Simple calculations
New year, new decade (yes, I know that it actually starts next year but everybody keeps ignoring this convention), so lots of numbers to tell us what happens, for example this little overview:https://nos.nl/artikel/2316671-nederland-werd-in-jaren-10-drukker-en-ouder-inkomens-groeiden-met-8-procent.html
The beauty of such numbers is that one can make simple calculations that tell more than the numbers themselves. For example, the population of the Netherlands appears to have grown by 700.000. It's a substantial number but it's growth in a decade, so it's 70.000 per year. If we link this to the much-advertised housing shortage in the country, it doesn't seem that bad. Assuming that a dwelling is shared by two persons (the household size in the Netherlands being 2,2 persons on average), we need to build an extra 35.000 homes per year. This doesn't seem beyond the capacities of both the building construction industry and the country (in terms of space). In fact, the same overview states that 366.000 dwellings were actually built in the decade. So, what's the problem?
In the same overview, the total number of dwellings in the Netherlands is reported at 7,8 million. According to data from the same source (https://opendata.cbs.nl/statline/#/CBS/nl/dataset/82905ned/table?ts=1578310186602), the number of private households in the country is just over 7,9 million. It's not a bad match: it suggests that we need to build just 100.000 dwellings more. I appreciate that the number is not insignificant (it's the output of the Dutch construction industry in three years) but it's a far cry from the dramatic pronouncements one usually reads about the housing shortage in the Netherlands. By increasing production to 40.000 or 45.000 dwellings per year, the problem could be easily solved soon - unless of course the urgency to build more has reasons other than providing shelter to the inhabitants of the country.
