Social Housing
Felix
You say you find it "hard to reconcile that people would want to live in the City" - a lot of people buying their first homes are young people in their 20's and 30's who are working in the city centre. In addition, they are likely to socialise in the city centre (variety of pubs, restaurants and other attractions the city centre offers). A lot of the city centre is in a derelict state because our planners have adopted an attitude similar to yours. However, other cities in Europe e.g. Copenhagen, Barcelona etc. have taken a pro-active approach to city living and have re-developed large derelict areas with fantastic results. This has the added advantage of reducing traffic and commuter times and improving people's quality of life.
You also say "remember children and traffic don't mix" and I agree. The current traffic situation in the city centre is unacceptable but measures such as the new port tunnel will help to alleviate this. However, a lot more needs to be done, including active discouragement of car use in the city centre through the provision of greatly improved public transport alternatives.
My point is that a lot of new home buyers who would like to live close to work and near centres of social activity in the city centre, can not, because there is little incentive for or pressure on developers to release derelict land for development.
People change homes, on avergae about three times in their lives. The present situation of trying to encourage first time buyers on low incomes to take up social housing in new developments on the edge of the city centre only creates a doughnut effect, which is widely recognised as having ruined many American cities. If allowed to continue, the sprawl of concrete development will spread even further into the countryside, worsening traffic and commuting times, and further reducing people's quality of life.
You also say "times and trends change" and I agree completely. What we need is a change in attitude away from characterless suburban ghetto-isation with it's sanitised shopping centres, boring bars etc. to pro-active city centre renewal which will offer city dwellers a more varied, exciting and much improved quality of life.