What's so great about Old Buildings?

[kevin]

[QUOTE=Waterways;202444]Here are some figure which no doubt you will think are made up:

Compare some approximate population densities of English cities and continental ones:

Manhattan 27,500/km2
L.A. (city) 3,200/km2
Paris 25,000/km2 (including bois de boulogne and bois de vincennes)
Barcelona 16,500/km2
Stockholm 4,400/km2
Brussels 6,700/km2
Athens 7,600/km2
Naples 8,200/km2
Berlin 3,850/km2
Moscow 9,700/km2
Melbourne 1,600/km2

Greater London 4,800/km2
Liverpool (Borough & City) 4,200/km2
Metropolitan Borough of Manchester 3,800/km2
City of Nottingham 3,700/km2
Bristol 3,600/km2
Newcastle on Tyne 2,400/km2
City Borough of Salford 2,200/km2

[QUOTE]

Made up?
No.
But they can be manipulated according to the definition you use of 'resident' when you gather the figures. It's unlikely the figures are entirely accurate but they do have a use. As long as the figures are gathered in exactly the same way across all destinations you can get a comparative picture of density.

[Waterways]

Here are some figure which no doubt you will think are made up:

Compare some approximate population densities of English cities and continental ones:

Manhattan 27,500/km2
L.A. (city) 3,200/km2
Paris 25,000/km2 (including bois de boulogne and bois de vincennes)
Barcelona 16,500/km2
Stockholm 4,400/km2
Brussels 6,700/km2
Athens 7,600/km2
Naples 8,200/km2
Berlin 3,850/km2
Moscow 9,700/km2
Melbourne 1,600/km2

Greater London 4,800/km2
Liverpool (Borough & City) 4,200/km2
Metropolitan Borough of Manchester 3,800/km2
City of Nottingham 3,700/km2
Bristol 3,600/km2
Newcastle on Tyne 2,400/km2
City Borough of Salford 2,200/km2

Made up?
No.
But they can be manipulated according to the definition you use of 'resident' when you gather the figures. It's unlikely the figures are entirely accurate but they do have a use. As long as the figures are gathered in exactly the same way across all destinations you can get a comparative picture of density.

Raw data is well...raw data. Pablo is dismissing raw data. Well he is refusing to disbelieve what he has been believing for most of his life. They countryside is largely empty.

How data it is interpreted is another matter. As Ann Robinson in Watchdog would dismissed the percentage figures given by manufacturers. They would say only 5% of this product has had problems. That 5% maybe 100,000 items.

7.5% of 60 million acres is not much acreage at all.

[Waterways]

Who looks silly now? It is NOT just about how stats are interpreted, but how they are gathered. It is so easy to build bias into questions to ensure that you get the hard figures you require.

The figure in question is 7.5% of the UK's land is paved. This is pretty well correct. Even Kate Barkers report of around 3 years ago put it at just under 8%. I state 7.5%, as do others, to round off as the figure is between 7.5 and 8. Most of this data comes from the Land Registry. I say most as those who owned land prior made sure their rolling family acres were not on it as they had a lot hide. But, a pretty educated estimate gets to 7.5% of the land. They know the figures for the urban land usage and deducting it from the total is easy

BYTW, I am an academic too. I did stats at uni and have used them in the real work.

[dazza]

Yeah Darren. I love seeing old walls utilising even older brick, cannibalised by newer builders. The Egyptians and Romans did it and you see parts of our past integrated into newer environments in Liverpool, particularly in Woolton, West Derby, Green Lane. In my neck of the woods, Lydiate, I keep seeing bits and pieces of the old Priory and Lydiate hall bricks integrated into old farm walls. Its funny how you can walk right past and not notice

Hi Partsky, I wonder how much of Liverpool has been salvaged off to other parts of the city; other parts of the country? Well, even the Roman's were up to this kind of trick. In Pompei, they used old ['old' by their standards] stone column drums, as a threshold piece for doorways. The Coleseum, in Rome, was basically a quarry for the renaissance.

[dazza]

I think the word you are looking for is heritage.

A word that should find it's way back into the Developer's [and council's, for that matter] dictionary.

[kevin]

[QUOTE=Waterways;202500
How data it is interpreted is another matter. As Ann Robinson in Watchdog would dismissed the percentage figures given by manufacturers. They would say only 5% of this product has had problems. That 5% maybe 100,000 items.
[/QUOTE]

Good point.

[petromax]

Raw data is well...raw data. Pablo is dismissing raw data. Well he is refusing to disbelieve what he has been believing for most of his life. They countryside is largely empty....

Academic my back-side! You wouldn't know reasoned debate if it slapped you in the face.

There is no point in debating the accuracy of your percentage paved area; even less so whether it is too much or too little. More usefully, there are any number of academic studies demonstrating the harmful environmental effects of urban sprawl, the effect on carbon footprint and ongoing and real damage to our position on the planet.

The time for denial of climate change is over. It is happening (ask anyone in Cumbria about the number of '1 in 100 year' rainfalls since 2002). You can debate whether it is down to mankind if you like but it is beyond reasonable doubt to say that deliberately increasing the amount of commuter travel and surface water run off seems at best, foolhardy and actually downright irresponsible. It certainly makes matters worse. Even if we largely eradicated the car and moved all commuter transport to highly efficient trains, it is self-evident that the further you travel the more environmental damage you do.

It is therefore more useful to look at how to provide sustainable communities in the current precarious circumstances; communities that are "socially and economically diverse and that provided residents with 'a sense of place' and 'celebrated local history, climate, ecology, and [best] building practice'" ie. great places to live, and thence to work out whether that is best achieved in the 'empty' countryside or the 'empty' bits of existing cities.

It makes sense to work out how much land is needed and which land is best placed. It is misleading to say that the overall density of London is similar to the overall density of Liverpool. Liverpool is a doughnut city with largely empty inner wards (if you doubt it, have a walk around the North End or look at the population of Liverpool Northshore for example ie. the 800Ha of the Liverpool portion of the Atlantic Gateway Strategic Investment Area - the population is nil; yes, nil). Therefore a more valid comparison is to compare Liverpool (not Merseyside) with Inner London (not Greater London). On this basis, Inner Wards of London are twice as dense as Inner Wards of Liverpool.

On this basis, it?s plain as a pike staff that developing the 67,000Ha of inner city brownfield sites at this benchmark density can provide great places to live while being hugely preferential to building more stuff further out in the countryside and extending the lines of public transport and/or road network to suit - irrespective of your highly partial views/class hatred of the ?landed gentry?.

In short, I couldn?t give a stuff that you?ve got a chip on your shoulder about farmers and the CAP when we are either sleep-walking or worse, deliberately planning our way into global catastrophe and there is a significant alternative contribution to the solution directly on hand - ie. re-establishing sustainable communities in the inner cities.

If you want more information, you could start at http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...e-urban-sprawl

[kevin]

Whether someone is an academic or not (I am) is really irrelevant to this and most discussions. I know academics who are the brightest and most insightful people I've ever met, and others as thick as the brown stuff coming out of the blunt end of a pig.
Judge them, as with all others, by their thoughts and actions, not by their job title.

[Waterways]

Academic my back-side! You wouldn't know reasoned debate if it slapped you in the face.

That is amazing coming from you. Your idea of a reasoned debate is agreeing with your half-baked conclusion based on incomplete data.

In short, I couldn?t give a stuff that you?ve got a chip on your shoulder about farmers and the CAP when we are either sleep-walking or worse, deliberately planning our way into global catastrophe and there is a significant alternative contribution to the solution directly on hand - ie. re-establishing sustainable communities in the inner cities.

Many here are sadly locked into a mentality. Let your minds run free.

• Country & Urban. It must all be one - We can't build over all the countryside as the Daily Mail keeps telling you, as there is just too much of it. It is near impossible to do. If all towns and cities and villages are three times the size giving a population of 180 million, that gives only 22.5% of the land settled. Not a lot is it? I am not advocating that, just ramming home the point of land usage in the UK.
• Massive British exodus because of poor land and planning laws - The ex Empire countries attracted British migrants, when I talk to them, having been to many of these places, I ask many of them why they left the UK. The answer from 90% plus is, "we could have a nice large house, which we could not have in the UK". They could have had a nice big house in the UK that did not cost an arm and a leg, as the countryside is hardly built on - urban settlement is a paltry 7.5% of the land. We are not allowed to build on this great mass of land as they are in other countries.
• Why? why? why? Did millions of our own people leave the country - Because of the ridiculous planning and land laws. Did these planning and land laws help the people of the UK? Clearly No. Millions left the country because of them. OK millions of people have come to the UK, but these have been overwhelmingly people from dirt poor third-world countries.
• Social Engineering With Vested Land Interests Does Not Work - Social engineering and vested interest by large landowners has created poor urban environments in the UK.
• The UK has appalling ugly haphazardly built cities - The cities are filled with pokey super expensive poor quality houses. Clearly this approach to land and planning has not worked.
• High Density Cities Does Not Work - What approach can? Not attempting to create high density cities - again. That failed once costing billions. Great social problems resulted.
• Most People Aspire To A Semi-rural Lifestyle - What lifestyle and quality of life do people aspire to? Many aspire to detached homes and semi-rural living. Many surveys say this. So, this is what should be accommodated.
• So-called Sprawl Does Work When Done Properly - Each outer suburb can be a village in its own right with lots of green spaces. If anyone thinks villages in cities do not work, well look at Hampstead in London and Woolton in Liverpool. The city centre can be high density vibrant living, mixed with commercial. Connect up the villages by light-rail rapid-transit networks, not in a radial fashion, but a true network for ease of getting about. For e.g., Liverpool have the Outer Loop line and Canada Dock branch line to line up outer suburbs creating a "net" not a star. Do not construct wide dual-carriageway roads. Get people to use the metro links and having high frequencies they will use them. Do not allow massive supermarkets with large car parks. Tesco do well with the Expresses,which are large enough shops.
• Freedom To Live and Build Where You Want To - The forgotten word - Freedom. If someone wants to build a house out in the country, let him. Conform to the local vernacular - OK fine. It is called freedom, you know that thing millions of our ancestors fought and died for - quite a few of my uncles did.
• Build Low Impact Homes - Homes with super insulation, passive solar design and low energy appliances have a low carbon footprint. This home cots nothing more to build yet has not full heating system. Look at: Heatinghless House A heatingless house in Scotland by Deveci. Figures given by the university, so no arm-waving. Look at St. Georges Solar School in Wallasey. Solar School Having Low impact buildings mean we can build anywhere and reduce the carbon footprint substantially.
• It is Not Either OR - It is not urban or rural, it is all one. We can openly use the land to create large affordable comfortable homes - new UK homes are half the size of Denmark with German home being half as big again with the same population density of the UK.Even Japan builds larger homes.

You have been given a propaganda line, we all have. Simple facts, and proof given, are that the country has a surplus of land. We were told we are running out of land, so must all live in pokey over expensive rabbit hutches with paper thin walls like this:



We are not running out of land, we have so much we pay farmers not to grow on it.

You were confronted with facts which turned what you believed 180 degree. You refused to believe the figures as this went against your indoctrination. Then you grasp at straws going on an eco stance. The fact is we can spread out and still be sustainable. You appear to want us all to grow our own vegetable on allotments. You have it fixed in your head that an eco house on field will ruin the environment.

Do tell yourself lies and believe them. One thing is clear the UK is being ripped off big time by large land owners. By recognising this and wanting the situation to change you bizarrely think this is having a chip on the shoulder, such is the level of your sycophantic indoctrination. BTW, you are not the only one.

We are not planning (as in housing) our way into a global catastrophe at all. How naive.

[gregs dad]

This debate reminds me of the saying .There are three sides to every story.Your side,my side,and the truth.

[Waterways]

This debate reminds me of the saying .There are three sides to every story.Your side,my side,and the truth.

My side is based on raw indisputable data - the truth.

[Ged]

You three are a fine pair if ever I saw one.

[pablo42]

You three are a fine pair if ever I saw one.

Ha, you wouldn't be getting your figures jumbled up would you Ged.

[petromax]

That is amazing coming from you...How naive.[/B]

It's like talking to a child; amusing for a while, but dulls so quickly.

[Waterways]

It's like talking to a child; amusing for a while, but dulls so quickly.

What don't you understand specifically. I'll try to help you.

You think we are going to choke to death if we do not live in rabbit hutches like battery hens. I'll help you:

It is quite simple. Something like 42% of emissions are via domestic homes. Introduce:

• superinsulation,
• air-tightness
• passive solar design on all buildings.

That cost nothing to do and the building industry picks up the tab.

Change the planning system to allow buildings in the a masses of land we have (only 7.5% is settled) and land prices come down leaving more money to the build rather than spent on land, of which the country has a surplus.

Legislate high efficiency appliances only. Introduce more urban electric rail networks. Reduce road building.especially urban road schemes. Stop large supermarkets being built with large car parks. Urban design to get back to traditional high streets.

All that can be introduced ASAP and costs the taxpayer nothing at all.

Now, moving to electric cars is the next step after.