詳細分析英格蘭住房危機的出路

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.

如果一個市場中的同類商品在價值上相差超過百倍，人們會如何形容這樣的市場呢？答案是“嚴重扭曲”。然而，英格蘭最繁華的城市中心附近的土地正是這種情況。正如我最近所講，這些反常現象是戰後英國工黨政府在1947年引入的土地規劃體制的產物。它們的效果卻是對英國宣稱擁有一個競爭性的市場經濟的諷刺。如果真有市場經濟，這些差異根本不可能存在。

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.

在一本關於住房的優秀著作《住房：計劃在哪裏？》(Housing: Where’s the Plan?)中，英國央行(Bank of England)前貨幣政策委員會成員凱特•巴克(Kate Barker)指出，2010年，劍橋附近的農業用地價格在1.85萬英鎊/公頃，而鄰近的住宅用地價格可能在290萬英鎊/公頃。僅限農業使用的土地與可供開發的土地緊靠在一起，而它們的價值卻有天壤之別。

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.

在最近的一篇論文中，倫敦政治經濟學院(London School of Economics)的克里斯蒂安•希爾貝爾(Christian Hilber)與荷蘭智庫荷蘭經濟政策研究局(Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis)的沃特•韋穆倫(Wouter Vermeulen)指出，過去40年期間，英國實際房價增長速度快於經合組織(OECD)其他任何成員國。英國（尤其是倫敦和英格蘭東南部）是世界上房價最高的地區之一。若沒有控制，實際價格原本會在1974年到2008年之間上漲約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.

就像通常的情況一樣，市場扭曲會產生很大的連鎖效應。因此，一大部分人口變成了土地投機者；無法獲得家庭幫助的人被迫蝸居，或者忍受很遠距離的通勤；政府被迫爲租房甚至如今的購房支付龐大的補貼；銀行的健康狀況已變得依賴持續的土地稀缺。倫敦政治經濟學院的保羅•切希爾(Paul Cheshire)甚至提出，這些政策使房子變得更類似於藝術品或黃金，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.

這種現象如何被證明爲合理呢？對此的反應認爲，這是保護英格蘭綠色、宜人的土地免遭城市化破壞的辦法。讓我們暫且不談多數人想住在城市這一事實。最大的問題是，綠地的宜人價值，能否證明放棄住宅用地超高價格所體現的價值是合理的？

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.

切希爾教授對此提出了一個有力的迴應。他指出，核心問題是如何利用我們城市周圍的綠化帶。“城市遏制”政策的支持者認爲，英倫小島的鄉村有被混凝土覆蓋的危險。

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.

實際上，僅綠化帶內的土地就相當於所有城鎮土地總和的一倍半。此外，城鎮遠比綠化帶“更綠色”。英格蘭10%的城市化土地上，近一半都由花園覆蓋，而綠化帶中土地的主要利用方式是集約化的耕種農業，它們大都很難看，而且就生物多樣性而言還不如城市公園和花園。綠化帶也沒有給生活在大城市的大部分人口帶來多少宜人效益（如果有任何宜人效益的話）。只有少數在綠化帶裏有房子的人才能享受到它們的價值。

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.

那麼，需要做些什麼呢？應該由價格機制來決定。開發綠化帶應該成爲一個設想，除非新建基礎設施的成本超過效益。開發商支付給地方議會的費用至少應該等於建設額外基礎設施的成本，而且最好是更多，這樣可以鼓勵開發。受益人承擔的相關稅費也應該滿足額外的公共服務成本。對未開發土地徵稅將有助於確保地塊被開發。最後，那些準備主張寶貴的宜人性有喪失風險的人，應該有權質問開發的設想。但他們也需要舉證說明，失去的宜人性到底有哪些價值。

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.

我理解那些在綠化帶之內或附近擁有住房的居民的既得利益。我也知道一項可能會降低房價的政策的風險。但是，將經濟建立在土地市場巨大且愈演愈烈的扭曲之上是愚蠢的。我們不需要用混凝土澆蓋英格蘭。我們需要停止在人們真正想住的地方制約增長。說綠化帶是具有出色宜人價值的地區是不對的。相反，它們是不斷加劇的痛苦的來源，因爲越來越多的人口被塞進人爲設限的空間。

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

這的確是一個非常大的問題。當然，這也是爲什麼沒有政界人士敢碰這一問題。