We are in desperate need of new homes — a fact on which Brits tend to agree. They tend to disagree, though, over where to put them, and these battles generally concentrate on the edges of cities. Take the Government’s new plan to build on grey-belt land — “poor quality and ugly areas” — which is already causing ominous semantic squabbles to break out.
What is “poor quality” exactly? What should we categorise as “ugly”? And what about the bees and butterflies that hover around these unlovely stretches? Those who want to increase the radius of a city usually find conservationists and existing residents standing in their way. And these are powerful groups: the existence of the green belt is proof of that. But there is also another direction in which to expand a city. Up.
