Date published: 2009/06/30
The University of Cambridge says:
The Government”s policy of concentrating new housing in existing urban areas and on “brownfield sites” is not working and could build up problems for the future, according to new research into urban growth.
The £1.5m 'SOLUTIONS' study by five universities shows that high density urban housing developments could be incubators for a raft of social and economic problems. In the South East, it calculates that the policy could increase production and housing costs by £30 billion a year by 2031.
The researchers, lead by Professor Marcial Echenique in the Department of Architecture, instead propose a policy of 'sustainable suburbs' which, although they would inevitably encroach on green belt land, would reduce living costs and provide housing in which people wanted to live.
Most housing planners do not believe this. Most housing planners want the peasants to be stuffed into high-density housing, i.e. the slums of tomorrow built today. So it is refreshing when the odd group comes up with a far more sane proposition. But heaven forbid that the government has a housing policy that actually provides for what people want, whatever next.
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