One thing I would note - a big part of the reason America has bigger houses is because they have embraced suburban sprawl. This is a difficult circle to square with YIMBYs who generally tend to also be urbanists who like density and don't like traffic lanes.
Personally I don't know where I stand on this. Either you have tiny houses which are hard to bring up kids in; or you have bigger houses but the kids can't walk anywhere because stuff is too far away/they have to cross busy roads.
Between 1919 and 1939, approximately 4 million new dwellings were built in this country. Considering the relatively smaller population then, it was a remarkable achievement. It meant that in those 20 years, one-third of the British population was re-housed in bigger and more attractive properties, and many with gardens. Strategically, this was an asset when the Luftwaffe came, as the population was spread more thinly in the new suburban areas.
The big change came with the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act when all development came under local authority control. As 'planning' had won the war effort, it was believed 'planning' would improve housing. Since then, the establisment of Green Belts and increasingly bureaucratic control, and endless interferring by quangos (environment agency, English Nature etc) has stymid development and encouraged NIMBYism. The NIMBIEs forget that the land on which their 1920s and 30s houses stand would have been unspoilt open countryside or farmland 100 years ago
Thanks for this, totally agree. The American example also points to a practical way the UK could do this: fiscally devolving more to local governments. Because so much taxation revenue in the US is collected and redistributed at the local level, there is an incentive for at least some of those local governments to ease their planning rules, and allow building booms. More building means more residents, which means a higher tax base. And bigger homes mean bigger property taxes.
At the moment, it's hard to see the incentive for local authorities in the UK to allow more housebuilding. All they get are complaints about new developments, and extra people are a burden for fiscally-constrained councils rather than an asset in the current system. Allowing these local governments more autonomy over revenue collection may help.
One thing I would note - a big part of the reason America has bigger houses is because they have embraced suburban sprawl. This is a difficult circle to square with YIMBYs who generally tend to also be urbanists who like density and don't like traffic lanes.
Personally I don't know where I stand on this. Either you have tiny houses which are hard to bring up kids in; or you have bigger houses but the kids can't walk anywhere because stuff is too far away/they have to cross busy roads.
Between 1919 and 1939, approximately 4 million new dwellings were built in this country. Considering the relatively smaller population then, it was a remarkable achievement. It meant that in those 20 years, one-third of the British population was re-housed in bigger and more attractive properties, and many with gardens. Strategically, this was an asset when the Luftwaffe came, as the population was spread more thinly in the new suburban areas.
The big change came with the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act when all development came under local authority control. As 'planning' had won the war effort, it was believed 'planning' would improve housing. Since then, the establisment of Green Belts and increasingly bureaucratic control, and endless interferring by quangos (environment agency, English Nature etc) has stymid development and encouraged NIMBYism. The NIMBIEs forget that the land on which their 1920s and 30s houses stand would have been unspoilt open countryside or farmland 100 years ago
Thanks for this, totally agree. The American example also points to a practical way the UK could do this: fiscally devolving more to local governments. Because so much taxation revenue in the US is collected and redistributed at the local level, there is an incentive for at least some of those local governments to ease their planning rules, and allow building booms. More building means more residents, which means a higher tax base. And bigger homes mean bigger property taxes.
At the moment, it's hard to see the incentive for local authorities in the UK to allow more housebuilding. All they get are complaints about new developments, and extra people are a burden for fiscally-constrained councils rather than an asset in the current system. Allowing these local governments more autonomy over revenue collection may help.
The downside of this, however, would be that it could exacerbate the already-bad regional inequalities that exist in the UK. This is something this excellent recent article from the Economist illustrates: https://www.economist.com/briefing/2024/04/18/america-is-uniquely-ill-suited-to-handle-a-falling-population
Have you considered that some people might not want to concrete over every inch of England to accommodate infinite foreigners?