Our cultural snobs are wrong to knock suburbia. It is a proud British way of life

one of the qualities prized the highest by home owners. This is what happens when collectivist aims are allowed to override the revealed preferences of individuals.

The obvious critique of this argument is that expanding suburbia means eating into the greenbelt that rings our cities, because simply densifying the suburbs would also destroy what people like about them. Some also fear the emergence of American-style “exurbs”, listless miles of petrol stations and bungalows.

The awkward truth is that the character of all too many suburbs is already being undermined. Where my parents live, family homes are being subdivided, gardens sold off, and flats constructed on top of high street shops. This is a common story, particularly in the capital: the population of Hillingdon in outer London is expected to rise by 16 per cent over the next decade. They won’t all fit into the existing stock, and they can’t grow outwards to meet demand.

What to do? Replacing a bias against suburbia with another in favour of it would merely swap one set of planning distortions for another. Enforcing suburban living on unwilling home owners is as illiberal as cramming people into tiny flats. But we should accept that our current choices are threatening the future of special places that have long acted as the crucible of British civilisation.

For the caricature is entirely wrong. The suburbs at their best are full of aspiration, not misery. There is none of the snobbery at proudly enjoying the money you’ve made by buying a flashy car or conservatory that you might find in the city. And suburbia is most certainly a place: it is propertyowning democracy incarnate.