The planners still aren’t grasping the problem with planning

That the country desires more housing should be obvious enough - housing is expensive meaning that people would rather like more supply so that prices come down.

So, some planners at least are thinking that more housing should be built. That’s an advance from the previous situation where all too many seemed to think that the problem was hoarding by the capitalist elite or some such. But while an advance we still have very much further to go:

Labour’s plan for new towns looks likely to focus on the Midlands as much as England’s overcrowded south-east, with planners already considering areas near Nottingham, Stafford and Northampton, the Guardian understands.

Why build houses where no one wants to live?

This is not, despite the determined southernness of this particular author, some dismissal of the Midlands as being north of the Marylebone Road and therefore in reality somewhere Oop North.

We have an indicator of where people - the people who actually want to live in them - desire houses to be built. Where currently houses have high prices. That’s where the demand is, as evidenced by the prices - QED. So, if we’re to add more supply in order to bring prices down then we need to build the houses where prices are high not out in the middle of a field near where prices are already comparatively cheap.

One of those problems with planners is simple delusion. Why build additional houses where they’re currently cheap instead of where they’re expensive?