Patrick Crozier has a modest plan for the rejuvenation of London…
With the mayoral election less than a year away I feel it time that I declared my hand. OK, so this is not entirely serious. Any candidacy would need funds, an organisation, assembly candidates and all those involved would have to realise that it wouldn’t have a prayer and that the only purpose of the exercise would be to secure publicity. But if we did have all those things this would be my manifesto. That’s the great thing about manifestos: they’re cheap.
Some Observations and Some Basic Principles
London is a great city – after all, it’s home to most of Samizdata’s writers. Millions of people would seem to agree with them coming here from all over the world to find a better life for themselves. But London seems to be getting worse when it could be getting a lot better. In particular it suffers from three major problems: crime, transport and property prices. My aim, if elected, would be to: reduce crime by 90%, reduce property prices by 50% and to make getting around the city a simple and predictable (if not necessarily cheap) business.
I believe that civilisation is at its best when people are free. It is freedom which promotes prosperity, innovation and responsibility. And yet for 100 years we have been chipping away at freedom, progressively heaping taxation and regulation upon a once free people with results that are all too plain to see. If London is to be better then first it must be free.
Housing
Property is too expensive. With a three-bedroom house costing six or seven times the average wage, millions are postponing and even abandoning the idea of having children. This is hardly a sustainable state of affairs. Prices are high because demand is high and supply is low. The answer is to increase the supply.
If elected I would abolish all planning laws and all building regulations. Immediately, people would start to build. Up mainly. And why not? We shouldn’t be scared of living in flats. Many people around the world enjoy good quality high-rise living where raising a family is as easy and as pleasant as living in a semi-detached. All that we have to do is to allow it to happen. I believe that by scrapping the regulations we will see the development of all sorts of new ideas in architecture as well as a massive increase in capacity. We might well see the development of self-build (people designing their own houses) as is seen in places like France and Spain.
Would we lose all our nice old buildings? Some, for sure, but do we really need all of them, especially as there is a chance we might get some nice, new ones in exchange? Transport
In the 1920s, London had the best public transport system in the world. And then government started to stick its oar in. Things have been getting worse ever since.
On the railways I would: scrap the Public Private Partnership; privatise the Tube; scrap the wheel/rail split on the railways; abolish all subsidy; scrap the Health and Safety Executive; scrap franchising and progressively remove fare capping.
This would allow railways the freedom to run their own affairs. It would solve few problems overnight – railways take decades to get right – but it would at least be a start. Freed of the dead hand of government, railways would be able to plan for the future, experiment and, most important of all, nurture the culture and pride in the job that is the hallmark of successful enterprises.
Freed of planning restrictions railways would be able to finance large-scale infrastructure improvements eg. Crossrail, through property development. It might take 30 years but we (should) end up with a system as good as that in Tokyo but without the overcrowding.
While there are many good things about the Congestion Charge (not least that it has introduced the practice of road pricing), it has failed because fewer people are travelling into Central London. They aren’t because there aren’t enough buses and other forms of mass, road-based transport. Allow anyone to run a bus or a jitney (a sort of combination between a bus and a taxi) and very quickly we will see a massive improvement in both quality and quantity with more people travelling into the centre and not fewer.
On the roads I would: keep the Congestion Charge but plough all profits back into better roads; scrap petrol taxes; scrap the road tax; free the buses (you can’t just run a bus you know); abolish bus lanes; privatise the Public Carriage Office and allow anyone to set up a taxi business.
Crime
A hundred years ago crime in London was very low. That being the case, wouldn’t the sensible thing to replicate as nearly as possible the criminal justice system of the time? To do this I would: re-legalise drugs; abolish licensing hours; re-legalise self-defence; re-legalise guns; abolish the restrictions that make it so difficult for the police to arrest people; allow the police to run their own prosecutions; re-introduce the property qualification for jury service and make punishments harsher.
Yes, that’s right: when Londoners had the right to get high as a kite society didn’t collapse and when Londoners had the right to bear arms crime was low. Actually, that last one makes perfect sense. If you are a criminal what sort of victims would you prefer to deal with armed ones or unarmed ones? Tony Robinson or Tony Martin? Come on, it’s an easy one.
Now, as I said, this is not entirely serious (my candidacy, that is, not my manifesto). There would be a huge amount of work involved. However, (blush, blush, synthetic hesitation, pompous voice) while I have neither sought high office nor to set myself above my fellow citizen and have always sought the life of a simple man, upon receiving the call from men of principle and of integrity to serve this great city, then narrow self-interest must be set aside and it is my honour and duty to prepare to enter the fray armed with only the sword of justice and the trusty shield of fair play…
Maybe I should complete a Voter Registration Form after all?
The trouble is that most of the things Patrick would like to do are responsibilities of the central government, not the mayor. This is part of the problem.
A point of infomation?
How would you privatize the railways? Government privatization schemes usually replace a government monopoly with a private one, which doesn’t seem to me to be much of an improvement – perhaps no improvement at all. Yet this is one of those situations where the responsibility for upkeep and management of the ‘commons’ must somehow be levied on all the competitors if there are to be multiple competitors. Who would do the levying? Ideas?
Patrick:
Re. housing, you could also make a good start by selling off all “social” and “council” housing (aka State owned housing). That way you would hugely increase supply and reduce prices.
Doug Collins:
Why on earth do you say that a Government natural monopoly is no better than a private natural monopoly? A Government run natural monopoly will operate so as to maximise the bureaucratic and political satisfaction of the civil servants and politicians running it. A privately run natural monopoly will operate so as to maximise its profits. Which would you prefer?
Why aim to reduce crime by only 90%? Surely aiming to reduce crime by 100% is more logical (and only ten-ninths as difficult).
I don’t approve of these sorts of targets anyway – I think the government should pledge to abolish 60% of them by the next election.
Not entirely serious?
I’m sure the guy in the monkey suit in Hartlepool wasn’t entirely serious either…
Well, I’ll vote for you Patrick. Except of course I’m registered to vote in South Oxfordshire! đ
Re. housing, you could also make a good start by selling off all “social” and “council” housing (aka State owned housing). That way you would hugely increase supply and reduce prices.
Actually, given the architectural merits (and socially destructive quality) of the housing in question, my preferred solution would be to demolish all council housing and then sell the land to private developers. They then might even create something that people would want to live in instead.
“…given the architectural merits (and socially destructive quality) of the housing in question, my preferred solution would be to demolish all council housing and then sell the land to private developers. They then might even create something that people would want to live in instead”
I’ve lived in ex-council properties for the past 5 years now, & they’ve been a hell of a lot better built than many privately developed blocks friends of mine have lived in. Particularly round the Docklands, some of the developments are really shoddy, with paper-thin walls and flimsy doors. I agree, some council estates are awful, but you’re tarring an awful lot of acommodation with the same brush.
If elected I would abolish all planning laws and all building regulations.
all planning laws?
all building regulations?
What if I have a cottage and somebody wants to build a skyscraper in front of my property and another skyscraper behind it and another to the right and another to the left?
There’s such a thing as blocking a person’s view, or spoiling it. It’s called ‘photon invasion’, or creating an ‘eyesore’.
I don’t see how invading somebody’s property with your photons can be considered compatible with libertarian principles.
Building on your own property can also be a form of theft –because if you steal someone else’s view, you effectively steal part of their property as well.
Patrick, you’re not libertarian enough.
Patrick:
while your at it PLEASE install some air conditioning in the underground trains. Summer riding on particularly hot days on the underground is a stench-o-rama.
Charles: There’s such a thing as blocking a person’s view
Actually there’s not. Nobody has a right to a view across someone else’s property and even under the present highly regulated planning system you will get nowhere trying to persuade a planning officer this is the case.
I agree that planning control should be abolished. What most people appear not to realise is that planning controls are strikingly recent. Here in Ireland planning permission began in 1963. To those who react with horror to the idea of no planning controls I would ask them to imagine how we managed up until 1963: the period when most of their favourite old buildings were built.
đ on the tube front, sadly he’d have trouble; the physical clearance just ain’t there in the tunnels, plus the heat generated by the aircon units, should you find a way of attaching them, has no way of being dispersed, & would just make all the stations & tunnels hotter (thus making the aircon work harder, pumping out more heat…).
A_t: plus the heat generated by the aircon units, should you find a way of attaching them, has no way of being dispersed, & would just make all the stations & tunnels hotter (thus making the aircon work harder, pumping out more heat…).
This is VERY true. The New York subway system holds heat underground like a miser, because the trains are actually generating more heat during the summer — it takes weeks for the temperature under there to reflect what’s going on above ground, in the fall. You need to remove about two layers of clothing when you go underground and put them back on when you exit. (Excellent way to get sick, btw.) It’s miserable, even though the NY system has more space than the Tube for that heat to dissipate — extra tunnels and express tracks and what have you (it’s why the system can run 24-7: There’s always an alternative track a train can run on if there’s maintenance going on, or similar service disruption). London doesn’t get as hot as NYC — I don’t reccomend going the AC route for the trains.
Andy wrote:
“Well, I’ll vote for you Patrick. Except of course I’m registered to vote in South Oxfordshire! :-)”
Don’t worry. Once we’ve got Patrick in City Hall he’ll quickly take over the rest of the country.
Frank MacGahon writes:
“Nobody has a right to a view across someone else’s property and even under the present highly regulated planning system you will get nowhere trying to persuade a planning officer this is the case.”
Maybe that’s true in Ireland but (as far as I know) it doesn’t apply to Luxembourg, from where I write. My point is that a free society also protects its citizens against excessive photon harassment, just as it protects them against noise pollution.
Restricting builders from hogging as much sky as possible in your immediate surroundings makes sense from a libertarian perspective. Just as nobody has a right to focus a 1000-watt floodlight into your garden, nobody should have a right to turn your garden into something equivalent to a prison yard from a visual perspective. I know, I know … it’s complicated. But just because most planning regulations are garbage doesn’t mean that they all are.
Charles Copeland:
You are quite right that property rights in land have to be defined in such a way as to balance the interests of neighbouring land owners. If I want to build a 9 storey block of flats and you want a nice view and some privacy, a balance has to be struck somehow.
But State discretionary regulation is not the way to go about it. It leads to self-serving bureacracy and prevents development even where all those immediately affected would consent.
Far better to define the rights clearly as property rights and then let neighbours bargain the rights between themselves, just as used to be done with pollution before the State got into that area too.
Charles: I’d be very surprised if Luxembourg law did protect private views across private properties. A developer may have difficulty obtaining planning permission for a tower blooc next door to your house but it would not be on the grounds of “excessive photon harassment”, more prosaicly the negative impact on your privacy or daylight would be taken into account but no country recognises a right to use someone else’s property as your “belvedere”.
If I own a site adjoining a beach and you own the site behind me you have no right to view the sea across my property. If you wanted to retain the view you could pay for it or buy the site. This would be the general rule in most countries.
It is also quite wrong to characterise a desire for government regulation in this area as “making sense from a libertarian perspective”. People conjure up these extreme scenarios (next door tower block/toxic waste/floodlight aimed into your garden) to justify planning regulations but common sense and market realities dictates that they are extremely unlikely. Such a rationale would be the classic hard case which makes bad law.
Cydonia
What’s this about pollution? Sounds interesting.
Patrick:
What’s this about pollution? Sounds interesting.
I think it may be a reference to research done by Ronald Coase on how the common law used to deal with pollution. His conclusion, which became known as Coase’s Theorem, was that provided there is freedom of contract and transaction costs are negligible, the parties to a contract will bargain their way to a Pareto-efficient outcome, regardless of how property rights are initially allocated.
If transaction costs are significant – for example, the holdout problem in building roads – then that conclusion doesn’t hold.
For a more extensive discussion of this, read Law’s Order by David Friedman, which I think I’ve recommended to you before.
well, i think its a good program. i’d vote for you, if londoners dont mind new yorkers voting for london’s mayor.
Patrick:
Andy Wood has it right.
In fact the sort of stuff which is covered by planning regs is actually easier than pollution because the transaction costs are likely to be a lot lower (dust, fumes and noice tend to affect a lot more people than an ugly extension in my back garden).
As to what the rules should actually be, well that’s a different question !
no doubt what you are saying is true, but I just don’t agree
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