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by SilverBirch 7 days ago
I think this is such a great example of misunderstanding a political problem as a technical problem, and misunderstanding twitter as real life.

> the political winds seemed favourable

Sorry. How? Some libertarians on twitter were in favour. But if you have spent any time paying attention to British politics at all you would note the incredible sway the elderly have over politics. Even the people who are pro-building aren't stupid enough to think you're going to achieve that by building on green belt land, so this idea of an uplift of 140x is just farcical. Half of British debate on house building is disingenuously accusing your opposition of concreting over the green belt, whilst disingenuously promising you can build millions of new homes without concreting over the greenbelt.

The problem with building in the UK is mainly planning permission. In the UK is you need approval from the local council and the local council is elected by Nimby pensioners. So you can't get approval. That's it. That's the problem. That's a political problem that you can solve by getting central government to remove local governments ability to block projects. Or by running targeted political campaigns in local areas to get specific things approved. Not by automating the form your fill in to get your planning application rejected.