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