[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.