Property Developers Exploiting Our Cities?

[Luminare]

Thought this was an interesting article about the state of Property Developers. This is by a newspaper I always think are pretty reliable, The Guardian. In this article, the writer discusses the state of Property Developers in our cities. Are they exploiting them? While this centers more on the vastly changing landscape of London, which is in a similar building boom as Houston, though I would argue is a bit more sophisticated, it none-the-less affects all of us especially here in Houston where developers are king not only in the real estate sector, but in designing our buildings as well. Hope y'all enjoy it.

 

http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/sep/17/truth-property-developers-builders-exploit-planning-cities

[IronTiger]

Thought this was an interesting article about the state of Property Developers. This is by a newspaper I always think are pretty reliable, The Guardian. In this article, the writer discusses the state of Property Developers in our cities. Are they exploiting them? While this centers more on the vastly changing landscape of London, which is in a similar building boom as Houston, though I would argue is a bit more sophisticated, it none-the-less affects all of us especially here in Houston where developers are king not only in the real estate sector, but in designing our buildings as well. Hope y'all enjoy it.

http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/sep/17/truth-property-developers-builders-exploit-planning-cities

Sounds kind of a like a boom-before-the-bust type deal. Also, renting apartments to overseas interests is never a good idea: look what happened to Continental Plaza.

[Montrose1100]

But with Dubai, in most cases they literally built from nothing, extremely low dense housing and sand.

 

I can attest to these dead zones in London. I stayed in the Tower Hill area and although it was next to one of their CBD's, it was dead and shut down at 6pm. We had to walk several blocks to even find signs of life. Most of the action was a cab/tube ride away in Soho, Piccadilly Circus, and Leicester Square. I guess the same could be said for parts of Houston, like Uptown Park, Northern Kirby, The Skyline District and other pockets of ultra wealth that don't have anything to do after dark.

[august948]

Honestly, when I first read the title for this thread I thought, "Well, duh!  That's what developers do."

 

Sounds like London has incentivized it's planning officials to give the green light to ever more expensive developments in order to get money from the developers to build local infrastructure.  Wonder if that offsets local taxes or is in addition.