At a public meeting with Tessa Jowell on Saturday there was a discussion about the housing shortage and what to do about it. Tessa seemed keen to explore people's attitudes on the extent to which people would accept limits on private property rights as a solution to this problem. A strong example was shared of a new build block where the low cost housing was all sold and occupied and the private flats were sold but mostly unoccupied. The parable of the talents would be seem pretty clear that leaving a useful asset like a flat unoccupied would take some explaining. If you lived in a hamlet of 10 families where your neighbour's child needed to set up home with a new wife and an absentee landlord had left the only remaining dwelling locked and empty, you might be quite clear on right and wrong. I once worked with someone from Copenhagen on a project in Sweden. They wouldn't stay more than one weekend in a row (even though they had a local partner) because they feared a neighbour would tell the council their privately owned flat was unoccupied and the council compulsorily let it underneath them. What would Londoners put up with?
