WI: No Green Belts in the UK

As the title says. How would this influence urban development, demographics, and so forth in the United Kingdom?
 
I'm gonna give this a bump, even though most UK editors able to comment on this are probably going to bed right now, but it's worth a shot... anyone got any ideas at all?
 
Not really sure.Perhaps Greater London London would have sprawled further by now. Places like Brentwood and Grays in Essex might now be outer London suburbs. On the other side the same might have happened to Slough.
 

Devvy

Donor
More urban sprawl, at least around London. Probably slightly cheaper house prices, due to more supply and less paperwork in trying to build homes. London Underground stretches further out from London (as this was prevented by the sudden stopping of suburb building around London). Greater London ends up being pretty much everything inside the M25 with "non-London" entities being pushed further out.
 
You're going to have to prevent the ideas of Ebenezer Howard from becoming so influential. He first proposed the idea of "Garden Cities" surrounded by a permanent belt of agricultural land in 1898, his ideas gave rise to Letchworth and Welwyn Garden City and were eventually the basis for the post war strategy of Green Belts and the New Towns. So if you're going to kill the Green Belt then you're also effectively killing the concept of New Towns, so no Stevenage, Cumbernauld, Milton Keynes etc. ( Stop cheering down the back! :p)

There is still going to be a huge problem with slums that needs to be addressed. Therefore you need an earlier emphasis on urban renewal and on "Garden Suburbs" around the edges of the existing cities. I think you need Raymond Unwin to be more influential, he worked with Howard on Letchworth but later turned against New Towns in favour of Garden Suburbs.
 

AndyC

Donor
Lower house prices

This.

The Green Belts provide an artificial limitation on supply whilst demand increases. Therefore, we should expect house prices in London (where the greatest demand is) to be significantly higher than elsewhere, as the supply is not permitted to increase to match demand.

Garden Suburbs, Green Wedges, responsive planning for village and small towns within the Green belt; all would provide a significant down-push on house prices.

As to being necessary to prevent urban sprawl - we should look elsewhere and check countries without this feature - have they got urban sprawl? France? Germany? Are they hells of concrete development?

So, yeah. More houses, with bigger gardens and rooms. Lower house prices, especially in London. Lower public transport costs as well, probably (into London on the commuter routes). Lower house and property prices in the Home Counties as well (in commuting distance to London). So also lower other costs as businesses don't have rental costs as high as well.
 
As to being necessary to prevent urban sprawl - we should look elsewhere and check countries without this feature - have they got urban sprawl? France? Germany? Are they hells of concrete development?
Are France and Germany really all that good a comparison though? France has roughly the same population, a million or so more people, yet has about two and a quarter times more territory. Germany is a bit closer with about a third more people yet still has one and a half times the territory the UK has.

Personally I think the UK would of been better off embracing the idea of and building good quality apartments like in Paris, but that's another topic.
 
I am not sure.

We discuss green belts around more big cities here, and there is a possibly clear ecological good side.

So, a more poluated urban UK side. Less pleasant cities, maybe LOWER house costs in some places.
 
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London Underground's pre-war expansion plans would've been carried out, such as the Northern Heights extension to the Northern Line. I'd expect even more to occur, especially with regard to express routes etc.
 

AndyC

Donor
Are France and Germany really all that good a comparison though? France has roughly the same population, a million or so more people, yet has about two and a quarter times more territory. Germany is a bit closer with about a third more people yet still has one and a half times the territory the UK has.

Personally I think the UK would of been better off embracing the idea of and building good quality apartments like in Paris, but that's another topic.

I'd say their a decent comparison - the key isn't population per se but desire for population in certain locations. Most of Scotland, lots of Wales, the South West, East Anglia, the North West, the North East - even much of Yorkshire - is not that densely populated. The entire point of the Green Belt was to restrict population in certain areas of the UK and to try to force it into other areas. Not to have a restriction on the total population of the UK.

Those other countries are similar in development level and economy level (and economy per capita) to the UK.

The good quality apartments in the City - would have been a useful idea, yes.

The thing is, everything is a trade-off and we can argue over what is on the plus and minus side of the ledger, but too often people can tend to highlight the plus side and gloss over the minus side - I'm as guilty of that as anyone. However, my genuine view is:

- The fact that more houses could be built where people wanted them is pretty much incontestable (?). This means that with a greater supply to meet the demand, house prices in the insanely-high-house-price-part of the country would be far less insane. So would other property in London, so the costs associated would be lower (lower ground rents for shops, etc). As any inhabitant of London knows, everything is more expensive there, and that's often a major contributing factor (although by no means not the only one). The same in the Home Counties - the entire commuter Belt suffers similarly. Housing is a large chunk (and growing) of most households' expenses; lower costs here would really help many families. Lower shopping costs would be great as well.

- The red side of the ledger is the downside of more building in that area - but I would argue that it would automatically be concrete sprawl, as we don't see that in the areas around Paris and Berlin, do we? Intelligent and sensible development (villages spattered around where we'd forbit them on scrubland in the Green Belt; Garden Suburbs; requisite areas of parkland and forestry in areas to be built on, etc) would work at least as well as the inflexible Green Belt fiat - in my opinion.
 
London Underground's pre-war expansion plans would've been carried out, such as the Northern Heights extension to the Northern Line. I'd expect even more to occur, especially with regard to express routes etc.

It would e interesting to see what effect t would have on the London Underground. and the rail network. Some lines axed in the 60s and later might still be with us like the Staines - West Drayton Line.

Perhaps the Chelsea-Hackney undegroud line would have been built efore now and not a plan for after the last civil servant in the Department of/for Transport has learned Norn.

Who knows Blake Hall station might even have been viable!
 
One other thing to think about is the depopulation of urban centres of the UK.

Until about 10 years ago, people were fleeing the city centres as they moved out the poor moved in or districts simply became abandoned. We see these abandoned parts even now, with the green belt.

With no restrictions on where people could build I could see many of the northern cities having much much larger suburbs but with an urban core of mostly abandoned houses and slums.

The slum clearances may just turn into more suburbia increasing the city sizes even more.
Overall in the cities worst hit by the closure of industry such as Newcastle, Glasgow and Liverpool I could see them being like OTL Detroit.

Also cities would become indistinguishable as suburbs joined up.

So Liverpool, Manchester, Warrington, Macclesfield, Blackburn, Preston, Southport, Flint, Chester, Wrexham and maybe even Stoke on Trent would be one massive city like OTL Los Angeles with several centres.

Birmingham, Coventry and Edinburgh, Glasgow would be one

London wouldn't extend much further but the gaps between the commuter cities now like Reading, Southend, Crawley, Guilford and Luton would be filled in.
 

perfectgeneral

Donor
Monthly Donor
Cambridge has the broadest 'Green' belt in the country. It quickly grows from 125k population to a large city of 500k. Peterborough grows more slowly.
 
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