makes me laugh every time someone says we are building affordable housing,
most people are in work on zero hour contracts, or only temp contracts, they cant even get into rented housing,

they have just built 6 lots of retirement appartments near me,Had a flyer asking if we had considered down sizeing even if We sold our house we couldn't buy one of the new ones, plus the fact we are only in a 2 bed cottage now, any thing smaller would be the shed,

Back in the days of Rachmann and my grandparents before, one lived in bedsits with shared bathrooms and kitchens, or with parents. Now it is against a child's human rights to share a bedroom, so the same family of 4 need 4 bedroom accommodation when they would have shared a single bedsit previously (supposing we follow the trend of coupling and uncoupling so parents do not necessarily live together). There are not many 4 bedroomed council properties. Old people, like Nightwatch and me, would be sharing a room with grandchildren and be thankful they were not sharing a bed.
It is expensive, but it always was pre 80s. Even those with large country houses, sent their children to boarding school and lived in a modest pied-a-terre in town, so the children would only have to be catered for in the country. Work and accommodation was always tied, but to expect fast, subsidised transport to be provided to enable folk to live in cheap commuter towns at the additional expense of those that live in towns, in higher cost properties, that are daily ram-packed with commuters, so making an 4 mile journey take an hour, is ridiculous. Not sure what to do, but lower everybody's expectation.
Owing to a similar conundrum, Australia is now considering a visa requirement for new immigrants that will only allow them to live in the larger cities after a period of 5 years or more. Such a UK visa requirement would perhaps dissuade some from expecting to roll up and be housed in Central London, and so ease the pressure.