When Brazilian billionaire Jacob Safra and his company, Safra Group, designed The Tulip, a distinctive one-thousand-foot-tall tourist attraction in the City of London, they sought to create a “high-tech wonder” “designed to draw visitors from London, the UK and around the world” to London’s East End.1 The flower-shaped tower was designed with pods that revolved around the outside of the building, providing patrons with stunning views of the city. But politicians have crushed these plans.

With widespread public support, the City of London Planning and Transportation Committee approved the project in April 2019. But London Mayor Sadiq Khan, an avowed socialist with a track record of imposing his views on every aspect of London life—from how many cars a homeowner can have to what advertisements can appear on the London Underground—stepped in and blocked the project in July 2019. His reasoning? The building’s owners would—wait for it—control who could enter the viewing platform, by charging admissions, and the building would block views of the Tower of London.2

That’s right. Khan stopped a company from developing an exciting, innovative, world-class building that could have brought millions of pounds of tourism revenue into London because its developers wanted to restrict access by charging people to enter and because, from one angle, their stunning new building would block views of a historic prison. This from a man who supposedly represents the people of London, two-thirds of whom polled in favor of the building.3

As one would hope and expect, the developers appealed the decision to the national government. In October 2021, after holding up Safra for two years of “public inquiry,” reports suggested that the government’s housing secretary, Michael Gove, would side with the developers and the City of London and approve the plans. But then something changed. Gove upheld Khan’s block and refused Safra Group permission to build on its own land, disapproving of its concrete construction as “unsustainable” due to its large amount of “embedded carbon.” The amount of embedded carbon is calculated by predicting the emissions of both erecting and, hypothetically, demolishing the structure.4

In blocking this proposal, both Khan and Gove have decided that they know better how to use property than its owners do. Jacob Safra proposed a stunning plan many Londoners loved and couldn’t wait to see brought to fruition. He was ready to use his company’s property to create a wonderful product that millions of people would have loved and used, as he has every right to do. But the government decided that he had no right to use his property in accordance with his judgment.

This is a clear-as-day example of how denying property rights prevents productive people from innovating. Wealth creators cannot create new things when politicians violate their rights to use their property as they see fit. Such rights violations hamstring the very people on whom we depend for the continued growth of our economy and thus the continued improvement of our standard of living.

Why should governments get to decide how cities should be developed? The very concept of “urban planning” has baked into it the idea that somebody should be looking down from on high and dictating the whole thing, that a central “planner” knows best; that individuals—like children in a china shop—must not be trusted to act on their own judgment.

And look at the results. “Urban planners” are responsible for the sad state of many of Britain’s postwar “new towns”—desolate wastelands such as Harlow and Bracknell where pedestrians walk across vast empty public squares rather than through beautiful areas of commerce that could have been. Planners wield their power to put unnatural pressures on developers, as in New York City, where zoning laws restricting the floorspace of high-end residential developments have forced the creation of super-thin “skinny skyscrapers” that look ridiculous, are hopelessly inefficient at retaining heat, and sway in the slightest wind. These supposed authorities on the “right way” to build cities, or not, disregard the minds, rights, plans, and preferences of property owners and all of the individuals who give a city life—whether Safra and his tower, or the many thousands of Americans whose homes were bulldozed to make way for the inner-city interstates that now blight most of America’s downtown areas.

For cities to thrive and grow, people and businesses must be free to use their property as they see fit. The empty space in London’s skyline—where The Tulip should have stood—will serve instead as a reminder that rights-violating governments actively work against human flourishing.

The empty space in London’s skyline—where @TheTulipLondon should have stood—will serve instead as a reminder that rights-violating governments actively work against human flourishing.
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1. Bury Street Properties, “The Tulip,” https://thetulip.com/ (accessed November 15, 2021).

2. Will Ing, “Tulip Rejected over Embodied Carbon and Heritage Concerns,”
Architects' Journal, November 11, 2021, https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/tulip-rejected-over-embodied-carbon-and-heritage-concerns.

3. Savanta Com Res, “The Tulip Project Tulip Survey,” July 1, 2019, https://comresglobal.com/polls/the-tulip-project-tulip-survey/.

4. Ing, “Tulip Rejected over Embodied Carbon and Heritage Concerns”; University College London Engineering Department, “Refurbishment & Demolition of Housing Embodied Carbon: Factsheet,” https://www.ucl.ac.uk/engineering-exchange/sites/engineering-exchange/files/fact-sheet-embodied-carbon-social-housing.pdf (accessed November 15, 2021).

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