Nobody loves Britain's new suburbs—apart, that is, from the people who live in them
Britain is often said to be building too few houses, but that is not the whole story. Imagine a balloon that is being gripped by a pair of hands. The balloon is steadily inflating as the population grows and the national government nags local authorities to build new homes. Meanwhile the hands, representing planning restrictions and locals, try to constrain any expansion. In many places the hands prevail, and little or nothing gets built.
It bears little resemblance to the suburbs that Britain built in the 20th century. Developments used to be consistent in form and colour—red-brick rashes, as the poet John Betjeman dismissively described them. The ones going up around Aylesbury are erratic by design. A short stretch of road might contain three-, four- and five-bedroom houses plus a few flats. Some homes are faced with brick, while others have been painted green or finished with cream-coloured render.
The new suburban developments are dense. A large one known as Kingsbrook constructed by Barratt Homes, Britain’s biggest home builder, fits 33 properties into a hectare . With so much land given over to car parking and garages, little is left for gardens. In “Metroland”, Julian Barnes’s novel of suburbia, published in 1980, the protagonist lies in bed listening to the sound of lawnmowers. The new suburbanites often find that their small, shady yards cannot support lawns.
In any case, most residents belong to the same cult of child-worship. Two kinds of people move to the outskirts of Aylesbury: those with children and those who are about to have them. The developments are child-oriented even by suburban standards. They are arranged around schools and playgrounds, with just a few shops and other businesses added, almost as an afterthought. More than anything, they resemble national nurseries.
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