(no subject)

[winterbadger]

Instead of spamming my friend's separate entry on housing, here's what I found when I went looking for comparative stats about US v. UK rental patterns.

Per the UK Department of Communities and Local Government: Seventy per cent of households are owner occupiers, 18 per cent are social tenants and 13 per cent are private renters.

Per the HUD/DOC American Housing Survey for 2007, of the 110 million year-round, occupied housing units, 75 million (68 percent) are occupied by owners while 35 million (32 percent) are occupied by renters. They don't explicitly break out social housing the way the UK does in an executive summary, but as near as I can tell from the supporting tables, only about 1 million of those rental units (or less than 1 percent of all year-round, occupied housing units) are owned by a government housing authority or paid for by government subsidy (Section 8 housing vouchers and the like).

So, despite what I've been told in the past, the percentage of people renting in the US v. the UK is about the same. It's just that in the US, there is very little public housing, whereas in the UK it accounts for more than half of rental housing (and that's after 20 years of the government trying to sell off council houses to their occupants...) To me that speaks volumes about which country looks after its citizens better...

Comments

[silme.livejournal.com]

For me, the issue is health care. If I visit the US, I need travel insurance in case I'm in an accident or become ill. Americans who visit the UK receive free emergency care in the UK. If you're unemployed here, you still can see a doctor and not worry about paying for it -- and you don't have to pay the prescription fee. (In Scotland and Wales, of course, nobody pays the prescription fee. I don't pay it in England because I'm hypothyroid.)

The NHS isn't perfect, but it's there. Lack of socialised is one reason why I don't want to live in the US again. I'm more than happy to pay taxes to ensure everyone has access to health care.

[winterbadger]

I'm more than happy to pay taxes to ensure everyone has access to health care.

SOCIALIST! Next you're going to be saying that women should be allowed to vote and children shouldn't be forced to work...madness!

[silme.livejournal.com]

You betcha I'm a Socialist. I miss Old Labour. New Labour and the Conservatives are too darned close to each other politically nowadays. (I dislike Brown's government, but I certainly don't want David Cameron's!)

[winterbadger]

Did you ever see The Deal? I don't know how much of it is true, but it seems like a good exposition of how opportunism and a willingness to sacrifice principles for power gave Blair his run in office.

[silme.livejournal.com]

No, I don't think I've seen it. Film? TV show?

[winterbadger]

Film, by the same director who did The Queen. Traces the rise of Blair and Brown from junior backbenchers to Blair's appointment to No. 10. Pretty good, on the whole, I thought.

[redactrice.livejournal.com]

Hm. That surprises me. One of the pieces of "conventional wisdom" about Europe is that lots more people rent there for a long time than in the United States, where everybody is supposed to be trying to buy a home (just like everybody is supposed to be trying to go to college). Then again, maybe that's just in cities in Europe, or maybe it's just Paris.

Interesting about the extent of subsidized housing in the UK.

[winterbadger]

Or it could be that Europe is just that bit more different to the UK. The UK has always seemed to me to be in a very funny place between the independence of the US and the socialisation of Europe.

Of course, the British would point out that, no, no, they are the perfect middle ground, and the US and Europe are both aberrations on the extreme. ;-)

Perfect middle ground??

[rockethokie.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes, it's like one of those strange irregular British adjectives:
I have an individual mind,
you are eccentric,
he is completely round the twist

Re: Perfect middle ground??

[winterbadger]

Indeed! Both of you are quite correct!

So, is the expedition ready to scale the twin peaks of Kilimanjaro?

[cmlc.livejournal.com]

Until Thatcher or thereabouts the majority of people in Scotland lived in council houses. It was a bit less common than that in England but still very common.

Private rented housing used to be far more common, but much of it was hideous slums, and I recall that so much council housing was built basically to liberate people from the slums. And to encourage economic growth, etc. etc.

Lots of social housing is pretty much the European norm, I'd say - I don't think the UK is wildly out of tune with other bits of Europe in this. In having hardly any of it the US is way out of tune with Europe. Which is how the US seems to like it, a lot of the time.

[winterbadger]

Until Thatcher or thereabouts the majority of people in Scotland lived in council housing.

The majority of people, or the majority of renters?

In having hardly any of it the US is way out of tune with Europe. Which is how the US seems to like it, a lot of the time.

Sadly, yes. I wish that were not the case. But, many Americans would tell me, that just means that I should live in Europe, not here...

[cmlc.livejournal.com]

The majority of people, I think. Scottish industrial decline started around about the beginning of the 20th century so by the end of WWII there must have been slums everywhere. And that's quite apart from Clydebank and probably other places being obliterated by German firestorm bombing.

[brithistorian.livejournal.com]

Interesting! If I had to guess, I would have guessed that the percentage of renters in the UK was higher.

On a relatives note, this entry serves as an example of why I love my LJ friends: They're all the sort of people who not only wonder things like this, but who then set about finding the answers.

[winterbadger]

:-) I have to keep my research chops in order, for the day when I can go back to doing "real" work. ;-)