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There's lots of stuff in the weekend press about the government's plans to tackle housing shortages. The Observer runs with "It's housing, housing, housing as Brown builds a new vision" and is typical of the genre...

"The new Prime Minister has signalled his intent by kick-starting what could be the biggest building programme for 30 years, writes Nick Mathiason

"Sunday July 15, 2007
"The Observer

"Since 2000 Labour has promised a major change in the number of new homes. Headline-grabbing announcements from ministers came and went. But though Britain is now in the midst of the most prolonged housing price boom ever seen, the number of homes built annually has hardly shifted from 80-year lows of about 185,000 a year. Meanwhile, whole swathes of the population have been priced off the housing ladder.

"To remedy a chronic supply shortage, last week Gordon Brown unveiled plans to build 3 million homes by 2020. While it is easy to dismiss his announcements as yet more froth, Whitehall officials, housebuilders and regeneration specialists say radical reform and even action is in the air."

Yet, as Tristram Hunt points out in his defense of nice views for the haves against housing for the have-nots (the BANANA argument), we are told by other government figures that there are at least 65,000 hectares of derelict or underused brownfield type sites in urban areas (which is space for 2.6 million of the three million Gordon wants to see built at current urban density guidelines of forty per hectare). While Anne Ashworth, in Friday's Times, reported that the PropertyFinder website claims that 420,000 homes stand empty in disrepair in England - enough, you will notice, with the underused urban land figure, to complete Gordon's 3 million properties without putting a single JCB into the greenbelt.

Low density	High density
Which would you prefer?

But also, we have to realize that there are not 1.5 million households (the council house waiting list) out on the streets. They are mostly living somewhere - often in overcrowded and/or unaffordable conditions. Whilst research also suggests that up to 46% of all housing is "underoccupied" - with 2 or more unused bedrooms, and that contrary to the usual cris du coeur that people should be allowed to stay in their family home regardless of how empty it is, 45% of households aged 50+ say they are open to the idea of downsizing before or after retirement - though most don't and cite a lack of suitable local properties to which to downsize into as the main factor.

All of this suggests that the better way to address current housing needs is not in fact to build net new units on virgin land at all, but to promote policies that bring empty homes into use, derelict land into bloom, and remodelling of existing communities so that the needs of different ages, for downsizing as well as for growing families, can better be accommodated without chucking anyone out to the farthest flung edges of a new suburban edge of city sprawl.

But, as the TV development programs tell us, location, location, location is what matters. We are a small island. It doesn't take long to get practically anywhere. We also need mechanisms to promote natural population movement to areas that are now economically down at heel and suffering from blight - since it would probably be a good guess that most of the empty homes and a high proportion of the unused urban land is in such areas.

And here it is not just land use policy that could make a huge difference. Many international inward investors want to be near to their global markets - which means proximity to ports and airports; much of the concentration of high tech businesses in the "western arc" of the South East region is put down to proximity to Heathrow - they are competing not with Hull, but with Silicon Valley or Osaka. A proper market in landing slots encompassing all airports in the UK could make a big difference to the viability of international traffic into regional airports, and so also attractiveness for international businesses to set up around those regional airports instead of around the London ones and bring employment, and therefore housing demand, out of the South East to those airport hosting regions.

But in the final analysis, the only measure that could achieve all of these in one, together with providing a replacement revenue stream for both local and national government, and recovering government and community financial inputs to localities from the beneficiaries who see their property values rise with regeneration money and so on (Sarah Beeney et al will explain it no doubt - it is fact not conjecture), is Land Value Tax.

All other things being equal, if your corporate tax bill (or even your competitor's) in, I don't know, Bolton, is a quarter what it would be in Bracknell, and your wage costs are a quarter less because your employees don't have to pay as much for that most basic of life's needs, a home, given the chance, wouldn't you, or rather your shareholders, jump at the chance for that extra post-tax profit? And, on top of that, your investment in that low value area would be far better for that area than continuing welfare payments because of a lack of economic opportunity for the people who live there - saving huge amounts of current government redistribution welfare payments.

Land values are by nature unearned by the occupier. They are created by the growth (or decline) in the popularity of a location, the expenditure of others, including government, that goes into the services and infrastructure that creates that popularity, and the effective monopoly current occupiers have in a location. Property values are also a "false" kind of wealth - for most people, those who live in their one and only property, they only really matter in relation to their next desired home. Those land values then, are a supremely appropriate thing on which to base a tax. And the non-doms, currently the fashionable whipping boys of the property market, cannot escape them to boot.

Who could possibly ignore an idea that claims to be able to achieve all of this with one simple reform. No more forcing urban expansions where people don't want them. Lower welfare transfer payments because of a more balanced regional economic outlook. Recovering money spent on an area from the people who benefit most from that expenditure. Lower housing costs. More efficient use of the housing we've got. And encouraging redevelopment of blighted areas or underused land. It's win-win. A no-brainer. A one size really does suit all package.

Technorati Tags: affordable housing, house building review, land value tax

...remember when policemen were people you felt you could go up to and ask for directions?

No longer it seems. In fact, if you have anything like a map with you, you could find yourself staying at Belmarsh (warning, watching the whole of this may cause you to damage your computer in anger!):

H/T Tristan

I am so glad Terence was filming this. Everyone should get the chance to see this kind of thing and have a real good think about the "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" attitude that is allowing our country to become a fascist state. The ability to stop at random (I was going to say "take to one side", but clearly they're happy to do this in full view of the entire concourse), with no probable cause whatever, and humiliate them in order to show other passengers "look, we're doing something about your security" is utterly obnoxious. I must say, though, I am amazed that he was allowed to continue filming, considering all that has been going on about photography in public places.

Britain, like never before, needs Fourth Amendment rights enshrined in law: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Since everyone else is having fun watching the US midterms and blogging about them, I thought I'd add my tuppence worth.

I am supporting Bernie Sanders for the Senate for Vermont.

Bernie pretty well started the Community Land Trust movement in the US many years ago when he was the socialist mayor of Burlington. Since then he's been the state's only congressman for fourteen years (it's so small - only the population of Oxfordshire - that they only get one). So he's a pretty sure fire bet. No Dems run against him and the Republican's a sure fire loser.

His brother, Larry, is a Green party county councillor in Oxfordshire and a member of our board at Oxfordshire Community Land Trusts.

It's the safest money you can put on tonight I'm sure...:)

A few weeks ago this ten year old article by Fred E Folvary was brought to my attention. I thought I had blogged about it before, but in the light of what I said in 'Revolutionary Liberalism: 5 - The "Sovereign Individual"' the other day and the welter of stories of party funding corruption this week it's worth reprinting today I think:

Democracy Needs Reforming

by Fred E. Foldvary, Senior Editor, The Progress Report

Ever since the 1996 elections, we have had wave after wave of revelations about improper or suspicious political campaign finances. Campaign contributions from Asia, soliciting contributions from government offices, overnight stays at the White House, diversion of "soft" money to political parties -- all this money sloshing and influence peddling points to the corruption of government, whether it was strictly legal or not.

The finance reform bill now being considered may be blocked by Democratic opposition to the "paycheck protection act" that would bar unions from using dues for political contributions without the members' approval. Even if it passes, the problem will remain. We've had campaign finance reforms every few years, and 114 votes on the issue by the Senate during the last ten years, but nothing really changes.

The basic problem is the way we elect our representatives. Our system is mass democracy: a large mass of voters elect a Congressman or Senator, or the President. The voters' don't know the candidate personally, so the candidate relies on advertising in the media to project a favorable image. This costs money, and the special interests are happy to contribute the funds.

No matter what laws are passed, the special interests will find ways around them, because of the tremendous gains they can get. Government financing of campaigns only gives more power to the two major parties, reducing even further the opportunity for smaller political parties to challenge the system and come up with new ideas. The problem is the corrupt incentives built into the system. To solve the problem, the whole voting system has to be changed.

Since the key problem is mass democracy, the only remedy is to change it to small-group democracy. Have every election take place in a small group. That would eliminate the need for mass media, and therefore the need for mass campaign funds, and thus the opportunity for special interests to buy out the election. Also, wealthy candidates would no longer have such an advantage.

But if a Congressional district has several hundred thousand people, how can we elect the representatives with small groups? The solution is multi-level voting. Divide cities and counties into small neighborhood districts. Each district elects a council. Then the council members elect one of their members to a higher- level council made up of a dozen neighborhood districts. These then elect members to the next higher level, and this continues on up to the representatives to the city council, state legislatures and Congress. One of the rules is that a lower-level council may recall a representative at any time if they are not satisfied.

Now you the voter are electing someone from your neighborhood for the neighborhood council, somebody you might know or easily have access to. Instead of mass mailings and TV commercials, the candidates would hold neighborhood meetings. All the higher-level elections would also be personal, since only a dozen or so councils would elect representatives to the next higher level council. The President himself would be elected by Congress, and the House of Representatives would only have, say, some 60 members instead of 435. And let's cut the Senate to 50 members, while we're at it. We want smaller groups, right?

Somebody might object that he or she wants to be able to elect the President directly. But one vote out of tens of millions does not amount to much. One vote in a neighborhood election of about 200 voters does count for something, plus your voice will be heard, and those who want to be representatives don't need to raise money.

This bottom-up multi-level voting system would also profoundly change the incentives for taxation. Power would shift dramatically to the neighborhood councils. Decentralized voting would lead to decentralized government and decentralized taxation. With local funding that gets sent to higher-levels of government, income and sales taxes would not longer be practical. Taxation would shift to real estate, especially to land, which does not flee when taxed.

Small-group democracy would be a radical change, but if we want to eliminate special-interest influence and the corruption of government, campaign-finance laws alone won't do it, because of the incentives built into the system. Either we change the voting system, or we will continue to let the special interests have their way.