There is a first time for everything. Today, I’m going to
praise something about the French economy – well, sort of, at least. This year
is proving to be “bad” for house building in recession-hit
there were “just” 342,000 housing starts in the year to June 2013, down 14.2
per cent on the previous 12 month period. Around 159,600 of these were flats
and 161,900 of these were houses, according to the “Construction de logements”
figures released by the French government’s environment, development and energy
department. During the same time, 485,677 new building permits were issued.
So far, nothing remarkable and you might be wondering why I
am spending so much time detailing such obscure, seemingly irrelevant
statistics – apart from the fact that by
incredibly large numbers.
had a population of 65.43M in 2011 compared to the
new homes, apartments, etc, they have an estimated 342,000 home starts while we
will have adjusted annual housing starts clocking in at 911,000.
That is a building ratio of 0.52% for France (starts compared to
population) while the
has a building ratio of only 0.27%.
The scale and scope of the U.S housing problem is laid bare
by the French numbers, which show how things could be here were our regulatory
systems, banking procedures and attitudes not completely and disastrously
wrong-headed and dysfunctional. When we see what we are missing out on, our housing
start rate feels even less acceptable and even more outrageous.
If France, one of the most regulated countries in the world,
can figure out that housing needs to drive the economy, why is the
struggling?
