I frequently agree with ideas expressed on New Geography but certainly not Ian Abley's article There is no "Free Market" Housing Solution



The common line used by advocates of housing affordability has been that the solution lies in “free markets”. Yet this "free market" solution does not address the fundamental problem which is really a political one.



The root of this problem lies with an elite agenda that is highly ideological. The ideology at work is environmentalism, making a moral virtue of the retreat of political and commercial elites from the industrial production of housing.



Home Price Index







On 24 November 2009 the Housing Minister John Healey confirmed that Britain will be the first country in the world to require zero carbon homes as a matter of law from 2016. Britain is the world leader in green ideology.



All of the newly built British housing will have much better insulated walls, windows, roofs and floors. The clear aim of the government is to keep reducing the energy consumption of all new homes to be measured in kilowatt-hours per square metre of floor area per year.



The commitment to "zero carbon" allows government to appear virtuous in its legislation for the new build sector.



This suits the financial markets as well, since it guarantees house price inflation by making it difficult to meet the demographic demand for homes. Environmentalism offers more and more reasons not to build. Green thinking ensures that house price inflation can be sustained through a bubble, and projected beyond the bursting of that period of financialisation into the next.



The idea of a "free market" is a long running ideological myth. But the universal freedom to build would mean people are free to attempt to raise the finance to buy land and build.



The market is not capable of being a “free market”. Capitalism is a system of control by political and commercial elites, and their professional employees. British capitalists tend to be less interested in industry, which is held to have caused Climate Change, and more interested in finance these days.

Missing The Free Market Boat

Affordable Housing Irony

Common Sense vs. Green Thinking

Once attitudes change, if "zero carbon" or other government nonsense makes homes cost more than people are willing to pay, all economic homebuilding activity will simply cease!

Green thinking ensures that house price inflation can be sustained through a bubble, and projected beyond the bursting of that period of financialisation into the next