In David Langford’s 1988 short story called “BLIT” (Berryman Logical Image Technique), there are a series of images called ‘Basilisks’ which are named after the legendary serpent king who could kill with a single blow. The Basilisks in BLIT are images which exploit programming flaws in the structure of the human mind; which cause people’s brains to crash. A human without a working brain, has a life expectancy of about 30 minutes maximum.
I mention Langford’s Basilisk because the idea of cognitohazards seems to be the main reason why NIMBYs are so risk averse to wanting anything that remotely looks like any kind of housing policy put forward by State and Federal Governments. Housing policy, if you are a NIMBY, appears to be something of an idea hazard; which implemented can harm others if fulfilled, or can cause danger to the person who knows the idea.
In Australia, the provision of public housing is the responsibility of State Governments. Federal Governments have had some degree of say when it came to social and affordable housing but really that only extended as far as the provision of defence housing, of war widows’ housing, and of housing for people on unemployment and sickness benefits. The vast bulk of responsibility for social and affordable housing in Australia, has always been the under the purview of the States.
Here's the fun thing: The States can just build public housing. That’s it. The States in every State (and Territory) in the nation, can just do whatever they want to with regards public housing.
I find arguments that the States can’t build public housing because it is going to somehow upend the so-called ‘heritage’ on an area, complete and utter chiroptera guano. Not only am I unconvinced by arguments of so-called ‘heritage’ on an area but when it comes to actually challenging so-called ‘heritage’, it instantly collapses when a sufficiently large amount of money is waved around.
To wit: I work in the Insanic Republic of Mosman. Near where I work used to be six Federation era houses; all of which were built between 1895 and 1914. A firm called Helm Properties, found it exceptionally easy to wave around enough money so that all of the former residents left, and now 20 apartments with 35 car park spaces will be built. At a total cost of $26m, the 20 apartments were sold at an average price of $7m a piece from what I can determine. All this means to say is if even in Mosman, where the average resident may as well be a person in God’s Waiting Room (for the First Class Special Flight of course), so-called ‘heritage’ listing when push comes to cheque-book, is a lie.
Also to wit: When it came to projects like the M8 or the Second Harbour Tunnel, or the Sydney Metro Project in New South Wales, the NSW State Government had no problem throwing buckets of money at the. So-called ‘heritage’ listing was no problem there either.
While I don’t think that merely opening up development zoning open slather is a good thing, because we all know that will be developers who build shonky buildings cutting corners, and risking lives; with as much density as the regulations will allow to take advantage of people like students and poorer people; which will fall over exactly eleven minutes after the tax advantages are over, the planning system for building places for people to live in, is just awful. The truth is that we will need some kind of private development to provide the housing stock that our cities desperately need, due to four decades of rampant neglect.
The opening premise of Adam Smith’s 1759 work “The Theory of Moral Sentiments” is that people are rationally selfish. I personally have doubts about the rationality of people but in relation to social and public housing, that selfishness gets turned all the way up to 11. Even if building public housing for the common good is excellent, people are in fact entitled to protect the value of their single biggest asset, which is their home, and they can and will do so; loudly. They can and will let their elected representatives know what they want; including blocking even modest attempts to introduce any kind of gentle density in the form of townhouses and sideways terraces. It seems that the only way that you really get proper housing stock build is either by reclaiming brownfield sites or cutting into greenfield sites.
At the same time part of the housing debate is very much racially motivated by xenophobic people who see that the world has changed in ways that they do not like, has introduced faces that they do not like; and so, there is a secondary argument that housing problems can be solved by cutting immigration.
I might very well be a loonie but it seems to me that the best place for new homes to be built is actually over the top of existing railway lines; which currently are just open air space waiting to be used. It matters not a jot if an electric train passes underneath someone’s house in terms of air quality because the fumes from electric trains are produced far away at the power station. London went electric as early as it could from the 1890s, with both the City and South London Railway and Underground Electric Railways Company of London exploiting the fact that they could build housing near or on top of railway lines.
The reason is obvious. If you put housing near existing transport infrastructure, then this allows people to get to where they work, shop, go to school, et cetera; while also killing urban sprawl, and car dependency. Say what you like about a climate crisis, even you have to concede that addressing a housing but actively improving people’s quality of life is a no brainer.
But mention any of this on any social media platform and people will try and string you up like you are SARS Cov-19, the plague, a murderer and a common criminal. Maybe it is true that just building more homes on its own is not going to tackle the housing crisis and that the housing crisis needs to be addressed by making homes that are built more affordable. However, NIMBYs are so against wanting anything that remotely looks like any kind of housing policy that the idea of building any more houses at all is a cognitohazard that they fear will break their minds.
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