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Vancouver’s new mega-development is big, ambitious and Indigenous

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Re: Vancouver’s new mega-development is big, ambitious and Indigenous

#261

Post by nikitaga »

defrost wrote: post #239
nikitaga wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Unceded land" means that because 100+ years ago the British settled as they wanted without asking for permission, the land actually still belongs to indigenous people, and not to Canadians, not to the people who currently live on it. "Unceded land" isn't exactly a legal concept, it's more of an activist slogan from people who want to see all public land (e.g. >90% of BC) privatized based on race, or want to hold the…

> Legally, Canada does have title to the land is that under Canadian law? Was this land openly sold | gifted to Canada or staked and claimed despite prior occupation? I recognise the current state of affairs, etc. but this "Legally Canada owns the land" is at root just a way of saying "might makes right, we took it, it's ours now, and we will shoot or imprison anyone who says otherwise".

> might makes right

That's how it works, sadly. Everywhere, not just here. The part you're missing is that "we" – the people living in Canada today – did not steal anyone's land. Certainly neither myself nor my ancestors. The original British settlers who stole the land are not us, they are long dead.

You can always look into the past to find injustices to use as an excuse to perpetuate horrible things in the present. Look at just about any conflict, modern or historical, the aggression today is always justified by something in the past. That doesn't mean that this is the right thing to do.

The right thing to do, is to lift up the people disadvantaged by past injustices, without resorting to race based division, e.g. target support by economic status instead of race. Sadly that's the opposite of what we're seeing in Canada nowadays.

Re: Vancouver’s new mega-development is big, ambitious and Indigenous

#262

Post by brailsafe »

karaterobot wrote: post #141
systemstops wrote: post #92

Someone at Westbank is a genius: fund the building of a massive skyscraper project on land that was recently returned to indigenous tribes because of a lawsuit, a project that would never be normally approved because of zoning laws. Then, declare any criticism of the project as racist, thus guaranteeing it will be built. I wonder how much of the money the tribe is actually getting out of this?

You're being downvoted, but people should look at this through the lens of it being a massive real estate deal rather than as a civil rights issue, which it is not. Of course there's shady stuff going on if you scratch the surface, didn't you see the part where real estate developers are involved? Unless we're making the laughable (and patronizing) assumption that massive urban residential real estate deals are vacci…

> people should look at this through the lens of it being a massive real estate deal rather than as a civil rights issue

People can look at it however they please, and each take can have nuance, but the classic "Well you're all dumb if you think someone isn't corrupt here" is not new, not interesting, and not evident, it's just plausible.

No matter what the issue is, there's some pissed off person that thinks they've got the often suspiciously nebulous take that nobodies thought about and serves no purpose but to try cast aspersions at an otherwise novel and probably positive thing. "Don't forget about this hypothetical non-specific negative possibility! Someone could be corrupt guys!"

It's ok to hold two ideas in your head at the same time. On one hand, no process with huge money involved can be vaccinated from corruption. On the other, there's a brutal amount of displacement and wealth inequality in Vancouver that's particularly intense among indigenous people. We want to see the city evolve in a way that brings people who aren't property boomers or literal billionaires into a viable future, and reasons to be optimistic are scarce.

So ya, boring and hollow takes get downvoted.

Re: Vancouver’s new mega-development is big, ambitious and Indigenous

#263

Post by spxneo »

zoklet-enjoyer wrote: post #140
spxneo wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Building more homes in Vancouver will not result in lower prices because this is not a supply problem it is the financial assetization of home equity that drives higher and higher prices. Blue collar workers turned multi-millionaires rely on the continued rise of home prices to purchase cheap credit which they use to speculate on more homes. When they couldn't find anymore locals they turned to the international mark…

You could have saved a lot of time by just saying "fuck poor people"

You misunderstood me because you didn't read what I wrote carefully but I don't care to convince you of your biases. I don't have time for this BS anymore.

Listen my neighbour just died. He was a struggling renter. I'm deeply saddened by this and everybody struggling. I know its even harder to leave behind what's familiar but it's not going to get better but the longer you stay in a financially strapped situation and waiting for a bailout from the government the more you suffer. This is why I'm telling people to forget about this miserable city and look elsewhere as I am.

The Canadian government is taking 60% of my income. Why isn't it being used to alleviate this situation?! My sadness is turning into anger and disappointment.

Re: Vancouver’s new mega-development is big, ambitious and Indigenous

#264

Post by spxneo »

davis wrote: post #177
spxneo wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Building more homes in Vancouver will not result in lower prices because this is not a supply problem it is the financial assetization of home equity that drives higher and higher prices. Blue collar workers turned multi-millionaires rely on the continued rise of home prices to purchase cheap credit which they use to speculate on more homes. When they couldn't find anymore locals they turned to the international mark…

Building more housing (of all kinds) == cheaper housing. Sorry but it really is that simple.

you are assuming (incorrectly) that housing demand is elastic.

Re: Vancouver’s new mega-development is big, ambitious and Indigenous

#265

Post by travisb »

defrost wrote: post #258
travisb wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might makes right is how all land is owned. Always has been, always will be. We've stacked lots of layers of paper and convention on top of that fact to reduce the amount of war we make, but people ignore this basic fact of the world at their peril.

> Always has been, always will be. Not always, eg: in Austraia the British declared Terra Nullus across the continent ( 'land belonging to nobody' ) and were later forced by their own legal system to return ownership to places still occupied.

"by their own legal system". The Australian government can come to whatever conclusion it wants about how it deals with its land.

That is, it was the Australian legal system which made that decision and further that decision was not countermanded by the Government of Australia. It wasn't the legal system of, say, Jamaica forcing the Australian Government to do that. Or even the legal system of the peoples who were occupying the territory when the British arrived.

Re: Vancouver’s new mega-development is big, ambitious and Indigenous

#266

Post by spxneo »

Izikiel43 wrote: post #189
spxneo wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Building more homes in Vancouver will not result in lower prices because this is not a supply problem it is the financial assetization of home equity that drives higher and higher prices. Blue collar workers turned multi-millionaires rely on the continued rise of home prices to purchase cheap credit which they use to speculate on more homes. When they couldn't find anymore locals they turned to the international mark…

Houses there are a luxury, you would need to be a multimillionaire to buy something there. Also, most of Vancouver is zoned for sfh, check a zoning map. Your entire comment can be summarized as: Build buildings-> more rentals -> lower price -> lower income can afford it -> poor people are criminals. I lived there for 2 years, and a local tech salary was barely enough to afford living in downtown/near downtown renting…

Incorrect. There are affordable homes outside city of Vancouver. Vancouver itself is now rezoning for multistory units and converting shed into housing.

Building more supply when you have inelastic demand is unrealistic and will do nothing to the price. As I've said it is the banking relationships of those multimillion dollar homes that is fueling this speculative bubble from locals + foreigners. The only way to attack this problem is to start from the root. Banks are incentivized to give HELOC because many Canadian retirees are relying on it for their livelihood and why would banks kick their own bee hive.

If you lived here for 2 years then you would know where False Creek is and why building 20,000 units around one of the most expensive area is NOT going to result in trickle down effect like most are claiming.

I'm suggesting rental controls that is on a sliding scale based on income NOT based on how long you lived in Vancouver which is what a certain political elements are trying to pull.

If somebody is making 60k/year they are not going to own homes period and its irresponsible to give them that insane leverage without auditing. Somebody making 600k/year should own homes because the sliding scale model would make their rental expensive.

Your other point conflating low income as criminals is another attempt to shove words in my mouth. I said these rental units attract criminal elements not that poor people are committing crimes (as you wrongfully assumed). If you lived here you would know these are kids from upper middle class joining gangs and becoming drug dealers. I don't have an answer to why that is. Could be the result of pluralnational dynamics creating isolated disenfranchised second gen.

If you wish to have a worthy discussion that will yield new insights I'm all ears but so far all I've seen people attacking me, they are purposefully infatuated with their own fixed (incorrect) workings of supply & demand (elastic) to a highly inelastic demand market.

Re: Vancouver’s new mega-development is big, ambitious and Indigenous

#267

Post by Aloisius »

anigbrowl wrote: post #244

Off topic remark on the story drafting... Sen̓áḵw How is anyone supposed to pronounce this if they're not from Vancouver and haven't been exposed to indigenous culture there? You'd think they'd include an English approximation or a link to an audio recording. I don't think the average person has the time or energy to resolve 3 stacked diacriticals and a consonant juxtaposition.

I had to look it up. It sounds like snawk'w.

Re: Vancouver’s new mega-development is big, ambitious and Indigenous

#268

Post by spxneo »

masterj wrote: post #204
spxneo wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Building more homes in Vancouver will not result in lower prices because this is not a supply problem it is the financial assetization of home equity that drives higher and higher prices. Blue collar workers turned multi-millionaires rely on the continued rise of home prices to purchase cheap credit which they use to speculate on more homes. When they couldn't find anymore locals they turned to the international mark…

Of all the bad racist NIMBY rants, this is definitely one of them

I do not own a home so I can't be a NIMBY. If you understood remotely what is taking place here in the Western world, you wouldn't be saying this.

Instead what you should be describing is a inverse colonialism in the West where NIMBYs are the benefactors treating everybody like serfs. Those NIMBYs were blue collar workers in the 70s, 80s who bought when homes cost next to nothing, and now oppressing everybody.

Be careful when you throw around accusations of racism just because somebody has a different view that you can't even offer a rebuttal on. I take it you didn't even read about my sliding income rental proposal in the other comment.

I know this because you logged in after 3 months just to write some half assed comment without offering anything insightful. This is why there is so much stagnation, people like you simply brush off anything they don't understand (because they can't even pay attention if its not a short video format) as racism.

Re: Vancouver’s new mega-development is big, ambitious and Indigenous

#269

Post by grecy »

nightowl_games wrote: post #172
Tiktaalik wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they are given special rights that go beyond what any other class of canadian citizens have access to > I find it questionable to give some citizens special birth rights greater than others The reason for this is because they are using their rights from signed treaties that define how resources are used on their lands. Persons that are part of First Nations like the Squamish and the Haida are not just "some citizen…

> power over lands that they never legally ceded to British Columbia or Canada. Actually curious about this concept of "unceded land". If it's not Canada's land then can I come in there and break laws and say Canadian law doesn't apply because it's not Canada? Seems like this "unceded land" concept is only applied selectively?

> If it's not Canada's land then can I come in there and break laws and say Canadian law doesn't apply because it's not Canada?

There are 43 first nations communities in Canada that are entirely self-governing. The Canadian Police have no power and no jurisdiction, and the community deals with everything entirely itself.

So, yes, First Nations people in those communities break "Canadian" laws every single day and nothing "Canada" does nothing about it (and legally can't).

I don't know if that applies to you if you are not a first nations person of that community. I doubt it.

There are 25 self-government agreements across Canada involving 43 Indigenous communities

https://www.rcaanc-cirnac.gc.ca/eng/1100100032275/1529354547...

Re: Vancouver’s new mega-development is big, ambitious and Indigenous

#270

Post by grecy »

gotoeleven wrote: post #173
amackera wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the point of reconciliation is to accept unequivocally the sovereignty of indigenous peoples. Is it not morally questionable to ignore indigenous peoples' sovereign rights (over fishing, forests, lands, etc.) as we have been doing up until now?

How can this work in practice, though? Wouldn't acknowledging indigenous peoples' sovereign rights over their lands require the formation of entirely new nations with their own borders and laws and military and courts etc etc that would cover the entirety of canada ? If they are have the right of a sovereign over these lands then can't they just tell everyone else to leave?

Yes, that is exactly the case today. There are 43 self-governing first nations communities in Canada where "Canadian" laws mean nothing, and "Canadian" police have no power.

https://www.rcaanc-cirnac.gc.ca/eng/1100100032275/1529354547...

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