I have thought this the case for quite some time but assumed I had misunderstood something basic since I never heard anyone mention immigration in connection with the housing crisis. This article confirms that I'm not going mad and I now have the figures to prove it!
I don't have any solutions but I do get sick of the ubiquitous, unreflective journalistic meme about Britain's failure to build enough new homes. If we're talking fundamentals......Britain does not have a 'Housing Crisis'; it has a family-formation, single-parenthood crisis.
Immigration restriction can address housing scarcity but it can also make it worse, depending on how things shake out. Like, if you ban Polish plumbers or whatever, you decrease demand for housing but you also increase the labor costs of building. Also, even if you ban immigration, you’d still need more housing, so people can live where they want to live and have the space they would like. So, yeah, a well-designed immigration restriction could theoretically help housing cost but it’s neither sufficient nor necessary to address the scarcity issue
When I got the breakdown of the cost components of my house land, sales expense , and tax were the biggest components. Both materials and labor were significant but not even half.
I don't think a few more Polish plumbers can fix that.
"Note that supporting high-skilled immigration on economic grounds is perfectly reasonable."
It's isn't.
Every net high skilled immigrant is a brain drain from somewhere else.
The migration of people from Rochdale to London has not turned Rochdale into a Utopia due to 'remittances'.
It's no different from Riga to London.
Taking people other nations have paid to train is Colonial Appropriation. It's clearly immoral to take doctors from parts of the world where they have endemic malaria and rickets, for example.
The Net Zero we should be aiming for is net zero immigration. That's the only moral approach.
I have a feeling that there is probably some maximum limit to how fast housing can grow given all the surrounding issues, and so if population grows faster you just get price increases.
I have thought this the case for quite some time but assumed I had misunderstood something basic since I never heard anyone mention immigration in connection with the housing crisis. This article confirms that I'm not going mad and I now have the figures to prove it!
I don't have any solutions but I do get sick of the ubiquitous, unreflective journalistic meme about Britain's failure to build enough new homes. If we're talking fundamentals......Britain does not have a 'Housing Crisis'; it has a family-formation, single-parenthood crisis.
Yes it's too late now to row back but at least let's call a spade a spade. https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/
Immigration restriction can address housing scarcity but it can also make it worse, depending on how things shake out. Like, if you ban Polish plumbers or whatever, you decrease demand for housing but you also increase the labor costs of building. Also, even if you ban immigration, you’d still need more housing, so people can live where they want to live and have the space they would like. So, yeah, a well-designed immigration restriction could theoretically help housing cost but it’s neither sufficient nor necessary to address the scarcity issue
When I got the breakdown of the cost components of my house land, sales expense , and tax were the biggest components. Both materials and labor were significant but not even half.
I don't think a few more Polish plumbers can fix that.
I agree that land use restrictions overwhelm labor costs, in terms of what makes housing expensive.
Aren't immigrants overrepresented in the construction sector? I know that's the case in america.
"Note that supporting high-skilled immigration on economic grounds is perfectly reasonable."
It's isn't.
Every net high skilled immigrant is a brain drain from somewhere else.
The migration of people from Rochdale to London has not turned Rochdale into a Utopia due to 'remittances'.
It's no different from Riga to London.
Taking people other nations have paid to train is Colonial Appropriation. It's clearly immoral to take doctors from parts of the world where they have endemic malaria and rickets, for example.
The Net Zero we should be aiming for is net zero immigration. That's the only moral approach.
I have a feeling that there is probably some maximum limit to how fast housing can grow given all the surrounding issues, and so if population grows faster you just get price increases.
Now look at divorce and single parenthood as a factor in the housing crisis.