Largest Private Housing Estate

[stuartarae64]

This one might be a bit difficult - but what is the largest 'privately owned' housing estate in the UK & maybe even Europe - I think it is Georgetown/Calside in Dumfries,Scotland but my friend disagrees - please help me solve this argument!!!

[Quizmonster]

Click http://www.google.com/custom?q=%22largest+private+
housing+estate%22&sa=Go&cof=LW%3A227%3BL%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.refdesk.com%2Fnewlogo.gif%3BLH%3A89%3BAH%3Acenter%3BGL%3A0%3BS%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.refdesk.com%3BAWFID%3A819b79daf1a03264%3B and you will be taken to Page 1 of a Google search on the topic. There are 23 sites listed, all of which seem to be claiming that theirs is the "largest private housing estate". Click on the blue underlined headings and see what you think yourself after you've read them...23 shouldn't take too long.

[AB Editor]

With respect, Quizmonster, not only have you not answered the question, but the link you offer to Google doesn't offer any answers either. Your suggestion to search for "largest private housing estate" throws up plenty of US sites of no relevance to the question.

If you can't answer, please don't post something for the sake of it. This moves the question from 'Unanswered' to 'Answered', and might prevent somebody else giving the correct information!

[darth vader]

I know that Seacroft, Leeds used to be the largest housing estate in Europe, not sure if this record still stands though....

[Quizmonster]

What are you talking about, AB Editor? Page 1 of my reference lists Dronfield, Doncaster, Dumfries, Thornaby, Durham, Bradley, Bristol and Stockton...not one of which is in the USA, to my knowledge. Indeed, the very estate in Dumfries referred to in the question seems to be part of the answer I offered.

If someone asks about the largest private housing estate in the UK and I find Google-pages referring to that very topic, it seems perfectly reasonable for me to tell the questioner where to find that response. Obviously - as my answer suggested - I myself did not study the pages, since I think it is the responsibility of the questioner to do at least something for him/herself.

Re your suggestion that others might be prevented from giving an answer, it doesn't seem to have prevented Darth Vader form offering his response, does it?

[Quizmonster]

AB Editor, On looking at this again in the cold light of morning, I find myself even more puzzled. Did you actually read my earlier response at all? Where in it, for example, did I, as you claim, offer a "suggestion to search for 'largest private housing estate'"?

I did no such thing; I simply asked the questioner to (a) click on the link I'd provided...having already done the search for him/her...and (b) look at the websites the link offered.

Had you done (a), you would have found that there were only 24 appropriate sites, absolutely none of which - according to their headings - had anything to do with the USA. Had you done (b), you would have found that there was a number of British housing estates laying claim to the title of 'largest in UK/Europe', which is what had been asked.

Consequently, the perfectly reasonable answer you say I did not provide was just this:-

"You and your friend have suggested two possible title-holders, but here are twenty-odd other estates that claim it, too." What's wrong with that? If someone asks: 'Which is Shakespeare's best play?' are we allowed only to say 'Hamlet'?

[AB Editor]

stuartarae64: sorry that we seem to be conducting this little spat on your answer, complete with emails sent ot you every time!

Quizmonster: so many of your answers are helpful, thought out, generous - but why do you feel the need to post an answer just for the sake of it? Your ability to use Google is amazing, but it's an ability shared by many other people. I venture to suggest that The Answerbank is a place where people hope to have the answer supplied to them, not just a roadsign to ssomewhere else.

[Quizmonster]

Dear AB Ed, I don't know which 'sent e-mails' you are referring to, but certainly not one of them has become a 'received e-mail' at this end.

I have never posted an answer just for the sake of it, as you've now twice said. If you look at my record, you'll grasp what an absurd claim that is. People may very well, as you say, hope to have an answer supplied to them, but - as I tried to point out to you via my reference to the Shakespeare play example above - there are many things to which there simply isn't an answer. There are shades of meaning and matters of opinion.

In such instances - for example, this one, where over 20 housing-estates claim to be the UK's largest - are you sure what the questioner means by 'largest'? Is it area? Is it total population? Is it housing density? I should have thought in such instances a "roadsign to somewhere else", particularly a helpful one, was precisely what a questioner would want.

In future, please just delete any answers of mine that you're unhappy with, as you have in the past. Don't make baseless claims about them. Let's just leave it at that.