Since buildings sit on it and food is grown in it, the last two chapters lead us towards another socionatural resource: land. Five topics seem relevant here. We deal with housing and urban density in this chapter, transport, flooding and waste in the next.

Britain has a higher population density than most European countries. If you took its 60 million acres and divided them between 40 million adults, the resulting 1.5 acres per person is equivalent to a box with sides that are 255 feet long. In fact, as noted in Chapter Two, Britons are packed into a space narrower than this for three reasons.

First, large parts of the country are owned by very few, whether corporations, such as the National Trust or the Crown, or family estates (since the Norman Conquest, in some cases). One-third of UK land is owned by just 1,200 families (Cahill, K., 2006, pp 308-9; 2010). Second, the countryside has been relatively protected from development. Third, as the rest of us make do with the leftovers, pressure on space obviously builds up. The domestic residences we occupy are distributed either via housing markets (private residences and rented accommodation) or assessments of need (social housing). Over the last four decades the balance – including planning and regulatory frameworks (Luhde-Thompson and Ellis, 2008, p 47) – has shifted in favour of housing markets, permitting those with the financial resources and political voice to occupy greater space and more desirable locations.

We have encountered housing already in Chapter Three (place poverty) and Chapter Six (energy efficiency). How does housing relate to land? More houses obviously means more of the country is carpeted not just with buildings but also with the public and private infrastructures needed to support them. Furthermore, the number of single-occupier UK households looks set to grow. The question of urban density therefore arises, and we explore this shortly.

In this chapter we look at the social and environmental impacts of the housing market. What effects do those markets have on the rates and nature of UK poverty? Do housing markets contribute to unsustainable urban densities? How should we explain these effects, and what solutions might be proposed?

Housing and poverty

The British obsession with property has deep foundations.