[Paul_S]

That makes no sense. If you let people build in the city then they can cycle to work. If they have to live in a village 20 miles down the road they have to drive to work - longer distances equals more pollution. You want to breathe less fumes? Stop creating a false scarcity of houses in cycle-able distances.

Hectares of barren grassland don't magically cleanse the fumes.

[toyg]

> If you let people build in the city then they can cycle to work.

You can already build in the city. In fact, New Labour put in subsidies and incentives to build multi-storey houses, which are probably still in place. So why don't developers just go and replace low-rise with high-rise? Because nobody really wants to live in flats in England if they can avoid it. It's a cultural thing and it has nothing to do with land scarcity, it's probably a result of the failed '70s projects mixed with the hardcore individualism that emerged since then. This drives down prices of flats to the point where it's not appealing for developers to build new ones (except in the immediate vicinity of SW1 or other areas that are attractive to singles and childless couples, who can be persuaded to fit into tin boxes). What sells is low-rise suburban, for which they are running out of space; hence the push for greenfield liberalisation. Everything else is divide-et-impera rhetoric, boomers vs impoverished etc etc.

[Paul_S]

There's more to the UK than London.

You can't knock down buildings here. They're all listed. Where they are allowed to they build flats which go for half a mill (and are sold out before building completes - so much for your claim about people not wanting to live in flats). House building is cheap - it's the land that's expensive and it's only expensive because it's illegal to build anywhere outside of town.

There are sleeper villages all around the town. It's an insanely inefficient configuration only propped up by house owners' short-sighted interests.

[toyg]

> only propped up by house owners' short-sighted interests.

I disagree. Those sleeper villages exist because people don't want to live in cities. If they wanted to, they'd be elsewhere; but until very recently, you couldn't pay people to live in central Manchester, Liverpool or Birmingham.

If you think developers want the greenfield to build high-rise, you're sorely mistaken. They will build more and more low-rise suburbia, because that's what people want.

[crdoconnor]

>You can already build in the city. In fact, New Labour put in subsidies and incentives to build multi-storey houses, which are probably still in place. So why don't developers just go and replace low-rise with high-rise? Because nobody really wants to live in flats in England if they can avoid it. It's a cultural thing and it has nothing to do with land scarcity, it's probably a result of the failed '70s projects mixed with the hardcore individualism that emerged since then.

I live in London and this is just about the most ridiculous thing I've ever read about it.

You only have to look at the prices to see that people want to live here.

[toyg]

Yes, but only in London. Most of "urban Britain" elsewhere is still considered very much undesirable. Price dynamics outside London are extremely different.

This is the problem with housing policies in England: they are all designed around London and the South West, with little regard for the rest of the country.

[crdoconnor]

There doesn't appear to be any shortage of demand for city center accommodation in Bristol, Manchester, Birmingham, etc. either.