Letter: American condos outshine British retiree options

The American housing market has nothing comparable to the British dilemma where we don’t have enough productive land to feed ourselves (“The US housing market is awful”, Opinion, June 25).

“Single family zoning” found its most wasteful expression in England when to meet the so-called wishes of the people of Lambeth it was decreed that all new housing should be two-storey with gardens. This misdirection had previously led to the “garden suburbs” of the 1930s and was widely adopted in the colonies, where there was no need for the greenbelt.

Cities are compact communal living and are man’s best and most enduring invention. Urban living teaches people how to live together and we need to adapt our housing policy with a full range of options. In the UK, older generations have few good options to downsize. In America, a condo where the lifts work, preferably in Miami, is a normal life progression. Britons have to emigrate to Spain.

Barrie Moore
Dudley, West Midlands, UK