Just sometimes a modicum of thought is required

Once again we’re told that Vienna is that housing nirvana:

Yet, it need not be this way. In Vienna, the majority of the city’s population live in high-quality subsidised housing.

Quite why the majority of the population should be subsidised is not explained. But still:

The city spends more than €570m (£502m) a year on its housing, including building new homes, paid for largely with a 1% levy on the salaries of every Viennese resident. Elements of the model have been adopted by many other European cities, from Barcelona to Helsinki.

What good housing requires, as Vienna shows, is political vision and will.

We’d be a little hesitant about lauding the triumph of political will in that place and country ourselves. But take that seriously. Vienna has just under 2 million inhabitants. They pay half a billion a year - so, who thinks that £250 a head per year in subsidy will solve Britain’s housing problems? A week’s rent each?

Quite, no one, not even the author of this piece in The Observer. So, there’s obviously something else going on as well, isn’t there? Some difficulty, difference, impediment, in the British system that doesn’t exist in the Viennese.

We’d suggest finding out what that is then changing the British system so that it doesn’t have it. Like blowing up the Town and Country Planning Act 1947 and successors. Proper blow up, kablooie.

After all, Vienna doesn’t have that, does it?