Over the last full economic cycle, from 1993 to 2008, the cost of a hectare of residential land in London rose by over 300% in real terms, to more than £8m ($15m) and enough green-belt land is available in Greater London to build 1.6m houses at average densities, according to Paul Cheshire of the London School of Economics (LSE) — about 30 times the number of new houses London needs a year. "But opposition from homeowners is strong — especially from those near the green belt, who do not much like the thought of newcomers bringing down property prices. Today, though approved applications to build on it have risen a bit, the green belt is virtually as big as it was in 2007. Many argue that developing brownfield land (land previously used for some industrial purpose) would solve London’s problems.

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