详细分析英格兰住房危机的出路

How would one describe a market in which the value of the same commodity varied by more than 100 to one? “Hugely distorted” is the answer. Yet that is precisely the situation for land near England’s most prosperous urban centres. As I have recently argued, these anomalies are the product of the UK’s system of land planning, introduced by the postwar Labour government in 1947. Their effect is to make a mockery of the claim that the country has a competitive market economy. If it did, these discrepancies simply could not exist.

如果一个市场中的同类商品在价值上相差超过百倍，人们会如何形容这样的市场呢？答案是“严重扭曲”。然而，英格兰最繁华的城市中心附近的土地正是这种情况。正如我最近所讲，这些反常现象是战后英国工党政府在1947年引入的土地规划体制的产物。它们的效果却是对英国宣称拥有一个竞争性的市场经济的讽刺。如果真有市场经济，这些差异根本不可能存在。

In an excellent book on housing, Housing: Where’s the Plan?, Kate Barker, a former member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee, notes that in 2010, agricultural land around Cambridge was worth £18,500 a hectare, while neighbouring residential land cost maybe £2.9m a hectare. Land restricted to agricultural use and land open to development lie side by side but their value is hugely different.

在一本关于住房的优秀著作《住房：计划在哪里？》(Housing: Where’s the Plan?)中，英国央行(Bank of England)前货币政策委员会成员凯特•巴克(Kate Barker)指出，2010年，剑桥附近的农业用地价格在1.85万英镑/公顷，而邻近的住宅用地价格可能在290万英镑/公顷。仅限农业使用的土地与可供开发的土地紧靠在一起，而它们的价值却有天壤之别。

In a recent paper, Christian Hilber of the London School of Economics and Wouter Vermeulen of the Netherlands bureau for economic policy analysis, note that real house prices have grown faster in the UK over the past 40 years than in any other member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Prices, particularly in London and the South East, are among the highest in the world. In the absence of controls, real prices would have risen by around 90 per cent between 1974 and 2008, instead of 190 per cent.

在最近的一篇论文中，伦敦政治经济学院(London School of Economics)的克里斯蒂安•希尔贝尔(Christian Hilber)与荷兰智库荷兰经济政策研究局(Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis)的沃特•韦穆伦(Wouter Vermeulen)指出，过去40年期间，英国实际房价增长速度快于经合组织(OECD)其他任何成员国。英国（尤其是伦敦和英格兰东南部）是世界上房价最高的地区之一。若没有控制，实际价格原本会在1974年到2008年之间上涨约90%，而非190%。

As usual, market distortions have large knock-on effects. Thus, a big proportion of the population have become land speculators; people who receive no help from their families are forced to live in cramped quarters or commute very long distances; the government feels forced to pay large subsidies for renting and now even house purchases; and the health of banking has come to depend on the continuation of the land scarcity. Paul Cheshire of the LSE even argues that these policies have made houses more similar to art or gold than to humble dwellings.

就像通常的情况一样，市场扭曲会产生很大的连锁效应。因此，一大部分人口变成了土地投机者；无法获得家庭帮助的人被迫蜗居，或者忍受很远距离的通勤；政府被迫为租房甚至如今的购房支付庞大的补贴；银行的健康状况已变得依赖持续的土地稀缺。伦敦政治经济学院的保罗•切希尔(Paul Cheshire)甚至提出，这些政策使房子变得更类似于艺术品或黄金，而非普通居所。

How can this be justified? The response is that this is how one preserves England’s green and pleasant land from the blight of urbanisation. Let us leave aside the fact that the majority of people want to live in cities. The big question is whether the amenity value justifies forgoing the value revealed in the extraordinary prices of residential land.

这种现象如何被证明为合理呢？对此的反应认为，这是保护英格兰绿色、宜人的土地免遭城市化破坏的办法。让我们暂且不谈多数人想住在城市这一事实。最大的问题是，绿地的宜人价值，能否证明放弃住宅用地超高价格所体现的价值是合理的？

To this, Prof Cheshire offers a powerful response. The core question, he notes, is what is to be done with the green belts around our cities. Supporters of the policy of “urban containment” argue that this is a small island whose countryside risks being concreted over.

切希尔教授对此提出了一个有力的回应。他指出，核心问题是如何利用我们城市周围的绿化带。“城市遏制”政策的支持者认为，英伦小岛的乡村有被混凝土覆盖的危险。

In fact, the land in green belts alone is one and a half times greater than in all cities and towns together. Moreover, the towns are far “greener” than green belts. Gardens cover nearly half of the 10 per cent of England that is urbanised, while the dominant use of land in green belts is intensive arable farming, which is mostly hideous and offers less biodiversity than urban parks and gardens. Nor do green belts offer much if any amenity to the bulk of the population that lives in the great cities. Their value goes to the small number of people who own houses inside them.

实际上，仅绿化带内的土地就相当于所有城镇土地总和的一倍半。此外，城镇远比绿化带“更绿色”。英格兰10%的城市化土地上，近一半都由花园覆盖，而绿化带中土地的主要利用方式是集约化的耕种农业，它们大都很难看，而且就生物多样性而言还不如城市公园和花园。绿化带也没有给生活在大城市的大部分人口带来多少宜人效益（如果有任何宜人效益的话）。只有少数在绿化带里有房子的人才能享受到它们的价值。

So what is to be done? The price mechanism should rule. There should be a presumption of development in green belts, unless the cost of new infrastructure exceeds the benefits. Developers should pay a fee to local councils at least equal to the additional infrastructure costs, and ideally more than that, in order to encourage development. Some combination of fees and subsequent taxes on beneficiaries should also meet all additional cost of public services. A tax on undeveloped sites would help ensure that land was developed. Finally, those prepared to argue that a valuable amenity risked being lost should be entitled to challenge the presumption of development. But they would also need to produce evidence of value of the lost amenities.

那么，需要做些什么呢？应该由价格机制来决定。开发绿化带应该成为一个设想，除非新建基础设施的成本超过效益。开发商支付给地方议会的费用至少应该等于建设额外基础设施的成本，而且最好是更多，这样可以鼓励开发。受益人承担的相关税费也应该满足额外的公共服务成本。对未开发土地征税将有助于确保地块被开发。最后，那些准备主张宝贵的宜人性有丧失风险的人，应该有权质问开发的设想。但他们也需要举证说明，失去的宜人性到底有哪些价值。

I understand the vested interests of those with houses in or near the green belts. I understand, too, the risks of a policy that might actually lower house prices. But building an economy upon a massive and growing distortion in the market for land is foolish. We do not need to concrete over England. We do need to stop constraining the growth of the places where people really want to live. It is untrue that the green belts are areas of outstanding amenity. They are rather sources of increasing misery, as an ever-larger population is crammed into an artificially limited space.

我理解那些在绿化带之内或附近拥有住房的居民的既得利益。我也知道一项可能会降低房价的政策的风险。但是，将经济建立在土地市场巨大且愈演愈烈的扭曲之上是愚蠢的。我们不需要用混凝土浇盖英格兰。我们需要停止在人们真正想住的地方制约增长。说绿化带是具有出色宜人价值的地区是不对的。相反，它们是不断加剧的痛苦的来源，因为越来越多的人口被塞进人为设限的空间。

This is a really big issue. That is, of course, why no politician dares touch it.

这的确是一个非常大的问题。当然，这也是为什么没有政界人士敢碰这一问题。