Meg and Charlie’s place is one of the loveliest homes I’ve ever seen. It’s also very Earth-friendly and cost less to build than the average tenant’s yearly rent.
It seems strange that more people aren’t choosing to follow the path of low-impact self-builds. Why continue to pay exorbitant housing costs and remain trapped in soul-crushing wage-slavery when it’s possible to step out of that madness, free ourselves to do a lot more of what we love, and live more lightly on the Earth?
The average cost per acre for land in the UK is approx £7,000, while a lovely eco-home such as Meg and Charlie’s can be built for around £10,000. Taking other start-up costs into account, it’s entirely feasible for us to create our own beautiful homes on an acre of land for under £25,000—less than the cost of a mortgage down-payment, less than three years of rent. Why aren’t more people taking advantage of this possibility?
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As I see it there are five main factors getting in the way:
1. Most of us are just too busy keeping our heads above water to seriously consider stepping outside the narrow range of conventional possibilities. 1. Most of us don’t have the capital to buy land and build even an inexpensive home. 1. Planning laws and building regulations are prohibitively restrictive. 1. Most of us don’t have the skills to create a dwelling for ourselves, or feel empowered to acquire them. 1. Many of us consider such a move potentially isolating.
Sadly, the vicious cycle of wage-slavery combined with planning restrictions and a sense of disempowerment has most of us trapped in housing that is often unsuitable, un-beautiful, inefficient and generally very expensive. And frustratingly, the large numbers of people who would love to break out of this cycle seem unable to coalesce and create together the low-impact villages that are possible, sharing land, skills, support and community to combat both social isolation and separation from nature.
Surely it’s time for all this to change. Whatever the systemic inertia that is keeping this deeply unsatisfactory situation locked in place has got to shift. Surely the will to embrace the earth-friendly, life enhancing possibilities that beckon to us is growing strong enough to break through the socially constructed obstacles that stand in the way.
We all have a right to a beautiful home on this Earth. Further, we all have a right to a beautiful home that doesn’t require us to break our back our whole life paying for it.
