Friday 19 March 2010

Regulators!



Via Samizdata, I found this delightful exposition of precisely why strict planning permission is such a bad thing: Western Australia has a population of 2.2 million. It has a land area of 2.6 million square kilometers. The United Kingdom has a population approximately 30 times that of Western Australia and Western Australia is about 12 times the size of greater London the UK (if my increasingly shoddy maths is up to the job.) So with a population density of 1/360th of that of UK, you'd expect property to be dirt cheap over there. But it isn't. In reality, average house prices in Western Australia exceed UK average house prices by about 50%.

And let's face it, the UK is not known for its laxity when it comes to giving planning permission.

No, despite the cries of people for "balanced libertarianism", it's clear to me that if you can't do what you like with your own land, then you are just benefiting the haves and denying the have-nots.

10 comments:

Timdog said...

Tenuous link to a good tune on a Friday, bravo

Angry Exile said...

It's one of a number of blog ideas of got on the back burner because I need to actually get off my arse and look into some things, and being a lazy bastard I haven't. But I suspect that I'll find that every fucking square inch of the whole country is ultimately owned by the cunts in Canberra or is bought, sold and used only with their approval. What people actually think is that it's me and the million or so other ex-pat poms moving over here and buying up the land, especially in Perth which has a bit of a little England reputation, but how can that be when there's a whole fucking continent east of Perth with nearly fuck all until you get to the eastern states?

BTW, I think WA is more than 12 times the size of Greater London unless they've built it up quite a bit in the last four years. ;-)

Angry Exile said...

"Of got"? I need to go take my twat pills.

Obnoxio The Clown said...

Angry Exile, I missed an edit.

Idle Pen Pusher said...

WA is a LOT bigger than 12x Greater London. But most of it is barren desert.

Angry Exile said...

Wasn't just your "increasingly shoddy maths" then?

Obnoxio The Clown said...

No, it's my increasingly shoddy editing skills as well. :o(

thefrollickingmole said...

Try an area called Karratha in NW Australia. Its part of the huge boom in gas/minerals and accounts for a large part of Australias wealth.

Now check out how planning and Native title have combined to produce this sort of perversion.

http://www.realestate.com.au/cgi-bin/rsearch?id=karratha&a=qfp&cu=fn-rea&t=ren

No rent under $1000 per week, most around $2500.
I did the roadworks on the last major land relese up there over ten years ago. No land has been released for residential building since then.

So wages are high, but theres still houses where each couple only has one room in a 3 bedroom place.
Any small jobs such as shop assistants, deli owners etc, cant afford to stay in town unless your on 80K per year.

In the city its another story, the cry is "urban sprawl" like 1/4 acre blocks and lots of open space is a sin against GAIA.
Property developers like it, government (which collects rates based on the value of the LAND each house is on) makes sypatheytic noises, but rakes in millions more than they should because of artifical land scarcity.

They are all cunts.

thefrollickingmole said...

This one describes it much better than I ever could..

http://ipa.org.au/news/2086/it's-time-misguided-land-starvation-was-stopped

Angry Exile said...

"They are all cunts."

Saves me doing anything resembling research :-)

The scarcity over in the east is certainly artificial. Victoria may be the smallest (mainland) and most densely populated state but there's still only about two thirds the population of greater London living in an area the size of the UK. How the fuck can anything cost a million dollars without artificial scarcity (among other things) driving up prices? Yet $1 million would be a bargain price in most of the inner suburbs. With this much space the only way a house should be more than a million bucks is if it's a penthouse overlooking the Yarra with hot and cold running nymphomaniacs.