Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Tamas]

Sheilbh your two photos illustrate the problem very well: those Liverpool streets very much look like you took some residental blocks and instead of building them upward where there is space, you laid them down flat.

In doing so it takes the same amount of space however.

No. How do you figure it does? If you can build something "mid-air" instead of the ground (because there's another flat under it to build it on) that leaves you some ground to do something else with it. If you don't, then that's a living space's worth of ground gone when it could have been some empty air gone instead.

[Sheilbh]

Sheilbh your two photos illustrate the problem very well: those Liverpool streets very much look like you took some residental blocks and instead of building them upward where there is space, you laid them down flat.

I don't disagree but I don't really think it's a problem. They're higher density and, for whatever reason, people seem to prefer them.

So I think meet people where they are and build more of the housing they like which might help a bit in getting more homes built. I think pushing people into homes they don't like and that are lower density isn't a great idea even if it is in some ways more "rational" - as the experience of the unpopular post-war blocks show.

[Sheilbh]

In doing so it takes the same amount of space however.

Yeah this is the key point - you still need as many parking spaces for a block of flats and, in the UK at least, you need to create open green space for people to access which is why those blocks are so low density. They're often surrounded by open grass - sometimes with useful facilities like a playground.

If the real argument is we need to reduce the amount of green/open space for people then I think that's different.

[Tamas]

In doing so it takes the same amount of space however.

Yeah this is the key point - you still need as many parking spaces for a block of flats and, in the UK at least, you need to create open green space for people to access which is why those blocks are so low density. They're often surrounded by open grass - sometimes with useful facilities like a playground.

If the real argument is we need to reduce the amount of green/open space for people then I think that's different.

Is larger communal green space and separate parking space (apartment blocks) better or worse than individual "gardens" and parking on the street? I guess its up to personal preference mostly, but I suspect from a communal point of view the former could be better.

[Tamas]

I think British housing is a bit like American gun control. It is unique and has lots of challenges yet it is considered by the natives as the best thing ever.

[Gups]

In doing so it takes the same amount of space however.

Yeah this is the key point - you still need as many parking spaces for a block of flats and, in the UK at least, you need to create open green space for people to access which is why those blocks are so low density. They're often surrounded by open grass - sometimes with useful facilities like a playground.

If the real argument is we need to reduce the amount of green/open space for people then I think that's different.

Is larger communal green space and separate parking space (apartment blocks) better or worse than individual "gardens" and parking on the street? I guess its up to personal preference mostly, but I suspect from a communal point of view the former could be better.

I cycle past that green open space on my way to work (if I'm recognising it properly - it's near Kennington Park). It's pretty well used by the community.

Incidentally in urban areas, parking is generally not provided for new developments.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Britain needs to build a lot more homes and develop a lot more residential land, I don't think it has to be large apartment blocks. Lots of new tracts of terrace homes / row houses etc would be fine. Mid-rises would be fine. Large apartments would be fine. In my mind there are different utilities each offer and different places where they are more appropriate. The main issue is it needs to be built, starting 20 years ago.

[Sheilbh]

Is larger communal green space and separate parking space (apartment blocks) better or worse than individual "gardens" and parking on the street? I guess its up to personal preference mostly, but I suspect from a communal point of view the former could be better.

I don't think there's a "right" answer to it. I'm farily indifferent

My only though is if the intention is to build housing for people, it'll be easier if it's what people like and I think architects are broadly doing that (not always) with the new big redevelopments. If that's terraces, build them; if it's flats, build them (and make them denser). Although when I've been looking for a flat I have absolutely insisted that it has a balcony, so there is some private outdoor space. I think that wouldn't have been a priority for me pre-pandemic and regular WFH but is now. For me that'll be a flat but in part that's also because I'm suspicious/dubious of ground floor flats because I live in one now

Another reason I've just thought of on the lack of mid-rise blocks - smog. If you walk around London (and some other big British cities) there are balconies on Georgian buildings and then post-war 60s blocks, but, with a few exceptions, not much in between. I've always wondered if that was because of coal smoke, smog and general air quality in the 19th century until the Clean Air Act in the 50s. And I wonder if that's also part of the historic preference for gardens/lack of mid-rise buildings with balconies. No idea if it's true but it strikes me it might have been a factor in how English cities developed.

[Sheilbh]

Britain needs to build a lot more homes and develop a lot more residential land, I don't think it has to be large apartment blocks. Lots of new tracts of terrace homes / row houses etc would be fine. Mid-rises would be fine. Large apartments would be fine. In my mind there are different utilities each offer and different places where they are more appropriate. The main issue is it needs to be built, starting 20 years ago.

Yes. Entirely agree.

Edit: But I think part of the problem in the UK is that people associate density with types of housing that are hated (post-war blocks) rather than ones that are liked (terraced houses).

[Sheilbh]

Also seeing how terraced housing is pretty much unique to Britain, I'd be willing to wager its not such a great thing as you make it out to be. It's the double faucet of housing.

Just on this - it's not. It's common in the Netherlands and Belgium, as well as, apparently, the traditional vernacular in Bremen. These look more like the taller ones you get in London now converted into flats:


As ever when looking at Europe, those houses are better maintained/upgraded, higher quality and nicer

My guess is there were factors to do with the cost of land, local regulations/local government, the local economy and climate that made them the vernacular style in 19th/early 20th century North-Western Europe. Those are normally the drivers of what types of buildings you get.

And that's really what we're talking about in British preference for them is that it's a preference for the traditional, vernacular style of most of Britain - that same preference will look different in Paris or Madrid or Warsaw because different conditions existed that produced a different vernacular tyle.

For a while I was very much of the school of thought that people should be forced to embrace a concrete, brutal future - and a bit of me would still quite like that. But, reluctantly, I think if vernacular styles are more popular and we need to build then we should just embrace them.

Edit: Also in my experience they're quite common in some Latin American cities - but very low-rise so often only one story terraces in residential areas of Santiago or Montevideo or even bits of Mexico City (which is really surprisingly low rise).

[Josquius]

There must be an answer for why. Surely someone has looked into this?
Something with climate or the availability of brick vs. other materials?
Something boring about the housing being built by factory owners, thus favouring the cheapest option, rather than cities which would favour efficiency?
To do with our towns being historically small then suddenly hitting a boom whilst Latin cities have a longer history being major centres and kept their city wall constraints for longer?
Perhaps something as simple as anti-French sentiment and this other style being the French way? (The Rest is History episode on beef was great)

I think British housing is a bit like American gun control. It is unique and has lots of challenges yet it is considered by the natives as the best thing ever.

Oh no. Its not the best thing ever. You're just not criticising it right. 

The Netherlands is basically the poster child for good urban design and...well. Look.

[Gups]

There must be an answer for why. Surely someone has looked into this?
Something with climate or the availability of brick vs. other materials?
Something boring about the housing being built by factory owners, thus favouring the cheapest option, rather than cities which would favour efficiency?
To do with our towns being historically small then suddenly hitting a boom whilst Latin cities have a longer history being major centres and kept their city wall constraints for longer?
Perhaps something as simple as anti-French sentiment and this other style being the French way? (The Rest is History episode on beef was great)

We industrialised first and therefore urban mogration took place earlier than other countries. Building styles in many city centres reflect this. Housing stock in the outer suberbs constructed in the later C19th as railway commuting becamoes popular is significantly better than from earlier in the century.

[The Brain]

Why not build like the Swedes do? Cosy cabin by a lake in the woods?

[Tamas]

Why not build like the Swedes do? Cosy cabin by a lake in the woods?

Because those spots are golf courses.

[The Larch]

Availability of land is not the issue:

I didn't mean land in general, but land where residential development can be made. It doesn't matter if the Higlands are half empty, nobody is going to build there. What matters is land surrounding the larger cities, where development makes sense. If some plot of land near London becomes available, planners should aim for the highest possible density, given the limitations to development.