A rant about housing

Having spent a relaxing weekend in Sheet in Hampshire, the return to Brighton made me think about the different world that 'the countryside' is from city living. This was further prompted by an article in the Daily Mail that I had the misfortune to read titled 'a blight on this pleasant land' which talks about "the non-existant housing crisis' and how Prescott is planning to concrete over the countryside.

We have the lowest levels of house building since about the 1920s, huge waiting lists for housing, soaring house prices and thousands of homes lost through the right to buy. When will the nimbys, the CPRE etc. realise that unless we seriously start addressing this problem, rural communities especially will end up populated with nothing but wealthy pensioners with no one living in their communities to work in the care homes and hospitals that they will increasingly rely on?

As for city living, having lived in numerous converted flats with paper thin walls and ceilings and all that means, I am now a convert to purpose built flats. But where are the innovatively designed new developments we should be getting? Where is the Embassy Court of the future? And would such a buidling be allowed to get in the same appalling state in future? Would people other than "key workers" be able to afford to live there?

Hmm, worringly for a Monday night, it would appear that I do actually care about the sector in which I work...