"The recent trend towards 4 story narrow houses doesn't help. A literal 1/3rd of the house is taken up by stairs"
If you want vertical efficiency, we have apartments for that. You get a single staircase and 20 single-story homes instead of 20 staircases in 20 homes.
Its funny that US/UK/ anglosphere seems to have never figured out apartments, in Uk you can't even be a true owner - first you pay leasehold, then you pay ground rent, then you pay service charge (for which they are not obligated to provide any service), so you paid 3 times for the same thing!
And then when yoy find out that your block was built in breach of fire regulations, it's not the material supplier, not the developer and not the building landlord that get the bill, its the leaseholder that does not even own the house that has to pay for 'waking watch' (pateolls by firemen) and any repairs!
People who bought Shared Ownership apartments (you own 25%, other 75% is owned by investors) are responsible for 100% of the cost of fixing the building because between developer, supplier, fire inspector and landlord someone has commited fraud.
UK likes to think fo itself as free country, but I have never seen laws as tyranical and feudal as housing laws here. It's like they were writted for medieval lords to opress their peasanta and never changed.
If you want to know more about this, google 'cladding scandal, UK'
If you want vertical efficiency, we have apartments for that. You get a single staircase and 20 single-story homes instead of 20 staircases in 20 homes.
Its funny that US/UK/ anglosphere seems to have never figured out apartments, in Uk you can't even be a true owner - first you pay leasehold, then you pay ground rent, then you pay service charge (for which they are not obligated to provide any service), so you paid 3 times for the same thing!
And then when yoy find out that your block was built in breach of fire regulations, it's not the material supplier, not the developer and not the building landlord that get the bill, its the leaseholder that does not even own the house that has to pay for 'waking watch' (pateolls by firemen) and any repairs!
People who bought Shared Ownership apartments (you own 25%, other 75% is owned by investors) are responsible for 100% of the cost of fixing the building because between developer, supplier, fire inspector and landlord someone has commited fraud.
UK likes to think fo itself as free country, but I have never seen laws as tyranical and feudal as housing laws here. It's like they were writted for medieval lords to opress their peasanta and never changed.
If you want to know more about this, google 'cladding scandal, UK'