
UK’s worst-selling map: The empty landscape charted by OS440 - f_allwein
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/sep/09/uk-worst-selling-map-empty-landscape-ordnance-survey-os440-glen-cassley
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andybak
Americans (and probably many Europeans) might not realise how strange the idea
of emptiness is to many Brits - especially those of us who grew up in the
South East. For me Dungeness feels like a remote wilderness... (tries hard to
avoid making a joke about Croydon)

~~~
gaius
_might not realise how strange the idea of emptiness is to many Brits_

This is certainly not true of all Brits, mostly Londoners think this way.
"What this green empty space really needs is an exciting development of
exclusive executive apartments... say, why do they call them _flood plains_
anyway?". Most of the UK is uninhabitable, it's just the bits that are
habitable are very densely packed with people, who rarely venture out of them
and see the rest of the country.

~~~
ben_w
Flood plains can be dealt with (Netherlands).

Although I grew up with pretty much your attitude, I now suspect the UK’s
green belt policy caused more harm than good — it is a significant contributor
to the house price problem, and creates a perverse incentive to promote
unsuitable land for housing projects wherever and whenever that parcel of land
can be squeezed through the rules, rather than when a natural market (or a
sane government program) would.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Hmm, the green belt policy prevents companies from going "this bit of land
needs concrete removing, lets just use a fresh field for our block of flats"
which leads to settlements spreading excessively often encompassing large
"dead" areas. House price problems are down to landlords being able to earn a
living by doing nothing other than owning land.

Green belt also protects farm land, which when Brexit hits is going to be a
major thing for us again; if we'd been able to sell out all our farms for
housing developments then we [or the poor at least] would be a considerably
more dangerous position when food import prices rise.

Of course housing developers instead of spending the money to properly develop
on flood plains, if they needed to, decided as they weren't living there and
the government was turning a blind eye that they could get away with it. So
now we have tighter laws on building in flood prone areas -- though they still
get ignored somewhat, in my area of the UK for political reasons a school has
recently been built on land marked as "by law you can not build here, high
flood risk" (idiots!).

~~~
ben_w
> House price problems are down to landlords being able to earn a living by
> doing nothing other than owning land.

Only 21% of the UK rents. I rented for ages because houses were too expensive
to buy. Then I inherited some money from my grandmother and was finally able
to buy the fourth cheapest flat in the set of all in every town, city, or
village within 45 minutes cycling distance of work. This was only a few years
ago, and I moved out because of Brexit and became a landlord myself because
the alternative was selling and I still don’t think I understand enough German
to know what my responsibilities would be as a property owner here in Germany.

Rents are _exactly_ what the market bears. Charge a million a month and nobody
rents your place, charge a hundred a month and you fire your estate agent.
House prices _follow_ rather than _lead_ rental rates: follow, because if it’s
cheaper to rent then people are less interested in buying (and vice versa);
not lead, because rental rates are _always_ and _solely_ about maximising
revenue and therefore influenced only about what the competition charges, not
how much the assets are “worth”. Build more houses, get more competition, rent
and prices both go down.

On the other hand, speculative house purchases and people who buy with the
expectation of selling for more, they did raise house prices; indeed, that’s
pretty much what “speculative bubble” means.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Yes, I misspoke, my intention was "owners of land" not only renters. House
flipping became the national sport for the middle-classes for some time (just
hold a house for 3 months, "earn" £30k).

In addition, in my UK city high-street shop rents are through the roof because
owners have no pressure to rent out - they're making money holding the
premises, so they can wait years and maintain high rental. This helps kill the
high-street.

------
hemmer
See also: most boring grid square

[http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/81429](http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/81429)

~~~
AlecSchueler
And, on that note, the Royal Society for the Preservation of Boring Grid
Squares, over at
[http://www.mapfodder.com/rspgs.html](http://www.mapfodder.com/rspgs.html)

------
DonaldFisk
Here's the area on Bing Maps, which uses Ordnance Survey for mapping:
[https://www.bing.com/maps?osid=60d7bc4e-b3f7-44d6-b167-388f7...](https://www.bing.com/maps?osid=60d7bc4e-b3f7-44d6-b167-388f780593d0&cp=58.068465~-4.745053&lvl=12&style=s&v=2&sV=2&form=S00027)

The language almost all of the place names are in is Scottish Gaelic. Common
place words are

    
    
        beinn: mountain
        meall: round hill
        cnoc: hill
        coire: circular hollow surrounded by hills
        creag: rock
        abhainn: river
        allt: stream
        loch: lake
        mór: big
        beag: small

------
tuukkah
Emptyness is relative: "Robertson estimates that there are fewer than a couple
of hundred people living in the 826 square kilometres covered by map 440." So
something like 0.25 people/km², not 0.0, in a 30km x 30km area. "There are
[--] a handful of farms, a couple of hotels, and a few roads, nearly all of
them single track."

Compare to this: "The most isolated point is 7.8 kilometers from the closest
building and is located in Cairngorms National Park." So at least 191 km² with
0 buildings (and thus 0 inhabitants?). [https://tjukanov.org/a-spot-of-
solitude/](https://tjukanov.org/a-spot-of-solitude/)

