The Planning Reform Reader

The best things to read about making it easier to build

A few months ago someone (who shall remain anonymous) asked me to make them a list of everything they need to read to understand planning reform; why Britain needs it; why past attempts have failed; and how to get it right this time.

Having put the list together over a morning, I figured others might find it interesting too. But just as I was about to post it, I learnt I’d have to replace (if such a thing was possible) Britain Remade’s Head of Research Ben Hopkinson. As my favourite hiring hack is asking people the essays and papers they would themselves recommend (you can learn a lot about a person this way), I decided to put the list on ice until we found the right person. I’m glad to say we now have so I can share it with you.

Since I first put this list together, a number of very good posts have cropped so I’ve decided to add them in too. I’ve also asked some of the people whose writing appears on this list their recommendations.

This is far from a comprehensive list, there’s a heavy slant to the UK context, and there’s a fair amount of me recommending things I’ve written myself. With those disclaimers in mind, here’s my planning reform reader.

Foundational essays: The core texts that you everyone should read which cover the problem, causes, and solutions.

• The Housing Theory of Everything: Bowman, Southwood, and Myers. The key essay on why fixing housing is the essential problem to solve.

• Foundations: Southwood, Bowman, and Hughes. Why ‘it’s too hard to build stuff’ is the best explanation for why Britain’s economy has stagnated.

• Why I’m a skills sceptic: Sam Dumitriu. The alternative explanation to ‘it’s too hard to build stuff’ is the idea that the UK has a major skills problem. This piece marshalls data and research to cast doubt on that idea.

• Back to What We’re Good at: Britain Remade. This (along with Foundations) has the best examples/charts on housing, energy, and transport. This doesn’t just explain why we need to make it easier to build, but also sets out in depth the practical policy changes that would make that a reality.

• Britain is a consultation nation: Sam Dumitriu. Why excessive requirements to consult make building infrastructure and housing slower and more expensive.

• Everythingism: an essay: Joe Hill. The tendency of Britain’s governments to accept trade-offs, or why policymakers shouldn’t try to do everything, everywhere, all at once. Not directly about planning but often planning is the epicentre of everythingism.

Political Economy: The idea that we need to fix planning isn’t new, but many efforts have failed and even made the problem worse. These texts explain the fundamental political constraints.

• Why Britain doesn’t build: Sam Watling. This is the definitive history of planning policy in Britain. If policymakers don’t take this seriously, they will fail to solve the problem.

• The dark secret underlying high infrastructure costs: Ben Southwood. A political economy explanation of why cost-increasing regulations multiply.

• How centralisation makes infrastructure more expensive: Ben Hopkinson. Why the UK’s over-centralisation pushes up infrastructure costs.

• The failure of the land value tax: Sam Watling. Read for an understanding of why local government in Britain is institutionally broken and unable to deliver its core functions.

• Growing the Growth Coalition: Judge Glock. More on the problem of local government and why the current set-up is ‘anti-growth’.

• Democracy is the solution to vetocracy: Sam Bowman. Analysis of the vetocracy problem and how surprisingly democracy (allowing small groups of people most directly affected by a new development to vote on it) can solve it.

Housing: Models for thinking about housing and examples of effective policy solutions.

• Where should we build 1.5m homes: Sam Dumitriu and Ben Hopkinson. A summary of a very good Tim Leunig/Henry Overman paper and its application to the recent housing target algorithm debate.

• The housebuilding crisis: Sam Watling and Ant Breach. Why restrictive planning–not Right to Buy or monetary policy– is to blame for the housing crisis.

• Renew London’s estates: Sam Dumitriu & Ben Hopkinson. Estate renewal is a big opportunity to raise house building levels in the most valuable locations.

• Upzoning New Zealand: Eleanor West & Marko Garlick. The most important housing reform in recent years explained in depth. Further reading from Eleanor West featuring interviews with all the key players.

• How Israel turned homeowners into YIMBYs: Tal Aster. This is a powerful example of the argument made in ‘Democracy is the solution to vetocracy’.

• Houston, we have a solution: Anya Martin. The key insight here is the power of opt-outs to make upzonings possible.

• Strong Suburbs: Samuel Hughes and Ben Southwood. The ‘Street Votes’ paper. One of the GOAT think tank reports.

• Creating New Towns Fast and Well: Britain Remade & Create Streets. There are reasons to be sceptical of New Towns (see Sam Watling’s excellent history), but done right they could be a powerful tool for tackling Britain’s housing shortage. This explains how and crucially, where they should be built.

• Greater Cambridge - Falling back in love with the future: Create Streets. How to get the most important housing project in Britain right.

• Learning from History: Suburban intensification in South Tottenham: Ben Southwood. Important case study of how the Hasidic community in South Tottenham pioneered a powerful housing reform.

• Breaking the Bottlenecks: Reforming ‘anti-supply measures’ to support urban housebuilding: Ant Breach. Forcing new apartment buildings to have multiple staircases, requiring flats to have ‘dual aspect’, and mandating new brownfield developments produce a ‘biodiversity net gain’ all make it harder to build homes.

• Filtering, or how building expensive homes can help people on low incomes: Samuel Hughes. This is really crucial to understanding how building homes of all types (even ones that only the super-rich can afford) helps bring down rents and prices.

• Britain’s problem with planners: Sam Dumitriu. This sets out the case for restricting planning policy to ‘externalities’. New Zealand have recently put forward plans to do just this.

Transport: Why are costs high, what can we learn from the rest of the world?

• Britain’s infrastructure is too expensive: Sam Dumitriu and Ben Hopkinson. Core data on the scale of the problem.

• Assume Nordic Costs: London Edition: Alon Levy. What the prize of cheaper infrastructure looks like.

• Birmingham is a small city: Tom Forth. Why bad urban transport is an important part of the story of why Britain’s cities outside London underperform economically.

• Back on Track: Britain Remade & Create Streets. Why building trams in Britain is expensive and how to cut costs.

• How Madrid built its metro cheaply: Ben Hopkinson. Learning from one of the cheapest metro projects ever built.

• Infrastructure Costs: Electrification: Ben Hopkinson. The value of a consistent programme of building.

• When Roads are Bad: Ben Southwood (and when they aren’t: also Ben Southwood.) Useful for understanding how to think about road projects.

• Moving Hearts and Minds: Michael Dnes. This highlights the relationship between support for Reform and under-investment in roads.

Energy: Primarily, nuclear and why it’s hard to build in Britain.

• Infrastructure Costs: Nuclear Edition. Sam Dumtriu and Ben Hopkinson. South Korea builds at a sixth the cost of Britain.

• Why Does Nuclear Power Plant Construction Cost So Much? Brian Potter. This contains more information on cost drivers and historical data.

• Visiting the World’s Most Expensive Nuclear Power Station: Sam Dumitriu. Case study of Hinkley Point C.

• How to solve the 100m bat tunnel problem: Sam Dumitriu. Tackles the fish disco issue raised in the previous article.

• The Climate Change Act is flawed: Sam Dumitriu. Summary of what’s actually wrong with Britain’s approach to climate.

• Why has nuclear been a flop: Jason Crawford. Good summary of the work of Jack Devanney and his argument that the requirement to reduce radiation exposure to ‘as low as reasonably achievable’ has driven costs up.

• Why regulators need a red team: Sam Dumitriu. Read for the case study on nuclear approvals.

• The bad science behind expensive nuclear: Alex Chalmers. Important read for understanding the scientific debate behind the drive to regulate radiation to be ‘as low as reasonably achievable’.