Jim Gleeson
@geographyjim.bsky.social
2K followers 960 following 170 posts
Currently on leave from my job as housing numbers person at the Greater London Authority. Opinions here only my own, if that. data.london.gov.uk/housing/
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... which it falls to the market to provide. The result will be that households will be spending a higher share of their incomes on housing costs than desirable, but then that is already the case.

Apologies for not spelling this out more clearly in the report.
As the lead author of the Strategic Housing Market Assessment, I don't think that's the right interpretation. The market housing need is only that small if all of the affordable housing need is supplied. If affordable housing supply falls short those households don't disappear &still require housing
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Reposted by Jim Gleeson
I was looking at some Scottish cause of death data yesterday and the extent to which transport accident deaths in young men have all but disappeared is pretty remarkable.

Nice to find a good news story in this data for a change.
A lexis diagram - essentially a heatmap showing rates of death from transport accidents by age and over time from 2001-2024 in Scotland. For men in the 2000s there was a clear peak in deaths at ages 15-35 (plus a smaller one in the oldest age groups). But around 2010 this basically disappeared, and now all age groups have similarly, much lower, rates of transport accident deaths. For women the pattern is similar, albeit at a much lower level, except that in the early 2000s there were more deaths in older, rather than younger adults.
This is particularly interesting on the evolution of Labour attitudes to houses and flats in the inter-war period. Also enjoyed this zinger from Clement Attlee:
Labour first swept to power in the Borough in 1919 but the local party felt its housing plans thwarted by government red tape, so much so that the mayor wrote to The Times: to Clement Attlee, it was clear that 'either there is some influence at work endeavouring to prevent local authorities carrying out their work ... or that Messrs Dilly and Dally have not yet been demobilised'.
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The ways that Texas NIMBYs are finding to make apartments more expensive to build are are funnier than what coastal NIMBYs come up with reason.com/2025/10/14/t...

by @christianb.bsky.social
Love the murals too, but a key part of these stories always seems to be finding one person willing to make an outlandish comparison and then sticking that in the headline. Local bus station under threat of redevelopment is "The Pantheon of Shrewsbury", etc.
They also took on the (often very large) liability for maintenance and major repairs.
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🏠Transaction taxes don’t just cool housing—they reshape it. Same rate, different impact: investors buy more, households less. Result: lower ownership and welfare losses of 111% of tax revenue.

New paper from Han, Ngai & Sheedy:

www.restud.com/to-own-or-to...

#econsky #REStud
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And can say exactly the same for this one. NBER really dishing out the goods today.
Forget to give employees a birthday card -> performance suffers, aka the Yaya Toure effect www.nber.org/papers/w3436...
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Excited to be starting a secondment at the Greater London Authority next week, covering as best I can for @geographyjim.bsky.social in the realm of housing data and analysis!
Really enjoyed this. Not the main point of the piece I know, but I'm interested in the strategy of removing parking spaces (as seen in Montreal, Paris and Amsterdam) as a less visible and contentious alternative to congestion charging.
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By me this week - the happiest thing I've got to report of late, with a glorious trip over the summer to Montreal

"Forget EVs. Cycling is revolutionising transport."

www.economist.com/internationa...
Forget EVs. Cycling is revolutionising transport
Pedal power is booming, spinning up a new culture war
www.economist.com
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This new residential tower in Lyon is made from wood.

In many ways, this is quite an incredible building. Here's why:
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More complex (but better) charts showing the role of active vs passive wealth changes. Sort of argues that the young earn & save to build wealth, but can't keep pace with wealth gains accruing passively to the old.
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Real wealth per adult around the same as it was 15yrs ago — unless you're a 55yo or older.

Chart suggests the bulk of passive wealth gains have accrued to the old.
The closer you get to being aged 60, the greater your wealth, on average.
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OUT NOW: More Jam Tomorrow MILTON KEYNES

It’s built for cars. The buses are baffling. But it’s got the most energy efficient housing in Britain. What did it take to build a city from almost nothing?

Listen now at

morejamtomorrow.com/episode/milt...
Milton Keynes
It’s built for cars. The buses are baffling. But it’s got the most energy efficient housing in Britain. What did it take to build a city from almost nothing?...
morejamtomorrow.com
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I know statistics are poorly understood and are misused. But facts matter

Between the 1991, 2001, 2011 and 2021 Census *every* ethnic group in the UK has become *less* geographically segregated and *all* groups, majority and minorities, are more likely to interact with people not like them
Not sure that's an accurate description of what the CMA concluded.
Text from the summary of the 2023 CMA housing market review, concluding that the two key drivers of poor outcomes are the planning system and the limited amount of homes being built outside the speculative private sector model.
This is great news, though I hope the stations will not be as isolated from other stuff as this CGI suggests
Yesss!! MetroLink has been approved by An Coimisiún Pleanála after three years in the planning process. 🥳 Still awaiting details and if any modifications were made. More later today.
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Just how much impact is the lack of bids from Registered Providers having on housing delivery nationally?

With anecdotal reports from members that the issue shows little sign of abating, we undertook an FOI exercise to determine if any progress has been made.

Here’s what we found 👇
This is around the corner from me. A few observations:
1. Binding heights haven't changed much in ~100 years
2. Shop awnings are good and we should bring them back
3. Catford had boda-boda motorbike taxis a century ago
Then and now, around 100 years apart - the former J Sainsbury's at 58 Rushey Green, with its Co-op neighbour now replaced by Aldi.#Catford #Lewisham
How much has household size changed in Germany? There's some evidence of a change in England too, but hard to be sure because of data quality issues.
RIP Terry Farrell. In addition to his architecture he wrote 'Shaping London', a brilliant analysis of London's development. His explanation of how the flow of the river shaped different patterns of building on its steep and shallow banks has really stuck with me.
Shaping London, by Terry Farrell The two cities and the South Bank as perennial entertainment district "The Thames as the Shaping Force" The docks as effectively 'straightening' the Thames