We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
|
Samizdata quote of the day – A lovely example of the costs of bureaucracy Why are such “small” sites not viable for the large developers? More pertinently perhaps, why are there not small developers who choose to build on sites of such scale? Because the bureaucracy – that interminable fight through the local council to gain planning, the demands for most of the profit to arrive as social housing and on and on – means that no small scale builder can survive. It’s necessary to be operating at a large scale to pay for all of that. You simply have to be a large organisation, building at scale, to be able to afford the army of your own bureaucrats necessary to fight the state.
So, abolish that bureaucracy and small scale builders will reappear and those 850,000 homes will be built.
850,000 houses missing in London alone. That’s what the current planning system denies us all. Probably a good idea to fire the bureaucrats and have the houses instead.
– Tim Worstall
|
Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
|
There is a vast amount of house and flat building in almost every English town – why this is not going into official statistics I do not know, but anyone with functioning eyes can see the houses and flats being built everywhere, destroying much loved areas (rural and urban) and clogging the roads with yet more traffic – it may not all be the direct result of mass immigration (legal as well as illegal), but it is the indirect result of it – with English people leaving cities such as London (being displaced) and moving into towns and even villages – but the immigrant populations (and their natural increase – births) are also showing up outside the major cities – in once ordinary English towns. The writing-is-on-the-wall (the wall in Babylon telling the King and his people that their city would fall) for the native population – not just in the major cities, but in the towns and even (eventually) the rural areas.
As for London – blocks of flats, which it was hoped were a thing of the past, are being thrown up – the population of London has exploded (especially when one takes account of the people who do not bother to register in official statistics – but even the official statistics show a massive increase), neither the roads or the sewer system can take this increase in population – the “private water companies” are taking the blame, but they are really in an impossible position.
As for the “Planning Laws” – go ahead, abolish them if you want to do that. They totally failed to stop the runination of British towns and cities by the destruction of beautiful buildings and their replacement with ugly (and often structually unsound – so much for Building Regulations) buildings.
You will find that abolishing these 1940s statutes (and the statutes passed later) would make no-real-difference to the “housing shortage” in London or anywhere else, but if it pleases you to abolish these statutes – well fair enough, do so.
And the point about small builders is TRUE – the “Planning Laws” do not stop developments (well they do once in a Blue Moon – but very rarely) – but they do mean that building is dominated by large Corporations who understand the system (have lawyers and so on), some ordinary person who does not understand planning law has no chance.
As I said many years ago – if you want to build five thousand houses destroying fields and woods that people love, there is nothing we can do to stop you (not if you are a major Corporation) indeed we have to (in effect) subsidize your development, with roads, “public services” and-so-on, but if you want to convert a decaying barn for you and your family to live in – the system will make your life Hell-on-Earth. The system is basically “Agenda 2030” long before this term was invented – indeed long before the World Economic Forum or the Club of Rome existed – the system is NOT designed to prevent developments – it is designed to make sure developments are controlled by Corporations – which are joined at the hip with government (the Corporate State).
By the way – small builders are sometimes not saints – for example there is a small builder in Kettering who constructed a block of flats that is both against the Planning Laws and against Building Regulations (because it is structually unsound – even by the horribly low standards of modern architcture) – he will not leave this block of flats he has built, he seems determined to either be dragged out kicking and screaming, or wait to the place collapses on his head.
One may not care about him – after all he is the victim of his own folly, but the collapse of his block of flats might injure or kill other people.
The madness of private (as well as government) developers goes back a long way.
For example, up to 1958 the Peacock Hotel in Northampton was one of the great landmarks of the town – a beautiful building, and one in which Winston Churchill had stayed in and campaigned from.
A developer took the doors and windows out – and left the place to decay (selling fireplaces and so on) and when it had decayed for two years, said “you have to let us knock it down now – because it has become structally unsound” – which was true it had (because of what they had done for two years).
It was, of course, replaced by horrible buildings – which, in turn, have been replaced by more horrible buildings.
Cultural decline, the decline of a civilization – the decling of a society, is not just a matter of this or that statutes being passed – it is in the spirit of the people.
In the past if a private developer wanted to destroy a building they would have felt a moral obligation to put something BETTER, not worse, in its place – but after World War II (and with the rise of Corporations – rather than individually owned enterprises) this just went. The new attitude was “I could not care less – about anything” – it was not even seeking after money, as a lot of the plans led to commercial losses – no one seemed to care about that either, even when it was pointed out in advance that the plan would lead to a loss – not a profit, “let us do in anyway – let us destroy for the sake of destroying” seemed (and seems now) to be the attitude.
If one looks at people now (including me – I do not deny that I am part of the decay) the decline is obvious – not just among the scum who mess up war memorials and so on, but among most of us.
The gradual death-of-the-West.
Worstall is spot on, as usual. What he’s talking about here is the “barrier to entry” issue that regulation creates. The same applies to things such as occupational licensing of trades and occupations. Other regulations drive demand that even basic jobs now require a university. Result: credentialism and a bloated university system with high fees and student debt. Examples multiply.
The example of the Peacock Hotel reminds me:
From “Executive” by John Betjeman:
I do some mild developing,
The sort of place I need
Is a sleepy little market town
That’s rather gone to seed.
A luncheon and a drink or two,
A little savoir faire,
I fix the planning officer, the town clerk and the mayor.
And if some preservationist decides to interfere,
A “DANGEROUS STRUCTURE!” notice from the borough engineer
Will deal with any building that is standing in our way.
The modern style, sir, with respect
Is really here to stay.
Johnathan Peace – yes, the system does not prevent developments (much to the despair of local people up and down the country who see that they love ruined), it ensures that developments are done by Corporations with lawyers – rather than independent (family) local builders. The function of a system is to do what it does – so the function of “Planning Law” is to do what I have just typed.
KevinR – yes, and as John Bentgeman well knew…. it is the developments that make a town “go to seed” (rather than save it going to seed), towns such as Kettering, and, even more, Northampton (and towns and cities up-and-down the country) were greatly harmed by developments – 70 years ago such towns were worth visiting, they really were – even for people from overseas, one would have to be deeply dishonest to recommend travellers to visit such towns today. Although things could-be-worse – our local version of John Bentgeman, Tony Ireson (although he lived very close to me, I did NOT know him well – the gap between our ages was too great), fought the council and the developers (who were very much in the same side) with everty breath in his body – and he had some success, had the original plans being followed not even Dalek would want to live here. The town was only partly ruined – not totally ruined (which was the original plan – I have seen the original plans). See his book “Old Kettering and its Defenders”.
In the United States such appalling plans were called “Urban Renewal” – and were also pushed by an unholy alliance of government and developers – “Crony Capitalism” or the Corporate State. However, Fort Worth is a, partial, exception – as the Bass family seem to have actually cared about the place (normally developers were just obsessed with doing as much harm as possible). What the Bass family built may not be everyone’s cup of tea (perhaps it is not my cup of tea) – but one can tell that they (the Bass family) liked it – normally modern developers create stuff that they themselves hate and would never visit.
As for “dangerous structure” – it is, of course, the new structures that were dangerous (from day one) – whether they were all the defective council houses that “Super Mac” (Harold MacMillon) had built (even the roof timbers are wrong – and were often laid without runners), or the blocks of flats, or the office buildings, or…. well everything.
The building I hate most in all the world is in Paris – the Pompidou Centre, I hate the building, I hate what is in the building (modern “art”), I hate the (Marxist) architects, and I hate the fake conservative it is named after – President Pompidou – who started the influx into France which is destroying the nation, but Britain was also hit – for example the old Lloyds building was NOT destroyed by German bombing, it was destroyed decades later – to make way for the piece of Rogers junk that is there now.
Paul Marks 11 October @ 5-50AM
“it may not all be the direct result of mass immigration (legal as well as illegal)”
Yes it IS caused by mass immigration, solely by mass immigration alone.
From reading the newspapers, during the last Conservative government, 12 million people immigrated (the ones that they know about and have been counted) which in a population of 65 million means an 18.5% increase. Those people need to live somewhere.
However, it is accepted that the fertility rate to maintain a numerically static population is 2.2 children per woman. This video states that the fertility rate of the native British population is 1.5, well under replacement level needed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mggr0qYojTc&t=165s
He explains that without massive and uncontrolled immigration, then with declining population numbers, there would be a surplus of housing and the ridiculous prices of houses would fall, allowing larger family homes to be affordable for younger people.
Asking “how can we build more houses, more cheaply and more quickly” is approaching the problem from the wrong direction. The question should be why are we importing the rest of the world and doing nothing to stop this assault on our land, customs and way of life.
Instead, the country is being turned into slum housing from coast to coast.
Phil B – you missed the word “direct” – which is explained in my previous comment.
Housing shortages in some (some) places may not be the direct result of mass immigration (legal and illegal) – but they are, even in areas that yet have few immigrants, the indirect result of it – as English people flee the cities and go into the shire towns and rural areas, not yet understanding that the shire towns and rural areas will also eventually fall – indeed the migrants (and their natural increase – births) are starting to appear even in the shire towns and rural areas.
So I agree with you that this obsession with building more houses and flats (supposedly to be delivered by getting rid of the “Planning Laws”) is silly nonsense.
There is also family breaddown – men living along in houses built for families, or men kicked out these homes by their wives (with the support of the leftist “Family Courts”) and forced to live on the streets.
Family breakdown, like the collapse of the fertility of native Western populations (including even white Americans now – Mark Steyn’s “America Alone” is now, tragically, outdated – as Americans have joined the parade of death) is not an accident.
It is not an accident – it is the deliberate result of Progressive policies pushed since the 1960s.
As recently as 1960 Western societies, peoples, at least appeared strong – now they are clearly dying, and this is not a natural death. The Western World, historic Western peoples, are being murdered – murdered by Progressive policy.
The modern doctrine that everyone is the same – so, for example, if one imports people for Pakistan into Japan they (the imported migrants) will somehow become Japanese, is nonsense.
Utter and complete nonsense – but the international establishment is committed, fanatically committed, to this utter and complete nonsense.
@Paul Marks at 11.38PM
So illegal migrants moving into towns and making the place intolerable for the white indigenous population and causing them to move to other areas, hence putting pressure on those areas is NOT caused by illegal migration?
OK, now I have been educated, I’ll shake my head and wonder why housing is so scarce and be puzzled why this is so when absolute number of the indigenous population is falling.
Silly me. I thought that if the number of people in a country is declining and that the number of houses remains the same that there would be a surplus of houses … apparently not (unless houses are being demolished at a greater rate than the proportional decline in population).
The modern world is a puzzling place for people like me.
Phil B – you again fail to understand my comment, specifically you fail to undersand that something can be INDIRECT result of something else, even if it is not the DIRECT result of that thing.
I am not disagreeing with you – I am agreeing with you.
Is English not your first language?