Housing Miracle — Planning Blight

Abstract

Early in the evening of 22 July 1995 thick smoke blackened the skyline to the north of Greater Athens. Parts of Mount Penteli and the countryside nearby were burning. The fire would rage for three days and two nights, turning 50 000 stremmas¹ (= 50 sq km) of woodland and dozens of homes (mostly villas and cottages) into ashes. Once again, it would also prove the inefficiency of the state apparatus — not so much in fire control terms² as in its inability to remove the incentive to commit this type of arson.³

‘Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth.’

Isaiah. The Book of the Prophet. 5, 8.