Housing shortages, affordability crises and Nimbyism are rising issues in lots of international locations, nevertheless it’s outstanding how a lot worse issues have grow to be within the English-speaking world.
Forty years in the past, the UK, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland had roughly 400 properties per 1,000 residents, stage with developed continental European international locations. Since then the 2 teams have diverged, the Anglosphere standing nonetheless whereas western Europe has pulled clear to 560 per 1,000.
Unsurprisingly, the identical sample is mirrored in home costs, which have risen additional and sooner in most anglophone international locations because the international monetary disaster than elsewhere.
There seems to be a deep-seated aversion to city density in anglophone tradition that units these international locations aside from the remaining. Three distinct elements are at work right here.
The first is a shared tradition that values the privateness of 1’s own residence — most simply achieved in low-rise, single-family housing. The phrase “an Englishman’s home is his castle” dates again a number of centuries. From this got here the American dream of a indifferent property surrounded by a white picket fence, whereas Australians and New Zealanders aspired to a “quarter acre”.
A brand new YouGov survey bears this out: when requested in the event that they wish to reside in an condominium in a 3-4-floor block — image the elegant streets of Paris, Barcelona or Rome — Britons and Americans say “no” by roughly 40 per cent and 30 per cent respectively, whereas continental Europeans are strongly in favour.
The cumulative affect of centuries of such preferences is big. Across the OECD as an entire, 40 per cent of individuals reside in residences, and the EU common is 42. But that plummets to 9 per cent in Ireland, 14 per cent in Australia, 15 per cent in New Zealand and 20 per cent within the UK.
And it’s not simply dwelling in these residences that Britons don’t like. Almost half say they’d oppose new 3-4-storey blocks of their native space, whereas in each European nation surveyed a plurality can be in favour.
This brings us to the second shared downside: planning techniques. No matter that the UK has a discretionary method whereas the others use zoning — the planning regimes in all six anglophone international locations are united in facilitating objections to particular person functions, fairly than proactive public engagement on the policy-setting stage. This preserves the low-density established order.
Finally, now we have what I name the character paradox: Anglophone planning frameworks give large weight to environmental conservation, but the choice for low-density developments fuels car-dependent sprawl and eats up extra of that cherished inexperienced and nice land.
Ultimately, whether or not the aim is tackling the housing disaster, defending the setting or boosting productiveness, the reply to so many woes within the English-speaking world is to unburden ourselves of our anti-apartment exceptionalism.
john.burn-murdoch@ft.com, @jburnmurdoch
