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Who Gets to Build?

Arguments about housing collapse into one line — build more, or don't — and that line hides the argument that actually divides people. What should a place be like is one question. Who should be deciding and doing the building is a completely different one, and two people can agree exactly about the first and be on opposite sides of the second.

Twenty-four statements, about four minutes, and a point on a map. Answer for where you would want to live and how you would want it built, wherever you happen to live now.

24 questions

Answered 0 of 24

  1. 1 Sharing walls with neighbors is a fair trade for being close in.
  2. 2 Left to itself, building produces places that work for whoever paid for them and for nobody else.
  3. 3 The quickest way to get more homes is to make building easier.
  4. 4 Permission to build should be the default rather than the exception.
  5. 5 Having space around where I live is worth being further from things.
  6. 6 What gets built should have to meet standards set in advance for how it looks.
  7. 7 Public bodies deliver buildings worse than private ones do.
  8. 8 Somebody should be able to build on land they own without their neighbors' agreement.
  9. 9 Being able to park near where I am going matters to me.
  10. 10 Space around a home does things for the people in it that being close in does not replace.
  11. 11 A place is better when most trips can be made without a car.
  12. 12 Requirements added to new buildings mostly end up in the price of them.
  13. 13 I would give up floor space for a shorter trip to everything.
  14. 14 Most rules about what can be built protect whoever already owns something.
  15. 15 A place should be designed as a whole rather than one plot at a time.
  16. 16 A neighborhood should be quiet before it is lively.
  17. 17 Some housing should sit permanently outside the market.
  18. 18 Tall buildings take something from a place even when they are needed.
  19. 19 I would rather live where I can walk to what I need than where I have more room.
  20. 20 Who ends up living in new housing is worth deciding deliberately.
  21. 21 Depending on a car is a fair price for the room it buys.
  22. 22 Housing works better when a public body is building some of it.
  23. 23 A street works better with homes, shops, and workplaces mixed along it than with only one of them.
  24. 24 More people living in a small area makes the area better rather than worse.