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Comment by awjr | Hacker News Reader

They have just finally taken down the last one in Bath. This is a 'good' thing. What has to be realised is that the ones that are being taken down are usually in the heart of a city and take up valuable 'brownfield development land.

The UK is suffering from a housing shortage in certain areas of the country and has very few options to expand housing stock that do not involve developing greenfield sites.

I do wish they could have come up with a way to incorporate the existing structures into the new development but this would be perceived as a massive long term maintenance issue and probably not an optimum housing density.

From a city point of view, 2000+ new homes vs three defunct gas holders is a no brainer in revenue generation (£4,000,000 per year in taxes). http://www.bathwesternriverside.com/overview/

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I live near the Bethnal Green gas holders and I run at least once a week down the canal past them. They're quite interesting to look at but they're also in prime London real-estate, and the capital has a huge housing shortage. It's frankly inconceivable to keep them, that land is worth millions and there are people who need a place to live.

As much as it is nice to cherish our past, it seems it's OK for the haves to say let's keep it, when the have nots are struggling with ridiculous rents.

I came here to make a tangential point:

I have run past the same gasometers and I found them fascinating and inspiring for the same reason: a tiny part of the city where the space and skyline is reserved for a unique part of our history that isn't simply converted into modern urban sprawl.

Is it a good idea to convert them into new flats which are 90% landlord owned, if not owned by Chinese investors who leave them empty so they can't support local business - the typical fate of new property in London? How does it help your 'have nots' with their rent? Aren't you just stripping out all the cultural and local heritage?

A good reason for 'use it or sell it' laws; not just for land, but habitable properties as well. If no one has lived in it for 2 years the government should be able to force you to sell it.

Sure.

The goal of capitalism is that stuff is used in an economically efficient way, and capitalism is a bit broken when that doesn't happen.

'Use it or sell it' is needed but dangerous: applied naively, this creates false incentives.

Agreed but honestly we need to open up (some) greenfield land as well.

The housing shortage in the UK is crippling and it will only get worse.

The housing shortage is very location-specific. Stoke-on-Trent were selling houses for £1 and giving renovation grants to anyone who promised to actually live there and make the area less run down.

If only there were ways of moving jobs out of London. London housing by comparison needs to go up more - not the >10 story tower blocks, more like 5 storys. Unfortunately this would probably involve clearing a lot of picturesque spacious Victorian terraces.

Thought something like 40% of new apartments are bought and never lived in. They are a financial investment/safe capital holding vehicle.

  > If only there were ways of moving jobs out of London.

If only there were a significant class of jobs whose work product could be transmitted electronically at negligible expense.

I know, right? And yet loads of them are concentrated in extremely expensive cities.

(I also agree with the points below about the housing shortage being localised. We should do what Silicon Valley did a long time ago and move some firms to a new area.)

No, we need to spread out a bit.

The UK is a ridiculously unsustainable mix of mega-high demand cities with others in almost constant decline. There's no reason everybody has to work in London, Birmingham and Manchester.

That, and stopping developers sit on land while they wait for house prices to come up. Screw it, if we need houses so much, why aren't councils renationalising housebuilding?

There are so many more, objectively better options than continuing the cycle we're currently locked into.

why aren't councils renationalising housebuilding?

They're not allowed to do so, they don't have the money, they don't have any way to raise it, and it would be vulnerable to NIMBYs.

My understanding is that the densely populated cities are the most sustainable form of living we do. It reduces carbon emissions because we need don't have to drive so far to get to the shops or work, and we can use public transportation, further reducing the carbon emissions. The housing gets expensive, because of demand, but it reduces destruction of wildlife habitat. http://www.citylab.com/work/2012/04/why-bigger-cities-are-gr...

I think we go too far in terms of romantising these kind of structures. It is impressive and valuable as a functional object not a thing of beauty or ugliness.

The more we fetishise heritage the less acceptable new structures and designs becomes that are "out of context". For example, a wind turbine should only need to generate power efficiently. It should not need to look good.

While I generally agree with you, the UK does make a fair amount of revenue from tourism (~9% GDP) so keeping a few iconic examples around might be a good idea. For much the same reason that castle's are interesting if largely useless structures.

Approximately no one comes to the UK to look at gas holders. It's not like number of infrastructure nerds coming to look at King's Cross and St Pancras would drop if we were to remove the gas holders nearby. But yeah, convert them into park-like areas if the community wants (as they're doing at King's Cross)

People go to Paris to see a radio tower that's rather short by modern standards. Hint: Tower.

I don't think there are any gas holders that are going to become that iconic but a lot of tourism focuses on interesting infrastructure like dam's, buildings, towers, walls, bridges, etc.

Utility is having something work efficiently and effectively.

Beauty is the art of making something pleasing and desirable to humanity.

Engineering and architecture should aim to do both. When utilities are ugly they can depress the price of properties around them, making people less willing enable future needed projects. I mean, is your home a (subjectively) ugly gray box with no decoration. I mean the purpose of a house is to shelter you from the elements.

I don't think we should abandon aesthetics, just that protectionism is a bad way of going about it.

For the most part homes in the UK are designed to fit in with their surroundings not be beautiful. I don't find hundreds of identical red brick buildings particularly asthetically inspiring and decoration is usually kept to an absolute minimum by developers. What we end up with is endless estates that all look exactly the same in order to protect sensibilities. We need to accept some creativity and change.

>We need to accept some creativity and change.

Yeah, like this. http://www.choishine.com/port_projects/landsnet/landsnet.htm...

For example, a wind turbine should only need to generate power efficiently. It should not need to look good.

That's obviously bollocks - human beings aren't machines - they enjoy existing in an environment that they find beautiful. So, we should consider aesthetics when designing technology that is visible.

Well, yes, but they have successfully replaced them with housing, which is a pretty daft use of a rather badly contaminated floodplain, which isn't shy on the flooding bit.

There's a reason that that area of town used to be tanneries, gas-holders, and chemical works.

But is there a shortage of brownfield land in most places? I guess Bath is different from most places.

In this case they are easier to redevelop compared to, say, an old industrial complex where land contamination may be an issue.

the one in Dublin, Ireland, was converted to apartments http://armchairtravelogue.blogspot.co.uk/2009/06/dublin-gasw...

There's also the Gasometers of Vienna which are gorgeous: http://www.wiener-gasometer.at/en

Each gasometer was redesigned into a complete urban space by a different architect.

I lived there for a few months. The structures are extremely sturdy, with some fantastic views from the upper levels. The base of the Gasometers have been cleverly fashioned into a shopping complex, with adjacent cinema and gym. No need to ever venture outside! (Even the underground train station can be reached under cover.)

My apartment overlooked one of the hollow central 'cylinders': not much sunlight reached the interior, and - without net curtains - not much privacy (since neighbors opposite had a clear view across the space).

After seeing a huge crowd queuing in the lobby one evening, I realized the basement was used for rock concerts! And yet, not a sound (or vibration) reached the residential areas above.

Great place to stay for a while...

The gasometers in Bath were in the middle of a pretty substantial industrial complex, and the land is substantially contaminated - but apparently a few feet of turf is "good enough".

Has more to do with where the industrial centres of the 19th century were within a city and how cities have evolved and developed over time, making those centres prime residential zones now. In Bath's case there is a clear need for more housing in the centre with massive objections from residents to the development of greenfield sites on the outskirts of the city.

Sites like these are politically 'easy' to develop. From a urban landscape point of view, taking an industrial zone and re-classifying it as a residential zone has it's risks in that you drive out the ability for employment opportunities in the city. However, in Bath's case, the industrial sectors are now on the west side of the city towards Bristol.

The ones at Kings Cross are being converted into a building. They are listed.

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