<i>The underlying belief is that the market will provide, if only it were properly stimulated and enticed, but it is one unsupported by evidence. At no time since the second world war has the private sector built at the rate now required, and usually it has fallen a long way short.</i><p>Worth noting for folks who think that supply is the only problem. Similarly in my home of Vancouver the construction of towers has been constant for decades and prices have only skyrocketed in response.<p>Certainly if you stopped building completely you'd eventually have a real problem, but the evidence is clear to me that you'll never reach the incredible supply levels that would cause prices to drop (why would builders do this anyway?).<p><i>There is also what Ebenezer Howard, the inventor of garden cities, called the “unearned increment”, which is the uplift in value when land becomes available for housing. It was the basis on which postwar new towns were built. Currently it is being squandered – when the government, for example, relaxes planning constraints on certain properties, or makes it easier to convert offices or shops into homes they drench the lucky owners of such places in cash, without asking for much in return.</i><p>Vancouver captures this. It goes toward community centres, the arts and increasingly housing. <a href="http://vancouver.ca/news-calendar/community-benefits-from-development-improving-neighbourhoods.aspx" rel="nofollow">http://vancouver.ca/news-calendar/community-benefits-from-de...</a>
I've a one bedroom in a flatshare in east london, its nothing special & costs north of £1k / month. If a political party outlined how they'd fix spiralling house prices they'd get my vote.
Obviously also applicable to SF and Manhattan/Brooklyn.<p>It's interesting to compare this to other cities: a cursory glance at LA craigslist shows some apartments in nice areas that would easily cost twice as much in SF/Manhattan. Same with Chicago.<p>Is it really just population density? A cursory google search says that SF's population density is about 17,000 people per sq. mi, which is about the same as West Hollywood. Yet looking at apartments in West Hollywood, I see apartments much nicer than I would in SF for the price. Maybe I'm grossly oversimplifying though.<p>But then is the answer really just 'sprawl'? Are Chicago and LA only 'reasonably priced' because they're so expansive? Is that how our cities have to move lest they suffer some sort of housing implosion?<p>As it is, I don't understand how anyone earning minimum wage lives in SF/Manhattan - or why they'd even want to commute in to Manhattan to work for Chipotle if they don't.
"Another reason is that inflation in housing – so taboo when it comes to other commodities – has since the 1980s been celebrated by governments and encouraged by policies on taxation and borrowing."<p>Right. Rising house prices are just runaway inflation. If inflation indexes include housing (which, in the US, they did until the 1980s) inflation is much higher.
I'm always amazed to see the same people who place all sorts of statutory restrictions on new housing blame the free market when there's not enough housing.
British isles urbanism is a joke<p>Terraced houses? In a place with high housing demand? Really?<p>You don't need to go to NYC heights, just look at what France and Germany do<p>They seem to hang on their historic buildings, with cramped accommodations that cost an arm an a leg to follow current regulations.<p>It's similar in Ireland, really.
In Russia there is a popular family of conspiracy theories where UK is the driving force behind most events of the last 100 years, including rise and fall of the USSR.<p>If so, it doesn't look like UK is able to extract much for its own citizens from said world domination.
So, taking the office of national (UK) statistics - in 2013 the growth rate of the population is 0.6%, on 64 million. Giving you 384,000 extra per year - about half of the growth is (births - deaths) and the other half is net migration [1].<p>Meanwhile from 1990 onwards we're seeing an average of less than 200,000 [2] - In the last few years the rates are the lowest for the time period on the graph (back to the 1970s).<p>[1] <a href="http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/pop-estimate/population-estimates-for-uk--england-and-wales--scotland-and-northern-ireland/2013/sty-population-changes.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/pop-estimate/population-estima...</a><p>[2] <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-30776306" rel="nofollow">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-30776306</a>
I think UK needs US style property taxes to discourage this 'housing as investment' behavior. Yes, UK has council tax but from what i understand its not that high.<p>In most US cities (except SF, LA, NYC) the ratio of average house price to median income is very reasonable (about 2.6). One main reason is the high property taxes which average about 1.5 to 2% of the house value. The tax also increase substantially for second homes. This discourages using a second house as investment/store of value.
"When asked about the poor, the Market Economy raised one finger of the Invisible Hand and whispered.. f<i></i>k the poor"
youtube.com/watch?v=eBuC_0-d-9Y