. This is a point of principle, not an argument for overweening state control of everything, by the way.
Why is it that libertarians advocate private sector control and laud the rational nature of the market which apparently makes this plausible, yet at the same time realise that ‘many, perhaps most people’ are NOT terribly rational? If regulation of this sort depends on individuals making rational purchase choice decisions in a free market, how is it supposed to work if people don’t make such rational choices? Can’t have it both ways.
So why is it not madness to give corporations, which are like states made up of people, power? In a wholly private sector system with no state, the ultimate compulsion of force (which is necessary and unavoidable in any society) rests with corporations. Why are they more rational? If corporations have that sort of power, what rational choice are they going to make, contrary to their own selfish interests, to allow and free and fair market to persist? If people are not awfully rational, why are companies which are run by people magically more rational?
It is also fact that in the absence of any meaningful regulation, building collapses, major fires, etc, WERE in fact considerably more common than today. This doesn’t mean that cities burned down every other week, but it is not reasonable for you to imply that an absence of regulation magically makes everything better. It doesn’t. Too much regulation is a problem, I agree, but no regulation is also a problem.
Yes, but from that 3 acres per head you also have to provide roads, railways, ports, airports, farms, industrial areas, and so on. Then there are the areas which cannot realistically be used for residential purposes by virtue of being bog, march, half way up a mountainside, etc. Not quite as much now, is it?
…is not just one reason but several:
House prices are overinflated because many mortgage lenders don’t check applicant incomes, and furthermore lend according to joint incomes – this makes it difficult for young single people to buy;
People find many advantages in living in cities, not least the ready availability of services, shops, etc. This seems to outweigh the comfort of a more spacious lifestyle for a great many of them;
At present, few people work from home (although this is likely to change), and therefore there is a major practical advantage for most people in living close to their fixed place of work;
The cheapest way of providing housing (and see above re affordability) is high density urban housing using identikit designs;
Not only houses, but many of the services and facilities the householder uses, are cheaper in cities because of major logistical savings.
It’s not a conspiracy by nasty statist planners. People have always gravitated towards cities, and tend to look for cheap housing. Not everyone can afford to buy individual-looking houses, and it is not practicable for everyone to live in the country.
EG
Jonathan,
I too, am bored with this storm in a tea cup. However, (there is always one of those), if you read my comments, I did not mention anyone ‘imposing’ ideas, my complaint was in the delivery of those ideas, rather than the content.
Anyway…. on with the motley…
No.
People want the best house on the largest lot they can afford.
During that brief respite in early twentieth century in the US, when people could drive, and afford homes, and didn’t have to deal with planning, zoning, or codes, people bought small houses on large lots out in the sticks.
Most people do not want to live in human ant-mounds.
They end up there only out of economic necessity, or as a result of State fiat, or both, regardless of what the planning crowd would like to have us believe.
Funny how people have been moving into cities for, oh, the past four thousand years? Just because you don’t want to do it doesn’t mean everybody else hates it too.
Or practicality. If you have a job that doesn’t pay all that well, you aren’t going to buy a larger house in the country and spend extra wodges of cash commuting every day. Some people do, for example in the case of London, but that’s a somewhat distorted example since property prices in much of London are insanely high and it’s actually cheaper to commute.
But economic necessity is fair enough, and I don’t see why it’s a problem. I grew up in a village on the opposite side of Scotland, but now I live in Edinburgh. If I want a reasonable income and hence quality of life, I can’t do this from a little village in the west. I’ll happily trade a little discomfort in one sense for greater comforts in others, and so will most people. If the balance goes the other way, I would move back to the country.
The state does not compel me to live in a city. In fact, the market does – it is inefficient and expensive to operate the kind of business I work in out in the sticks, so we do it in cities, and so I live in a city because it’s more convenient and economically sensible for me to do so.
EG
Hmmmm. I think we are both being a bit provincial here.
In the US, suburbia is the norm. I suppose it isn’t in europe. I will leave the original reasons for this to another thread.
I would suggest that if you want no part of suburban life, then you have no business telling us where to live, and what to live in.
Or even doing that to an urban dweller, provided you cannot prove that his acts endanger or harm you. directly.
Population density. It isn’t rocket science. Parts of Europe have more than 10 times the population density of the US, and huge sprawling suburbs all over the continent simply are not possible, however desirable they may be to live in. There just isn’t enough land.
And perhaps you could point out where, exactly, I did this?
My point is that over here people live in relatively expensive small houses in relatively packed cities NOT because the state or its agencies force them to, or because anyone else forces them to, but because it simply makes economic and practical sense. It’s a choice, not compulsion. In a different environment (much of America, say, rather the most of Europe), the cost/benefit ratio is different, so different choices are made – what applies in America does not, necessarily, apply in Europe.
City houses are frequently small because of the pressure of population and the market desirability of selling as many units as possible in the smallest space, and they are often expensive because many people actually want to live in cities for reasons rehearsed above, hence the market price of land and property in cities is considerably higher than outside.
Again, this is simply pressure of population. Land and property in the US are comparatively cheap simply because there is so much more per capita than in Europe. It’s really the market, rather than anyone telling anyone else where to live.
EG
When you support planning and zoning laws, you are authorizing the State to tell me where to live and what to build, and doing it at gunpoint.
As for population density and the market being responsible for urbanization … well, if it is, then you should have no objection to repealing all zoning and planning laws.
They are unneeded. The market and density will prevent suburbanization, by your logic.
And in general I have no such objection, as I should have thought was clear enough from my posting.
I don’t see a problem, however, in having some regulations governing things like fire safety and gas installations, simply because negligence in these areas can have a considerable harmful impact on many others and indeed has done in the past. There is that I can see no particular need for urban planning legislation, since extant law on nuisance can deal with, for example, some thoughtless idiot running a trucking business from his home in a residential area.
It should also be borne in mind, however, that the pressure on space in most of Europe really does mean that the American idea of doing what the hell you want on your own patch is much harder to apply, because the number of people affected by your actions is markedly increased.
EG