Live data from Hacker News

Home galleries are hiding in plain sight across Canada

cbc.ca

41–50 of 53 posts

Re: Home galleries are hiding in plain sight across Canada

#41
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like another symptom of the age demographic imbalance. Old people have taken over the political power and have seized all the land exclusively for themselves.

It’s a symptom of endless government regulation, bureaucratic overreach, and NIMBYism. One of the worst developments in the history of government is this incessant creep of regulations and codes that specify, in excruciating detail, how residential land must be developed. How wide the streets are, how many lanes of traffic there are, how far the sidewalks are from the road, how far the front door is from the sidewalk…

This doesn’t really make sense as a counter argument.

I’m pretty sure none of these came about by random happenstance, they all had either specific reasons behind them or specific lobbying groups pushing for them, or both.

Of course there’s no guarantee that the whole amalgamation was reasonable or even coherent… but that applies to everything ever that involved millions of people and interests.

Is there a specific reason why your “fix” wouldn’t just make it even more incoherent, given real world constraints like limited will, political influence, credibility, etc…?

Re: Home galleries are hiding in plain sight across Canada

#42
post #34
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whitehorse is not undesirable, it's located in a beautiful valley and has a fairly mild climate. And I specifically took the worst case of price growth in YK. If you look at Watson Lake, the price there has not grown at all. My point is that smaller cities in Canada are not experiencing runaway price growth. This should make it clear that it's not a housing shortage problem. Otherwise, it'd be experienced equally acr…

It’s still a housing shortage problem if what houses there are, are situated where people don’t want to live.

Vancouver has more houses per capita than Whitehorse does. It is where the houses are, both in relative and overwhelmingly absolute terms.

The only problem is that they are more expensive than people wish they were. But that high price condition comes as a result of people wanting to live there. The way to undo high prices is to see people no longer want to live there (or, at least want to live elsewhere just as much).

Re: Home galleries are hiding in plain sight across Canada

#43
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The shortage of affordable housing is especially severe for low income working artists Once again, there is NO SHORTAGE of affordable housing either in the US or in Canada. None. Nada. Zilch. Ноль. 零 And that's important. A simple "not enough housing" problem is easily solved with "just build more". Instead, there is a shortage of housing _near_ _large_ _cities_. And it can't be solved. Simply "building more" housi…

Isn't 80% or some other ridiculous percentage of population of Canada in large cities? If a large portion of your population is living in large cities and large cities are experiencing a housing shortage then it makes sense to me to say there is a housing shortage in Canada.

> Isn't 80% or some other ridiculous percentage of population of Canada in large cities?

Only 59% (and shrinking!) of the population live in places with more than 100,000 people. You are correct that ~80% of the population live in urban areas, but Canada's definition for urban includes places with 1,000 people.

Re: Home galleries are hiding in plain sight across Canada

#44
post #22

CBC has had a few articles related to art and artists recently, I noticed something about cross border tariffs affecting art shows and exhibits. But I don't understand how art and art galleries aren't just the perfect vehicle for money laundering in certain cases? I also have a hard time with it, surely a portion of artists are in the trust fund class, I get the vibe that the really successful ones have massive amoun…

Nobody is laundering money at the community art, neighborhood gallery level.

Re: Home galleries are hiding in plain sight across Canada

#45

The article vaguely alludes to why this trend could appear but unfortunate it couldn't devote at least a paragraph to it. It's such an important issue, but given that this the industry impacted is considered small and niche it's so under discussed. Decades of political opposition toward any and all redevelopment of existing low density single family dominated residentially zoned areas has meant that practically all c…

Seems like another symptom of the age demographic imbalance. Old people have taken over the political power and have seized all the land exclusively for themselves.

As much as I love to kick sand at the boomers, I'm sad to say that I've seen the exact same sort of behaviours from my millennial cohort that have been lucky enough to get their foothold on the housing ladder.

All of this sort of NIMBYism stems from a deep core problem of exclusivity seeking behaviours, classism and even racism.

Re: Home galleries are hiding in plain sight across Canada

#46
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a symptom of endless government regulation, bureaucratic overreach, and NIMBYism. One of the worst developments in the history of government is this incessant creep of regulations and codes that specify, in excruciating detail, how residential land must be developed. How wide the streets are, how many lanes of traffic there are, how far the sidewalks are from the road, how far the front door is from the sidewalk…

This doesn’t really make sense as a counter argument. I’m pretty sure none of these came about by random happenstance, they all had either specific reasons behind them or specific lobbying groups pushing for them, or both. Of course there’s no guarantee that the whole amalgamation was reasonable or even coherent… but that applies to everything ever that involved millions of people and interests. Is there a specific r…

Oh absolutely all these rules came about by explicit lobbying from special interest groups. As much as it is the "government regulations" that is to blame, the government is us lol, elected by the people and servants of the people.

The root cause of these problems has been classism and racism and people trying to gate off their communities from "undesirable" people, via the zoning code.

Defacto banning apartments for example is a very effective way to eliminate everyone who can't afford a single family home from your neighbourhood. etc

Re: Home galleries are hiding in plain sight across Canada

#47
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whitehorse is not undesirable, it's located in a beautiful valley and has a fairly mild climate. And I specifically took the worst case of price growth in YK. If you look at Watson Lake, the price there has not grown at all. My point is that smaller cities in Canada are not experiencing runaway price growth. This should make it clear that it's not a housing shortage problem. Otherwise, it'd be experienced equally acr…

> Whitehorse is not undesirable, it's located in a beautiful valley and has a fairly mild climate I think you have a somewhat skewed idea of mild climate, tbh, because the Territories aren't what I think most people consider mild I'm also not talking about necessarily the scenery. What is the nightlife like? The job market? The restaurants? Also being that far north you have the problem of the length of days and nigh…

> the Territories aren't what I think most people consider mild

Mild from June to August but the winter months do not look appealing.

https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/canada/whitehorse/climat...

Re: Home galleries are hiding in plain sight across Canada

#48
post #42
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s still a housing shortage problem if what houses there are, are situated where people don’t want to live.

Vancouver has more houses per capita than Whitehorse does. It is where the houses are, both in relative and overwhelmingly absolute terms. The only problem is that they are more expensive than people wish they were. But that high price condition comes as a result of people wanting to live there. The way to undo high prices is to see people no longer want to live there (or, at least want to live elsewhere just as much…

Or build more housing there.

Re: Home galleries are hiding in plain sight across Canada

#49
post #48
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vancouver has more houses per capita than Whitehorse does. It is where the houses are, both in relative and overwhelmingly absolute terms. The only problem is that they are more expensive than people wish they were. But that high price condition comes as a result of people wanting to live there. The way to undo high prices is to see people no longer want to live there (or, at least want to live elsewhere just as much…

Or build more housing there.

New houses generally cost more than used houses. If people already think a used house is more than they can afford, who is going to pay even more to build a new house?

If you truly believe you can build new houses in Vancouver for less than the cost of its used houses, you've found one amazing arbitrage opportunity. You should be asking yourself why investors aren't lined up at your door.

Re: Home galleries are hiding in plain sight across Canada

#50
post #29
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The claim that increasing housing supply would increase prices probably requires some argument.

Preventing increase in _density_ leads to better outcomes long-term. It sounds crazy, right? Supply/demand, and all of that. But it's an example of one of the things in economics where the effects end up being different because of collective actions. As a result, no large growing city within the US within the last 30 years managed to lower down housing prices by increasing density. I checked that using the Census sta…

Doesn't look like Austin's population decreased? They had a decline in net migration but a population increase.
Post reply on HN