Overcrowding - could it be due to migration into this country?

[CaptainHaddock]

75% of the UK is farmland, and we only manage to produce about 60% of what we consume. We started on that path along time ago, with little opportunity to change it, short of shooting everyone when they turn 65.

One of the best things about living in Britain is the fact there's so much wonderful open countryside. Why do you want to build on it?

 

[Rapidash]

One of the best things about living in Britain is the fact there's so much wonderful open countryside. Why do you want to build on it?

I would like to build on tiny little bits spread throughout the land, so that people of both my generation and the next have the same opportunities as those who have gone before. I'm nearly 30, and can't afford to rent in my own hometown on my own because the older generations are not moving on to more suitable accommodation. Not exactly ideal is it?

I'm not suggesting we concrete over bloomin' Heytor!

 

[radamfi]

As someone who drives and uses trains regularly since the 90's there is clear evidence that this country is over-populated and over-crowded. Of course there are plenty of fields but you do know what cattle and crops are don't you?

It is really open to one's own opinion whether somewhere is crowded. Lots of people really enjoy living in a big, crowded city. The bigger and more crowded the better. They dismiss smaller towns as "the back of beyond" or "the middle of nowhere". Lots of people are actively choosing to move to London and other big cities. From a public transport point of view, big cities are better because it makes it more viable to build railways and metros etc.

 

[meridian2]

As much as I hate to say this, overcrowding on public trains is not due to immigration. It's as an associative factor, but not a causal one.
IMO, it's due to too much demand for very little supply.Much of what the TOCs offer to combat overcrowding is piecemeal (a 12-car consist on a peak time service here and there is only a sticking plaster), but instead of responding to the demand they hike ticket prices. So we're left with a vicious circle: more people using trains = fewer and fewer carriages = the annual hike of ticket prices. Sure they can kid themselves that perhaps this year the average price is going to drop below inflation, but as long as the disproportionate demand continues, they know full well they have a big, beefy cash cow to milk.

 

[deltic]

I think that you are a prime candidate for the "head in the sand" mentality. 300,000, every year, essentially a city is arriving in this country and you don't think that is a huge number?

My good man, please let me know when you DO think there will be a problem?

As someone who drives and uses trains regularly since the 90's there is clear evidence that this country is over-populated and over-crowded. Of course there are plenty of fields but you do know what cattle and crops are don't you?

Allegedly as much space is devoted to golf courses as housing in this country.

 

[The Ham]

One of the best things about living in Britain is the fact there's so much wonderful open countryside. Why do you want to build on it?

Even if we doubled the urban landscape of England it would go from being 10.6% urban land (Wales and Scotland are lower still) to 20.6% (although even then about 50% of that "urban" area would still be parks, open spaces, rivers, canals, sports pitches, with a further 20% being gardens).

As such we wouldn't need very much space to provide accommodation for several million people. Yes it wouldn't be popular, Yes there would need to be a lot of infrastructure built to accommodate it, but in the greater scheme of things it would impact very few people and impact a very small amount of land, especially if better use was made of some areas of already built on urban land.

 

[Tetchytyke]

One of the best things about living in Britain is the fact there's so much wonderful open countryside. Why do you want to build on it?

Why would you need to build on it? Even in London there's plenty of derelict land that's ready for re-development.

I'm not arguing that we can take millions of immigrants a month until the whole country is concreted over. But there's plenty of room for everyone long before that becomes an issue.

 

[tbtc]

Disclaimer - I say this as an economic migrant who moved from a Scottish town to an English city - maybe I'll be included in the statistics if the SNP get their way...

My original heading for this thread was "Overcrowding - a reason why never mentioned" was changed by the moderator as it was thought that my question appeared too vague. By my original title, I just wanted to ask why it was that the influx of large numbers of migrants in recent years parallels the massive increase in numbers of people using public transport

Okay, I'll take you at face value and ignore any loaded assumptions that could be made in a thread like this.

Taking Wikipedia's figures (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_United_Kingdom#UK_Population_change_over_time), the UK's population increased from 50,225,000 in 1951 to 56,357,000 in 1981.

During that time, rail numbers went down significantly. If "more immigrants cause more train journeys" then how come train journeys reduced so much despite over six million extra people living here in 1981 than in 1951?

(people will blame Beeching for the drop in passenger numbers, though they were going down steadily before his report, whilst population numbers were increasing)

You could even argue that the "influx" in recent years is required to pay for the current generation of pensioners (annual deaths were higher in 1901 when the population was 38m than they are with 60m+ in the country - fertility rates are significantly lower than the 1960s - improvements in life expectancy mean that the big change in population is the over-65s - one in six people is over that age - which means we probably need a few more immigrants of working age to pay for their pensions )

Well, firstly, the quoted figure for numbers living in the UK not born here is fairly meaningless, as it ignores emigration which reduces the net effect

Good point.

The hysteria about "EIGHT MILLION FOREIGNERS" living in the UK that got mega coverage in the populist papers recently is irrelevant if you don't deal with the numbers born in the UK who've moved away since birth (I know a few who've moved to Canada/ New Zealand/ India/ Australia/ US/ Germany).

The ethnic mix of rail passengers isn't much of a guide given that many non-white people will have been born in the UK.

True - something that makes "standing on a platform and assessing colours of faces" meaningless - if you're born in Britain then you are British as far as I am concerned (regardless of skin colour).

Then again, I think of people like Chris Froome (born Nairobi) as "British" - don't want anyone claiming that was a Kenyan victory in the Tour de France

... and people retiring in greater numbers than previously (baby boomers), and living longer and staying more active once retired.

Huge percentages of my fellow rail passengers are Senior Railcard holders, generally travelling for something to do! (I include myself in that .)

Fair point - that demographic has grown significantly - and richer/ more mobile than previous generations of pensioners

Indeed. General affluence.

e.g. it seems impossible to board a Friday or Saturday train to the likes of Liverpool, Manchester or Blackpool without encountering at least one stag/ hen party. A market which didn't exist 30 years ago, when a stag night meant a tour of local pubs. Usually.

True.

A lot of "special occasions" are becoming "the norm" - e.g. the days when a trip to London was something to write home about - the kind of leisure market that you mention above is becoming something some people might even do every week.

Wouldn't the congestion charge, fuel prices, housing prices in major urban areas expansion of concessionary travel schemes to include rail be a major driving force behind overcrowding.

True - much more complicated than simply "blaming" one factor

 

[tivoli]

Allegedly as much space is devoted to golf courses as housing in this country.

Drove through Newmarket last week, had to consider the amount of land devoted to horses there is, multiply that by similar racecourses in the country and you have to wonder if this land is really overcrowded.

 

[Johnuk123]

Drove through Newmarket last week, had to consider the amount of land devoted to horses there is, multiply that by similar racecourses in the country and you have to wonder if this land is really overcrowded.

It's not very scientific to drive past Newmarket racecourse and come to the staggering conclusion the country cannot therefore be overcrowded.

 

[lejog]

No. Just no.

the "8 million" includes the likes of Boris Johnson and Joanna Lumley. It includes all the children born at british forces bases overseas. It's a massively misleading figure batted about purely for racist purposes

The 8million figure is certainly uninformed, if not racist. It also includes my 2 children, born when I was working outside the UK and also makes no allowance for the millions of Brits working abroad (like me when my kids were born!)

 

[Tetchytyke]

The 8 million figure includes me, born in Australia to expat parents, with dual nationality.

I get to be counted as an immigrant in both countries. It's quite the achievement

 

[lejog]

I think it has, but perhaps not for the reason the OP thinks. My theory runs:

Very generally speaking, migrants tend to be younger, have less money (one of the common reasons for moving, it's not for the weather!), than the UK population on average ......

Lets stop right there and clear up this old chestnut, even the Daily Mail will tell you that the average salary of immigrants is higher than British-born people.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2085431/Average-migrant-worker-earns-year-UK-British-born.html

 

[tivoli]

It's not very scientific to drive past Newmarket racecourse and come to the staggering conclusion the country cannot therefore be overcrowded.

Not a conclusion, if you read my post, the situation was one I considered and wondered at, I didn't form a conclusion.

 

[67018]

Lets stop right there and clear up this old chestnut, even the Daily Mail will tell you that the average salary of immigrants is higher than British-born people.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2085431/Average-migrant-worker-earns-year-UK-British-born.html

Averages are misleading, though. The range of incomes is as widely varied as the range of non-UK people living here, which is why treating them as a single group is problematic right from the start. My boss and the lady who cleans the office toilets were both born outside the UK but averaging their salaries wouldn't tell you much.

Getting back to the topic of overcrowding on trains, aren't we back to the perennial issue that much overcrowding is caused by large numbers of people all wanting to travel at the same time? True, many services are busy outside the traditional 'peaks', but there's still plenty of stock and infrastructure out there that's under-utilised for much of the time - which makes increasing supply less affordable than would otherwise be the case.

 

[Johnuk123]

Not a conclusion, if you read my post, the situation was one I considered and wondered at, I didn't form a conclusion.

Why pass a racecourse and "wonder" about overcrowding, doesn't make sense.

 

[CaptainHaddock]

Talking of overcrowding in general rather than the reasons for it, does anyone else find it strange that many members of the general public seem to hold contradictory views about train travel; on the one hand they complain fares are too expensive then on the other they say trains are overcrowded!

 

[tivoli]

Why pass a racecourse and "wonder" about overcrowding, doesn't make sense.

I am sure the current migrant/refugee crisis caused me to wonder about space and I am sure I wondered about other subjects too, I wonder about lots of things, sorry it's just the way I am!

 

[Tibbs]

Who considers it offensive, I am white which last time I checked was still a colour, just as black, yellow, brown, purple with orange spots are all colours.
Only a few years ago it was considered offensive to call them black, of course if you ask a black person who it was that was offended they couldn't tell you because they didn't actually care.

Maybe we should have a sticky with this week's offensive terms so I don't get it wrong again! :roll:

http://www.rifemagazine.co.uk/2015/01/cant-say-coloured-questions-race-answered/

Coloured hasn't been acceptable for at least 30 years, so it's not a case of 'this week'.

If you do want to be sensitive then 'People of Colour' is the acceptable phraseology.

 

[Bletchleyite]

If you do want to be sensitive then 'People of Colour' is the acceptable phraseology.

That's a nasty Americanism and is to me just as discriminatory as "coloured", because it brackets "white people" and "coloured people" as two distinct classes of people. To me the correct way is to use their specific ethnicity, or just consider it totally irrelevant as it is in the vast majority of situations.

White people aren't white, in any case, they're a sort of yellowy pink.

 

[radamfi]

If you want to blame someone for the UK's high population density, then the biggest "culprit" would be the high fertility of the native population for much of the 20th century. From the table below, it can be seen that net migration was negative for most of the time between 1901 and 1971, and where it was positive it was dwarfed by natural change. There was an improvement in life expectancy and a reduction in infant mortality, yet people didn't stop having lots of babies. From 1901 to 1971, the population went up from 38 million to 55 million.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_United_Kingdom#Population

 

[meridian2]

Talking of overcrowding in general rather than the reasons for it, does anyone else find it strange that many members of the general public seem to hold contradictory views about train travel; on the one hand they complain fares are too expensive then on the other they say trains are overcrowded!

Chicken and egg I'm afraid: overcrowded trains mean higher fares. As I've outlined above, it's a vicious circle.

 

[NSEFAN]

Talking of overcrowding in general rather than the reasons for it, does anyone else find it strange that many members of the general public seem to hold contradictory views about train travel; on the one hand they complain fares are too expensive then on the other they say trains are overcrowded!

It's a populist argument, usually thrown about during the nationalisation debate, "We want more trains, lower fares, errm". The wonderful thing about populism is your ideas don't need to be even remotely workable.

 

[lejog]

Averages are misleading, though. The range of incomes is as widely varied as the range of non-UK people living here, which is why treating them as a single group is problematic right from the start. My boss and the lady who cleans the office toilets were both born outside the UK but averaging their salaries wouldn't tell you much.

To be exact, it was the median salary, not the average. I suspect with the number of Russian oligarcs, 300,000 well paid french tax exiles etc. that the average immigrant salary would be even higher the British born average salary.

What measure would you claim is better than the median earnings? Whatever my argument stands - it is incorrect to base a theory on the statement that

"migrants tend ..... have less money (one of the common reasons for moving, it's not for the weather!), than the UK population on average "

 

[67018]

Talking of overcrowding in general rather than the reasons for it, does anyone else find it strange that many members of the general public seem to hold contradictory views about train travel; on the one hand they complain fares are too expensive then on the other they say trains are overcrowded!

This is a real challenge. In a market-driven approach, fares would rise on the overcrowded services to the point that either they were no longer overcrowded, or the services would make enough money to pay for more capacity.

However, for very good reasons (social, environmental etc.) fares are subsidised which removes this mechanism. Nobody's really cracked how to deal with this issue (in public services in general), beyond various unsatisfactory forms of rationing - in this case rationing/suppressing demand by congestion.

To be exact, it was the median salary, not the average. I suspect with the number of Russian oligarcs, 300,000 well paid french tax exiles etc. that the average immigrant salary would be even higher the British born average salary.

What measure would you claim is better than the median earnings? Whatever my argument stands - it is incorrect to base a theory on the statement that

"migrants tend ..... have less money (one of the common reasons for moving, it's not for the weather!), than the UK population on average "

It depends whether the original statement meant 'some immigrants' or 'all immigrants'. If there is a significant subset of immigrants that are on low wages, it would support the argument that they could be less likely to drive. (Which is, I think, what was being said in the referenced post)

I don't think any composite measure is satisfactory because it's an attempt to put a single figure for earnings on a highly heterogeneous group, which means few conclusions can be drawn about that group.

 

[yorkie]

Devolving planning power to the regions needs to happen before any progress can be made on this. eg Why should Whitehall have to sanction a bypass for a village in the midlands?

If you, or anyone else, wishes to discuss this further, feel free to do so in a new thread

 

[lejog]

It depends whether the original statement meant 'some immigrants' or 'all immigrants'.

The original statement was rather broad brush and itself specifically referred to averages:

"Very generally speaking, migrants tend to be younger, have less money (one of the common reasons for moving, it's not for the weather!), than the UK population on average"

This assumption is not consistent with the fact that migrants have a higher median disposable income than British born people.

 

[Philip C]

Allegedly as much space is devoted to golf courses as housing in this country.

I remember this claim of "Shelter" and I also remember its subsequent discussion on BBC Radio's "More or Less" Programme of 30/5/14 (still accessible by searching 'More or Less golf courses' on the BBC web-site).

In brief the conclusion was that whilst golf courses in England occupy 0.59% of land surface, houses occupy 1.13%. However this is based on the surface of the land that is actually occupied by house buildings. Including gardens takes the figure to 5.38% - nine times that covered by golf courses - and makes no provision for the land required by roads and footpaths to enable access to housing.

The programme also reported that population density in South East England (even excluding London) is nearly at the level of that of the Netherlands (itself cited as a densely populated country by European standards).

The way in which a loose claim, made by a respected charity, has found its way into "accepted wisdom" should be a warning to us all. I'll be down-loading George Orwell to my Kindle for re-reading once I'm off this web-site!

 

[Hornet]

White people aren't white, in any case, they're a sort of yellowy pink.

If I was yellowy pink I would be getting my liver function checked.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I would like to build on tiny little bits spread throughout the land, so that people of both my generation and the next have the same opportunities as those who have gone before. I'm nearly 30, and can't afford to rent in my own hometown on my own because the older generations are not moving on to more suitable accommodation. Not exactly ideal is it?

You are nearly 30 and I am just 70. I have emboldened part of your posting above and wish to ask you where it was ever stated that "older generations" had to move to more suitable accommodation in order to accommodate those of the generations that followed them. What if they had bought a 3-bedroom semi detached property in the 1960/1970 decades and found it most suitable in which to spend the rest of their lives there in that same property.

Do you envisage a certain age where such residents are forced to leave their homes that they had worked hard to pay and complete a mortgage agreement upon? With regard to "more suitable accommodation", do I see that you wish a mass building of care homes in order to accommodate those elderly displaced persons?

Perhaps I am more fortunate than most in owning the type of property that we moved into in 2004 on our return to Britain from the 10 year posting in Toronto, viz. an 18th century 6-bedroom rural property with a paddock and a number of outbuildings with a large acreage of land in an exclusive part of the "Cheshire Golden Triangle" on the Prestbury/Mottram St Andrew border. I had the financial resources to purchase that property in 2004 (and still have more than adequate financial wherewithal in 2015) which has been an excellent property investment as well as a most comfortable residence. The value of the property when valued in 2014 by Jackson Stops and Staff after a 10 year period of residence showed its value to have increased seven-fold to £6.75 million. Where are those from the generations that followed on from ours who have the finance to purchase our property? If some young "bright young thing in the City" who has wisely invested their annual bonuses wishes to move into a similar property such as mine should one become available, then good luck to them.

Howsoever, I feel that will not be addressing the point that you wished to make.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

That's a nasty Americanism and is to me just as discriminatory as "coloured", because it brackets "white people" and "coloured people" as two distinct classes of people. To me the correct way is to use their specific ethnicity, or just consider it totally irrelevant as it is in the vast majority of situations.

White people aren't white, in any case, they're a sort of yellowy pink.

Somewhat giving my age away, does anyone recall the lyrics of "Melting Pot" that was recorded by Blue Mink? This gave a hoped-for ending to such matters.