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Peter Bennet's avatar

An excellent and very interesting article.

We need more articles like this to get it through to people that we'll be richer and better off as a country when we stop preferring unearned wealth over earned wealth.

It's quite remarkable if you drive around Silicon Valley, just how many bungalows there are. The standard housing unit historically seems to have been the detached bungalow (or sometimes the 1.5 story house you see in the US, Australia and New Zealand). There may well have been reasons for doing this in the past (earthquakes), but it's quite a ridiculous use of scarce land. And London is indeed expensive in part for similar reasons - the switch to one and two story housebuilding for most of the 20th century.

It's probably better not to complicate the argument here with any discussion of taxation. But the tax advantages of land speculation are also a major factor here.

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UK legislation's avatar

socialism always fails.. its easy to deliver more and cheaper housing, we need to relax planning and fine council that don't pass planning. cut all the red tape and needless environmental regulations and lower ...yes lower taxes on land make its 10% CGT flat rate . much more land will come to market and much more competition = better outcomes for all. fixing the market and centralisation is what brought down the Soviet Union only morons try to emulate it. read Rethinking the Planning System for the 21st Airey Doughty Policy Exchange for guidance

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