alt Hacker News> councils and government should treat high streets more like public commons, prioritising independent businesses and making places distinctive.
You're advocating central planning.
The real problem is that it's very hard to build stuff in the UK. This is a choice that the people have made and the status quo still continue until they choose differently.
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Only to the extent that all government is central planning, as I read it. Your sewage system is centrally planned, but that's okay, right?
The UK can't make stuff because the rent is too high. Fix this and a lot of stuff downstream of it will change.
> You're advocating central planning.
You state this like it's inherently something to be avoided but you give no reason for believing so
Maybe some amount of central planning wouldn't be bad? Maybe when it's broad strokes designations of public space usage and not how many toilet paper rolls one gets it can be a net benefit?
> You're advocating central planning.
Which seems to be working pretty well in China.
When Britain was building new towns post WWII it involved a lot of central planning, and seemed to go pretty well.
>You're advocating central planning.
The only way to make a functional society that doesn't leave people behind, yes ?
There is already central planning, it's just done between the state and corporations, which also includes landlords. They're advocating for a result that would be accomplished by corporations playing less of a role and local residents and workers playing a greater role in the planning.
See the Astley (Wigan) Warehouses and SIP car parks for two prime examples.
The real problem is that everyone wants the best land in the best places and we've been arguing about it ever since.
For what it’s worth I had the same thought as the ancestor post. Town squares are as privatization friendly as water, electricity, and oxygen. We just took it for granted that they were self sustaining as a public amenity and are now suffering because rich people bought up everything and are renting it back to us at half the quality and twice the price.
> You're advocating central planning.
Central planning is the status quo. That's essentially what zoning rules are, and why everything is such a mess. You want to open a shop and live above it? No, sorry, not zoned for residential; banned. Operate the shop out of your house instead? Haha, banned. What if your shop really doesn't need very much space at all, so something the size of a closet would do as long as it's in the right location? Nope, minimum unit sizes or similar, prohibited by law. And so on.
If they want to stop doing this that would be great, but if they're not going to stop doing it then having the rules be things like "no chains" instead of "no small units" would certainly be an improvement.