A complaint in The Guardian about how modern housing estates are nothing but rabbit hutches jammed together:

Matthew Carmona, a professor at University College London, whose team has surveyed new housing schemes across the country as part of a major forthcoming report, says big developers are producing too many estates with serious design flaws. “At present we are just not meeting the basic requirements for civilised living that we should expect in a country like our own,” he said.

Seems an entirely fair complaint to us.

The worst new estates lack nearby amenities such as shops, pubs and cafes. They are unconnected to surrounding areas, with few public transport links. They lack enough green spaces and playgrounds.

Simply dormitories with none of the things that make up actual civilisation. They’re also the smallest new builds in Europe. So, why is this?

The design code for the development, which will eventually see 873 homes built across 32 hectares, specifies distinctive architecture and a high-quality, accessible environment.

We’re sure it does. But why in heck are so many houses being crammed on such a small amount of land? Because the government insists that houses must be crammed onto small areas of land.

That’s around 27 dwellings per hectare there. Until recently at least the national insistence was 30 or more dwellings per hectare.

Why is new British housing nothing but rabbit hutch dormitories in civilisational wastelands? Because that’s what government insists is built. And it’s worth noting that not one single person who legislates upon, designs nor builds these horrors ever actually lives in one. They’re always for people other than those doing the insisting.

The reason modern British housing is crap is because that’s what government insists is built, crap. The solution to this is to change the insistence at least, if not the government. Rather than who is doing the building within those rules.