Thanks so much Simon for that fine synopsis. A quick word about your good third
point in which you mention Land (Value) Taxes as an important tool of public
policy.  And what is so interesting about our exchanges here over the last week
or so is the extent to which all of the commentators have jumped right on the
land/transport interface. 

 

There is absolutely no doubt about this, and given its importance and potential
reach it is quite surprising that it gets so little attention. (Maybe because
it's just too hard, and because it brings in areas of life and expertise which
the folks who make the transportation decisions are simply not trained to.)

 

We here at the New Mobility Agenda, just to make sure that this important topic
does not get lost in the wash, got together with some colleagues and set up the
Land Café which you can visit at www.landcafe.org – and where the discussions
run at a very high level indeed (as they do here in our are of concern, I should
add). 

 

Eric Britton

 

PS. And for those of you who might like to get a feel for how long these ideas
have been around, if you click to the Land Café’s Thinkpad (see top menu at
www.landcafe.org <http://www.landcafe.org/> ) you will see a splendid exchange
between two people with quite contrary ideas on the subject. It is also a
wonderful example of American English (yes!) at its most full throated.)

 

 

 

 

On Behalf Of Simon Norton
Sent: Sunday, January 14, 2007 4:12 PM
 Subject: [NewMobilityCafe] housing costs

 

Yes, I always think that the higher cost of in town housing is largely a
function of its scarcity. In the UK one's impression is that commercial
developers have lost the knowledge of how to build anything but suburban style
housing. As a result those who resent the ever increasing loss of open
countryside (a very important issue in the UK) almost always lose out when the
planners make their decisions.

Planners distinguish between "Greenfield" and "brownfield" land, the latter
signifying land that has previously been developed. Unfortunately it includes
things like disused quarries and military airfields which are not in locations
where they can be grafted on to an urban area.

One of the reasons why people move out of the cities, I'm sure, is because they
are fed up with traffic noise. So there's the usual problem that those who try
to escape the problem are in fact exacerbating it by moving to locations where
they have a greater need for cars.

Much of the extra space available to householders in suburban areas is used to
accommodate cars and as such does not contribute to people's quality of life.

How about this for a solution ?

1. Go in for car-free housing in a big way. In other words move it out of the
niche market it currently occupies and make it a significant proportion of new
housing (say 30%, more for affordable housing). I believe that people will
accept it if


(a) Public transport is adequate for all their day to day needs that are beyond
walking/cycling distance
(b) Car club (community car hire) facilities are available
(c) It provides a means to enable them to solve their personal housing problem.
If necessary there should be a tax incentive within the housing market to
encourage people to choose car-free housing.


2. Build new metropolitan centres or convert existing smaller towns and cities
to metropolises. In the UK all our new towns have tended to be on the suburban
model, no doubt as a result of Ebenezer Howard et al who developed his ideas at
a time when cities were physically dirty. The only new town that is on the way
to metropolitan size, Milton Keynes, was planned at a time when accommodating
universal car use was seen as a virtue. My own home city, Cambridge, is becoming
a key regional centre, but its population growth is almost all in suburban
developments outside the traditional urban envelope.

 

Both the road and public transport networks ensure that the traditional city
(though not so much the
historic centre) is the focus for activity, which makes our transport problems
almost insoluble in terms of the car orientation of most of the people in the
new suburbs. The local authority while restricting cars in the historic centre
is doing very little to restrain traffic growth elsewhere.

3. And there's our old friends land tax, which could finance the public
transport networks necessary to service the car-free developments of 1 and the
new metropolises of 2 (including inter-urban links between them and other towns
and cities). It should have little direct effect on affordability, because the
initial cost of housing would fall in such a way as to offset the land tax that
people who lived in it would have to pay.

Simon Norton