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housing development - why?
Jan. 2nd, 2010 02:18 amIn the UK, apparently there are perhaps as many as 400,000 homeless people, according to Crisis (a charity that helps the homeless). Pretty unpleasant.
But Emptyhomes.com believes there are almost 700,000 empty houses in the UK. This should be enough to house the homeless 2 or 3 times over.
So why does the prime minister say that "we have set aside 1.5 billion pounds to build 20,000 additional affordable homes over the next two years"?
These new houses are being built on what used to be green fields, on the outskirts of towns and cities, while the derelict properties further into the urban conurbation are left abandoned and decaying.
The UK's population has supposedly grown by roughly 10% since 1971, from about 56 million to a bit over 61 million. Compare this with the 38% increase in the number of dwellings since 1971. There are enough houses - but for some reason, we're told we need to build more. There seems to be a culture encouraging everybody to own their own house, even if they have to go heavily into debt to buy it, even when such activity was responsible for the biggest recession we've seen since the 1930s.
Crazy.
But Emptyhomes.com believes there are almost 700,000 empty houses in the UK. This should be enough to house the homeless 2 or 3 times over.
So why does the prime minister say that "we have set aside 1.5 billion pounds to build 20,000 additional affordable homes over the next two years"?
These new houses are being built on what used to be green fields, on the outskirts of towns and cities, while the derelict properties further into the urban conurbation are left abandoned and decaying.
The UK's population has supposedly grown by roughly 10% since 1971, from about 56 million to a bit over 61 million. Compare this with the 38% increase in the number of dwellings since 1971. There are enough houses - but for some reason, we're told we need to build more. There seems to be a culture encouraging everybody to own their own house, even if they have to go heavily into debt to buy it, even when such activity was responsible for the biggest recession we've seen since the 1930s.
Crazy.
