To solve its housing crisis, the country must learn to love the urban
IF ANYTHING deserves the label “wasteland”, this place does. Pylons and tangles of bramble high as houses tower over a lonely oil drum and a collapsed metal fence. In the distance planes approaching Stansted airport whine; refrigerator units at a nearby food-processing factory hum. Set in the frozen mud is a mosaic of industrial detritus, bits of brick and pipe, beer cans and a discarded condom wrapper. A jaunty yellow arrow informs passers-by that this scraggy parcel of Harlow, in Essex, is a public right-of-way.
This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “The green-belt delusion”
From the February 11th 2017 edition
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