All in the spirit of Darat's post #230!
UK - Election 2015
- Thread starter The Don
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All in the spirit of Darat's post #230!
LondonJohn
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Yes........but......... this, plus your earlier post about regeneration of woodland (etc), are slightly missing the point. As I mentioned in my previous post, the actual issue does not involve looking at the UK as a geographical whole, but instead looking at the localised pressures in specific areas.
It's all very well saying there are beautiful woodlands and green pastures in Northamptonshire or Cumbria. And there are. But the raw truth is that not many people want to live or work in those places. And economic migrants (other than those involved in the agricultural industry - where incidentally there are also real problems in small localised areas) don't want to settle there either. Instead, most people want to live and work within close distance of London and a handful of other major cities. And that's where most economic migrants want to come as well.
I despise Ukip's guiding philosophy, but it's crazy (not to mention politically-naive at best, and willfully ignorant at worst) to use this as a logical reason to hand wave away the overcrowding issues. It's a cast-iron fact that parts of London (especially East , NE and SE London) are now starting to be seriously affected by overcrowding, mainly owing to economic migration from within the EU, but with a significant number of non-EU immigrants (many of whom are still ghosts in the system, since they're not here legally). It's not just pressure on housing stock: it's also pressure on services such as health, education and basic welfare.
I do think it's fair to say that in the medium-to-long term, these sorts of growing pains will essentially solve themselves, since more houses, schools, hospitals etc will be built to address the additional demand (and the increasing economic activity/prosperity in these areas will pay for these things). But the problem currently is that there's been such a big change in such a short time that there is an inevitable lag in the provision of assets and services, and it's this factor which is causing increasing concern.
What's probably required is central government intervention of some sort, to help the affected areas out by using central funds and resources to fund local assets and services. This could take the form of a loan/mortgage of some sort to the local authorities, to be repaid as the economic prosperity of these areas rises accordingly (and thus local taxation/rates rise). But I do think that if this issue is just left to its own devices, there may very well be significant short-term tensions and problems. It's categorically not just a scaremongering illusion concocted by Ukip, even if Ukip clearly do go on to huge hyperbole in their visions of total meltdown.....
LondonJohn
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Yes, but only in relative terms. In terms of the absolute number, even the total aggregation of small market towns doesn't come close to the size of the problem in, say, the area around Manchester - and nowhere near the problem in and around London.
LondonJohn
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We can meet that demand though, comfortably. We've been doing so for hundreds and hundreds of years. And our economic prosperity and well-being have benefited from having done so, with comparatively few downsides.
To take England, for example, its population has grown from 5.8m in 1750 to 15m in 1850, 30m in 1900, 40m in 1960, to 53m in 2011.
England can probably comfortably accommodate 80m+ people, mainly through a further expansion outward from London, and further growth along the Manchester-Liverpool corridor. The land balance can and should be shifted in those areas (notwithstanding the absolute necessity of significant numbers of green open spaces for recreation, control of pollution and aesthetic reasons). We simply don't need nearly so much farming land in these areas any more, for example. Crops/livestock/dairy can be grown/reared in areas where there's less pressure on population density, and transported efficiently and quickly to the point of purchase and consumption. And we can import more food from abroad, provided we can ensure food security.
This all sounds very urban-centric. To hell with the countryside and shires. So long as the voracious appetites of the urban centres are satisfied, who cares about the cost to the hinterlands. The fact is, many people aspire to move out of towns into the countryside, and the current and proposed policies are eviscerating that alternative.
That modern housing is so bleak and uninspiring, so homogenous and universal, is yet another reason to not let it spread like a nasty skin disease.
LondonJohn
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Ideologically I share your broad view. But we have to deal in practicalities, not ideologies. And the practicalities here are that the sheer numbers of people who want to live in or near major conurbations are far more than those who want to live in small market towns or in rural areas. And therefore the demand for new housing stock is hugely greater in and around the dense conurbations of the UK (and particularly within and around the M25).
anglolawyer
Banned
I say, steady on. I, at least, am not bigoted. I would keep all the foreigners and get rid of the Brits. Another Poe for you.
I don't believe your 2% but even if that's what it is, where I live, also 40 miles from London, we don't need any more development, thank you. So tell me which party is against it and they will receive favourable consideration for my precious vote.
anglolawyer
Banned
A nightmare.
Do you not see any benefit from knowing facts like these? Surely all arguments are best illustrated by facts, or are these particular numbers that you would prefer to be kept quiet?
What a strange comment to me asking the reason why certain statistics have been given.
Mass housing has always suffered from that, but today's mass housing is a hell of a lot more pleasent and well designed than the past equivalents.
And I certainly don't think your (nor mine) subjective aesthetic desires should be blocking millions of people having a home.
And lets face it given so much of the UKs land is in the hands of so few people most of the countryside is the private garden of the few. Which is why there is always the suggestion of "brown field" development (not that I don't think that should be reused).
We have shown over the last say 50 years that new towns can be created if there is the will, towns that thrive and that people want to move to, so it isn't just a matter of increasing the size of current urban settlements.
Which is why when I mentioned the statistics I included all the "ancillary urbanisation". What is wrong with building more roads, housing, schools and so on? Would have thought those who lean towards economics having primacy in the development of the UK would be all for that - it creates new jobs, circulates the money more and has huge opportunities for the few to make a lot of money.
Totally agree which is right back to why I started this thread of discussion because I lamented that the current political parties are simply not willing to deal with the very real problem we faced 20 years ago, face today and is only going to get worse in the future - whether all immigration stopped dead today or not.
The political parties have simply buried their heads in the sand for decades.
I don't know why you identified with the "bigot" rather than the "perception" problem in my post that's a matter for your conscience not for me to comment on.
What I was trying to illustrate is that one of the "facts" that people use in anti-immigration arguments i.e. the "overcrowding" of the country is not based on the facts; this can be from ignorance, from misperception or as I believe it is for a lot of the "anti-immigration" politicians and people simply used in an attempt to cloak their bigotry. And I think those people can be identified because they do not change their mind when the actual facts are produced. Ignorance and misperception are usually cured by a good application of the facts, bigotry isn't.
If you are wrong it doesn't matter.
I find that astonishing. If you would like some evidence for the figures I've been recalling from memory - good overview starts with this article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18623096 looks like my memory wasn't too bad in this case, makes a change.Francesca R
Girl
You want to tie more and more people into dependence on state owned housing with no prospect of exit.
See how that works?
Not a smart debate tactic at all.
Francesca R
Girl
Very little.
anglolawyer
Banned
No, not being wrong doesn't matter but whether it's 2% or 10% (your two guesstimates) doesn't matter if, in the region in which I live, it is vastly higher.If you are wrong it doesn't matter.
If the percentage were, say, 50%, in the SE but 1% everywhere else, it would be no answer to someone in the SE complaining of overcrowding to say, 'don't worry about another 10% in your area because the rest of the country will still be 1%!
'Obviously, I have simplified for the purpose of exposition so please don't start hacking away at the above with literalism.
ETA and now I've seen your link I see not worrying about being wrong is an affliction to which you had succumbed when you announced the coverage was 2%
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