The same kind of city planning that disregards the needs of children, denies us decent housing, says Monbiot. 

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“In the name of market freedom," he says, "the volume housebuilders, sitting on their land banks, are free to preside over speculative chaos, while we are free to buy dog kennels priced like palaces in placeless estates so badly designed that community is dead on arrival.”

 

As countries elsewhere in Europe have found, he says, we don’t need volume house builders, except to construct high-rises. They do not assist the provision of decent, affordable homes. They impede it. What is good for them is bad for us. “Why can’t we shape the places that shape our lives?” he asks.