Housing | It's about people, stupid…

Further analysis of where Vicky didn’t go!

A great interview with Housing journalist and author

My comments on the interview and replies to other’s comments are in parts two and three.

I’ve been researching housing unaffordability for seven years and am about to start writing a dissertation on Rent Control (℅ Dr Anna Minton). After all these years of trying to find solutions, the elephant in the room is Rent Control. Why?

Because it gets right to the heart of the issue, which is, in fact (drum roll)… land values.

This is a disappointing and slightly dull answer, but it’s one of the keys that has unlocked many doors for working—and middle-class people who don’t want to spend 30-50% of their income on a 40-year mortgage or rent to a landlord.

Some of the main authors to thank for this conclusion are John Doling (tries to be neutral), Danny Dorling (left), Nick Bano (left), Kemp (right), and Christine Whitehead (LSE, right). It is always good to see if there is a counter-argument of value—there isn’t.
(As well as Smith, Ricardo, Marx, Keynes, Piketty, Blyth, Mazzucato, Christophers, Kelton, Richard Murry and Minton)

Her Book, Tenants

Why? An example: I’m a former bricklayer who ran a business in construction, so I know about house building pricing. My humble little flat;
In 1994, it was purchased for £47,700 with a floor area of 42m². In 1994, it cost £600 per m² to build, thus £25,200 to rebuild. Therefore, 53% build/47% land value = £47,700.

Now (without all the breakdowns), it’s 33% build/67% land value! @£250K purchase price (based on £2K/m² rebuild).

The killer point: in the 1950s, land values of new builds dropped to 3%. Based on those values and present-day build values (£2K per/m²), my flat would be on the market for £86,600, which equates to 2.4 times the full-time national average income (£35K). 2.4 times was also needed in the 1950s-60s for a single average income to buy an average 2.5-bed semi (.5 being the box room).

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Why the silence in 2023?

Introduction

This post starts with summer background research on the middle class, which helps evaluate the primary content with this newfound knowledge. Then, an obscure, seemingly unrelated programme from Radio 4 that, when deconstructed, goes to the heart of the present denialism by the middle class concerning housing.
The post finishes with broad conclusions leading to further research for workable solutions or just waiting for another bloody war/revolution circa 1914-1945.

Summer reading and prelim for context

Summer reading consisted of subjects as diverse as the History of the Welfare State from 1800 to the Present, Comparative Housing Policy Across Europe and North America, and various criticisms of the supposed ‘Science’ of Economics by various heavyweights in the same field and some books on Agency and Meritocracy, just to add to the mix!

The original dystopian novel that shows the end game of meritocracy, written by the brilliant sociologist Michael Young in 1958, alas this book is sadly out of print.

What has been interesting is the various author’s interpretations of the same historical facts from different political ideologies and philosophical approaches, along with some quoting academics and the great philosophers who were locked within their lived experiences whilst other writers took a broader look from afar with present hindsight and intellectual norms to judge past reactions to circumstance and the cumulative effects of past decisions. Both are valid, though the former can seem more ideological and the latter more self-critical.

I also attended a series of lectures on the British Class System at Cambridge University, with more international post-doctoral students than you could throw a stick at; all shared their thoughts with grace and humility. Their input resulted in some fascinating insights and perceptions of the class system that I wasn’t aware of.
The weekend of lectures and discussion concluded that class is way more fluid and depends a lot on the definitions and parameters used within the time/place as a framework to make judgments. The perception of the British to class is much more nuanced than the US structure of the wealth-based class system, as proven by the comments from the US contingent in the lectures.