[crdoconnor]

>I know I sound negative. 20 years of watching this madness unfold will do that to you. I have a kneejerk suspicion of "just build on brownfield land" - it's the housing equivalent of "we'll improve services and reduce taxes by cutting red tape and reducing government waste" - sounds nice, doesn't frighten anyone

Of course it frightens people. Owning mortgaged property and watching it fall in value is terrifying. Building a vast amount of housing will do that.

I've watched this madness for 20 years as well and it's painfully clear to me that high house prices was a deliberate choice. The "crisis" made the ultra-wealthy very happy and a large part of middle England were fairly okay with it too.

[mrec]

> Owning mortgaged property and watching it fall in value is terrifying. Building a vast amount of housing will do that.

Exactly. And yet "why can't they build on brownfield?" is the immediate cry whenever anyone even starts looking sideways at the green belt. Nobody is terrified of brownfield, which is why I strongly suspect that brownfield alone isn't going to make a damn bit of difference; to steal a phrase, "if building on brownfield changed anything they'd make it illegal".

> it's painfully clear to me that high house prices was a deliberate choice

Yes, very obviously. And not just in the obvious "pandering to donor builders and smug homeowners" sense, either; debt creation through mortgage lending is at the heart of UK monetary policy now. Probably the most extreme example I've ever seen of jam today at the cost of long-term disaster.

[crdoconnor]

>Exactly. And yet "why can't they build on brownfield?" is the immediate cry whenever anyone even starts looking sideways at the green belt.

The kinds of the people who start looking sideways at the greenbelt (the Economist very much included) implies to me that it's more about building big expensive houses for the wealthy in a nice green area than it is about building affordable housing for Londoners.

The very fact that the Economist would lobby for this while simultaneously slamming the "ultra left wing" Corbyn policy of "just build more council housing" ought to be a sign that something is amiss.