Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is 1% immigration per year a lot?
Yes, this is extremely high. It is an exponential growth curve, not linear. What would that growth be after 25 years of constant 1% growth/year?
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Toronto swaps Google-backed, not-so-smart city plans for people-centred vision
81–90 of 217 posts
Re: Toronto swaps Google-backed, not-so-smart city plans for people-centred vision
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> Feel sorry for the kids who finish a degree in STEM from Waterloo or UoT and end up working for 40k a year. The starting salary for STEM grads seem to be well above 40K CAD, perhaps even >65K CAD [1]. >> A down payment on a Toronto house should take 24 years to accumulate When you pair your linked article with the fact that the GTA has experienced net-positive population growth every single year since 1971[1] then…
>If a new grad wants a starter property in the city then perhaps start with the purchase of a studio/1-bed. This lacks the history on what people used to be able to purchase, not just in Toronto but in all of Southern Ontario, and now even as far away as the Maritimes. The purchasing power for the average Canadian to afford things that actually mater (like housing), is dropping like crazy. Allow me to give you my own…
What makes you think lowering the number of immigrants coming in would lower the prices of housing? Any thesis around it?
Re: Toronto swaps Google-backed, not-so-smart city plans for people-centred vision
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do you think corporations using black-box technology on human guinea pigs in a city-size scale is an exciting ‘experiment’? Innovation is slow because science is constantly commoditized and recommoditized using violent means by a partnership between capitalist politicians and capitalist firms; the ‘intellectual property’ system is the tool (trade secrets > copyrights > patents).
Innovation is slow because many of the new technologies aren't that transformative. Some technologies are very transformative. The Internet in 1990s killed much of the paper based printing. When was the last time someone bough a physical accounting ledger? A newspaper? A printed calendar? An encyclopedia? But, it doesn't take long for people to internalize the change, and go about their daily lives. Not thinking abou…
> When was the last time someone bough[t] a physical [..] newspaper?
Sorry to sound like I'm stuck in a timewarp but we pay for our local newspaper to be delivered three days a week, it's waiting on the doorstep at 6am, I read it as I drink my first coffee.
I could also read the articles online, but the actual physical version is definitely better for our purposes.
Q: Is there really no-one else here doing this?
Re: Toronto swaps Google-backed, not-so-smart city plans for people-centred vision
#84Politicians like these are why innovation is so slow. Google was primed and ready to try something new but it was just too different for these people to handle. I don't even like every aspect of the Google city plan but it would have been an invaluable experiment.
It's not that it was "too different", it's that it was "too evil". Google was trying to use public resources to build a Google-owned neighborhood where they controlled the lives of everyone within, and were interested in being able to levy their own taxes and exempt themselves from existing laws.
Lol, did you just make that up?
Re: Toronto swaps Google-backed, not-so-smart city plans for people-centred vision
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, this is extremely high. It is an exponential growth curve, not linear. What would that growth be after 25 years of constant 1% growth/year?
>> What would that growth be after 25 years of constant 1% growth/year? 1.01^25 = 1.282 or 28.2% growth. Sounds like a good bet to try to grow economic activity in the region if the immigrants are typically educated and are net-positive contributors. Canada's total fertility rate (TFR) is 1.47[1] which is well below the natural replacement rate of 2.1. I'm not blindly advocating that we grow at any cost, but it's imp…
And if 28% population growth over 25 years results in insane housing affordability for younger generations, why are you still fine with that? I really don't understand this argument. You value total population growth and total economic growth over standard of living? Because with current trends it should be obscenely obvious that this approach isn't working.
Population growth (at a much lower more sustainable rate) can be incentivized by literally paying people more money to have Children. And did it occur to you that perhaps our low birthrate has something to do with the increasing lack of opportunity to improve in this country?
Finally, I am actually against the concept that the country must have constant population growth. Population growth comes in natural waves where some decades it will be high, and in others it will be low. The drop in birthrates many believe will cause a "sky to fall" scenario, which simply isn't true. It is parasitic to expect and demand constant population growth, especially at the cost of people's standard of living.
Re: Toronto swaps Google-backed, not-so-smart city plans for people-centred vision
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ironically Toronto already had a floating restaurant called Captain Jacks. At the base of Yonge St. The Port Authority and the Owner could not come to an agreement on money owned for use of the slip. The owner packed in after a good run for a couple of decades. The vintage ship was towed away, and hacked up for scrap. Toronto was left without a good restaurant on the water.
It's hilarious for me to see > Toronto was left without a good restaurant on the water which should actually be > The business owner was either unwilling or incapable of making his business succeed.
Q: Is there any kind of open market in moorings?
If a normal restaurant gets threatened with a big rent hike, they can close at one location and open up somewhere else.
Does that approach work if you're effectively renting your location from the Port Authority?
Re: Toronto swaps Google-backed, not-so-smart city plans for people-centred vision
#87As someone that lives in Toronto and is moving out in the middle of the month to go back home near family. The idea that Toronto is going to focus on "affordability" is laughable. It's one of the most expensive cities to live in in the world, and the incompetent city council, mayor and all the way up to the provincial government are doing absolutely everything they can to keep it that way - mostly without even realiz…
The entire concept of "affordable" housing makes no sense when even people with average incomes struggle to afford a decent quality of life. The government acts like people who only make 50-60k or less are middle class, but they don't even make enough to rent without roommates right now. Charity prices for minimum wage workers should be the last thing on their mind.
The Canadian government is working as hard as they can to divide the country into owners who have homes that make more money than they do, and a permanent underclass of renters that can't possibly catch up with the price increases no matter how much of their money they save. Canada (or at least Southern Ontario and BC) is at a point where being born 5-10 years earlier is a bigger quality of life difference than the difference choosing to be a customer service worker or a lawyer.
Toronto homes were up 30% through 2020. They doubled in the 5 years before that. Being born 5 years earlier is the difference between renting with roommates forever, and being a home owning real estate millionaire. It's going to start creating really weird social dynamics soon.
Re: Toronto swaps Google-backed, not-so-smart city plans for people-centred vision
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
>If a new grad wants a starter property in the city then perhaps start with the purchase of a studio/1-bed. This lacks the history on what people used to be able to purchase, not just in Toronto but in all of Southern Ontario, and now even as far away as the Maritimes. The purchasing power for the average Canadian to afford things that actually mater (like housing), is dropping like crazy. Allow me to give you my own…
Is 1% immigration per year a lot?
Canada is crazily underpopulated compared to the UK for example - which is about the geographic size of.. what, Ontario alone maybe, but has double the population of all of Canada.
So immigration is actively encouraged, which is perhaps unique among developed nations (depending only on our definition of 'actively encouraged' I suppose) which is probably 'correct' and could be massive for GDP, but.. shouldn't there also be deliberate attempts to build new cities? My outsider's limited perspective is that it seems to be mostly left to natural progress, which means.. immigrants gravitate towards Vancouver & Toronto, and everywhere that exists just gets slightly bigger and much more expensive.
Why isn't there massive intentional city building to go along with it?
Re: Toronto swaps Google-backed, not-so-smart city plans for people-centred vision
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
>If a new grad wants a starter property in the city then perhaps start with the purchase of a studio/1-bed. This lacks the history on what people used to be able to purchase, not just in Toronto but in all of Southern Ontario, and now even as far away as the Maritimes. The purchasing power for the average Canadian to afford things that actually mater (like housing), is dropping like crazy. Allow me to give you my own…
What makes you think lowering the number of immigrants coming in would lower the prices of housing? Any thesis around it?
Econ 101?
Re: Toronto swaps Google-backed, not-so-smart city plans for people-centred vision
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Fed Gov and BoC have no choice but to keep interest rates at zero and continue to play with numbers to keep the ponzi going so the whole Country doesn't collapse. You also have to take into consideration that there is no where else to find any work but in the big cities. The whole damn situation is a mess with no way out. Feel sorry for the kids who finish a degree in STEM from Waterloo or UoT and end up working…
I can’t speak for every industry, but many Bay Area technology employers have set up satellite offices in Toronto and Waterloo and are paying significantly higher wages (note: I represent one of them). This is having a net effect of driving wages up; I see it in the candidates we lose to other companies who are doing the same. Consider looking for a new gig. Also, Sentry is hiring in Toronto: https://sentry.io/jobs .
Maybe they should consider doing an early cap on property taxes and property values before it becomes like the Bay Area where even if you work at Google you can't afford a house.
There is rent control where I live, but no buy-house control, and there's almost nothing available below $2M USD.