Massively increasing the density of housing and improving transport links to central London within the M25 would make much more sense than building extensions to the increasing number of dormitory towns that are springing up across the Home Counties. Look at somewhere like Woldingham Station, within the M25, 30min direct to Victoria Station, yet surrounded by fields, it makes no sense. Build decent quality, pretty, and affordable 3/4 floor high terraced housing in Woldingam and other similar places within the M25 and I bet a lot of long distance commuters would move. As a Westminster based Civil Servant with a 2 hour commute each way, I would in a heartbeat. If you are talking about space-mining type pipe dreams, using this model, it would probably be possible to build millions of houses within the M25, more than enough for those who currently commute from dormitory towns. You could then knock down a lot of the ugly post-war housing that has scared towns across the Home Counties and return the land to farming and to nature to act as a larder and bucolic escape for Londoners.
I never understood people's attachment to social housing in 'nicer' neighbourhoods. I am council house kid so I don't say this out of snobbery. The idea seems to be to mix people of different backgrounds, but in my experience there is very little 'mixing' going on. The people in social housing tend to be suspicious of their wealthier neighbours and even resent them. Whereas the period house owning class tends to champion the policy of social housing being placed on their doorstep whilst simultaneously insulating themselves from any contact with the occupiers of them.
Paris' much maligned banlieues are perhaps not desirable either, but we shouldn't have to pretend London has got this right. Working class communities seem a lot more at ease with themselves in places like Thurrock or Havering and I put this down to people preferring to be amongst their own and not being awkwardly engineered into some utopian project that doesn't deliver what it promises.
In Rwanda the people are *ahem* 'encouraged' to spend the last Saturday of every month sweeping the streets and picking up litter. I'd implement something like that here, as many of our streets are filthy.
A rail project I would like to see in the capital: an express underground loop that would quickly link all of London's rail terminuses, stopping nowhere else. At the moment, especially with luggage, it can be quite a bore getting between, say, King's Cross and Waterloo. So my proposed Brunel Line whizzes rapidly in a loop between Paddington, Marylebone, Euston, Kings Cross St Pancras, Liverpool Street, Fenchurch Street, Charing Cross, Waterloo and Victoria.
If it works, Paris can have one too. The Hexagone Line will quickly link the Gare du Nord, Gare de l'Est, Gare de Lyon, Gare d'Austerlitz, Gare Montparnasse and Gare Saint-Lazare.
Ed, your 2022 article on housing topic was the first time I commented and I’m no more convinced now, than then, that building on the scale suggested, without effective control of immigration, would be anything other than a disaster . Also, while the efficiencies of a city in terms of specialisation and trade have been vital to date, as you say, how does that look as the virtual increasingly replaces the physical. Finally, isn’t city living a notorious negative on fertility rates.
Your dreams are beautiful but they are aimed at the London of the 1990s-2010s, not the medieval cesspit it has become. The building of new houses at the heart of your plan succeeds in only one sense: the Zone 5 suburb (to which we fled after the last set of riots) has morphed in less than 10 years from rus in urbe charm into just another Labour dump. The Tory borough that prided itself on building more houses than its Labour neighbours ... built its voter base out of electoral power. The only thing that would save our cities is still currently unprintable, thanks to the Overton window's current position.
Ed's policy proposal of limiting private car use still further is at at odds with his desire for improved roads so that he can more easily drive from Crouch End to Herne Hill! Therein in a nutshell is one of our main transport contradictions!
Let is be realistic - it is just not possible to make a public transport network as quick and convenient for every single journey as a private car travel on uncongested roads. However, building more roads in urban areas generates more traffic as the marginal cost of each individual journey diminishes. ("Ah, I can now drive to Kew Gardens more easily" perhaps!).
This is an easily understood economic phenomenon - to which we appear to be remarkable ignorant in our 'zero-sum' fixed cake thinking.! Teach basic economic thinking, not complicated economic formulae in schools perhaps!
And - unfortunately - railways are now almost insanely expensive to build. Ok, what taxes do we want to see increase (still further) to pay for more of them?
Massively increasing the density of housing and improving transport links to central London within the M25 would make much more sense than building extensions to the increasing number of dormitory towns that are springing up across the Home Counties. Look at somewhere like Woldingham Station, within the M25, 30min direct to Victoria Station, yet surrounded by fields, it makes no sense. Build decent quality, pretty, and affordable 3/4 floor high terraced housing in Woldingam and other similar places within the M25 and I bet a lot of long distance commuters would move. As a Westminster based Civil Servant with a 2 hour commute each way, I would in a heartbeat. If you are talking about space-mining type pipe dreams, using this model, it would probably be possible to build millions of houses within the M25, more than enough for those who currently commute from dormitory towns. You could then knock down a lot of the ugly post-war housing that has scared towns across the Home Counties and return the land to farming and to nature to act as a larder and bucolic escape for Londoners.
I never understood people's attachment to social housing in 'nicer' neighbourhoods. I am council house kid so I don't say this out of snobbery. The idea seems to be to mix people of different backgrounds, but in my experience there is very little 'mixing' going on. The people in social housing tend to be suspicious of their wealthier neighbours and even resent them. Whereas the period house owning class tends to champion the policy of social housing being placed on their doorstep whilst simultaneously insulating themselves from any contact with the occupiers of them.
Paris' much maligned banlieues are perhaps not desirable either, but we shouldn't have to pretend London has got this right. Working class communities seem a lot more at ease with themselves in places like Thurrock or Havering and I put this down to people preferring to be amongst their own and not being awkwardly engineered into some utopian project that doesn't deliver what it promises.
ctrl+f "immigration" and "deportation" yields no results
In Rwanda the people are *ahem* 'encouraged' to spend the last Saturday of every month sweeping the streets and picking up litter. I'd implement something like that here, as many of our streets are filthy.
It's funny, I've always advocated walls be installed around globalist cities, but more to keep the progressives in, rather than the noise.
A rail project I would like to see in the capital: an express underground loop that would quickly link all of London's rail terminuses, stopping nowhere else. At the moment, especially with luggage, it can be quite a bore getting between, say, King's Cross and Waterloo. So my proposed Brunel Line whizzes rapidly in a loop between Paddington, Marylebone, Euston, Kings Cross St Pancras, Liverpool Street, Fenchurch Street, Charing Cross, Waterloo and Victoria.
If it works, Paris can have one too. The Hexagone Line will quickly link the Gare du Nord, Gare de l'Est, Gare de Lyon, Gare d'Austerlitz, Gare Montparnasse and Gare Saint-Lazare.
Ed, your 2022 article on housing topic was the first time I commented and I’m no more convinced now, than then, that building on the scale suggested, without effective control of immigration, would be anything other than a disaster . Also, while the efficiencies of a city in terms of specialisation and trade have been vital to date, as you say, how does that look as the virtual increasingly replaces the physical. Finally, isn’t city living a notorious negative on fertility rates.
Your dreams are beautiful but they are aimed at the London of the 1990s-2010s, not the medieval cesspit it has become. The building of new houses at the heart of your plan succeeds in only one sense: the Zone 5 suburb (to which we fled after the last set of riots) has morphed in less than 10 years from rus in urbe charm into just another Labour dump. The Tory borough that prided itself on building more houses than its Labour neighbours ... built its voter base out of electoral power. The only thing that would save our cities is still currently unprintable, thanks to the Overton window's current position.
Bring back Routemasters
Bring back London Irish RFC.
Get an NFL / NBA franchise- Could this double with the Sphere?
Build a railway from Brixton to Richmond - intersection with Wimbledon
Turn the Westway into a railway
Clean out the criminal element off Westminster Bridge.
No empty buildings - There is a blockbuster video. on Chiswick highroad. Turn that into a boujee apartment
Also, construct more Champagne dispensaries for a party atmosphere - English Champagne especially in the coming decades!:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/english-sparkling-wines-challenge-supremacy-champagne-francethanks-climate-change-180974057/
Most of these should apply to all UK cities. Also Manchester does have a "night tsar", Sacha Lord.
Boat Race Sunday as a month. Invite Harvard, Yale etc.
Jack the Ripper - Halloween festival
Build a bridge between Kew Gardens and Syon House
I think I read this at the time but it didn't make much of an impression on me. I have just re-read it and thought it wonderful.
Ed's policy proposal of limiting private car use still further is at at odds with his desire for improved roads so that he can more easily drive from Crouch End to Herne Hill! Therein in a nutshell is one of our main transport contradictions!
Let is be realistic - it is just not possible to make a public transport network as quick and convenient for every single journey as a private car travel on uncongested roads. However, building more roads in urban areas generates more traffic as the marginal cost of each individual journey diminishes. ("Ah, I can now drive to Kew Gardens more easily" perhaps!).
This is an easily understood economic phenomenon - to which we appear to be remarkable ignorant in our 'zero-sum' fixed cake thinking.! Teach basic economic thinking, not complicated economic formulae in schools perhaps!
And - unfortunately - railways are now almost insanely expensive to build. Ok, what taxes do we want to see increase (still further) to pay for more of them?