The decline of Vancouver
sofard.tumblr.com
The decline of Vancouver
1–10 of 161 posts
Re: The decline of Vancouver
#2Sounds like Vancouver could use a little Georgism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism
Re: The decline of Vancouver
#3Sounds like Vancouver could use a little Georgism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism
Or as a simpler, more politically palatable approximation, set up a pied-à-terre property tax for residential properties above a certain value that are lived in for less than three months per year.
Re: The decline of Vancouver
#4I've lived in Vancouver. There are really only three industries: (dodgy) junior mining, retail, and real estate. Property is bought by absentee owners who take supply out of the market, drive up prices, but do not contribute to the economy. The city is more expensive than NY without the amenities (except the outdoors), culture, or opportunity. The city should be Canada's powerhouse but it's turned into a high price vacation area without tourism.
Re: The decline of Vancouver
#5A 2011 study by Landcor Data showed that 74 per cent of luxury purchases in Richmond and Vancouver’s west side were by buyers with mainland Chinese names with no western variant.
Not surprising, given that Richmond is 55% Chinese[0]. West side Vancouver is probably around the same.
[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richmond,_British_Columbia#Demo...
Re: The decline of Vancouver
#6I've lived in Vancouver. There are really only three industries: (dodgy) junior mining, retail, and real estate. Property is bought by absentee owners who take supply out of the market, drive up prices, but do not contribute to the economy. The city is more expensive than NY without the amenities (except the outdoors), culture, or opportunity. The city should be Canada's powerhouse but it's turned into a high price v…
So what's the motivation to buying property you don't live in. Are they renting it out? The OP made it sound like many units are vacant. Are they buying and holding hoping to sell later for more?
Normally a boom in high-end housing is good for local trades (plumbers, electicians, carpenters, painters, decorators, etc) as the first thing most upper-tier home buyers do when they buy a place is renovate, remodel, or at least redecorate.
Re: The decline of Vancouver
#7Sounds like Vancouver could use a little Georgism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism
Or as a simpler, more politically palatable approximation, set up a pied-à-terre property tax for residential properties above a certain value that are lived in for less than three months per year.
Couldn't the absentee owners just rent the properties out to dodge that?
Re: The decline of Vancouver
#8Here is a link to one my favorite sites about housing in Vancouver. Take the quiz:
Re: The decline of Vancouver
#9According to Wikipedia, Vancouver only has 600k people. Shouldn't people expect the city to grow to a few million people over the next 100 years? More people are moving to cities, after all. I'd think that with proper urban planning, there's enough space to grow. Urban planning means more mass transit, of course. That's not something that we do very well in the western hemisphere. Even NYC could be a lot better. People are still trying to jam several thousand buses into Manhattan every day.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/20/nyregion/port-authority-ag...
Re: The decline of Vancouver
#10I've lived in Vancouver. There are really only three industries: (dodgy) junior mining, retail, and real estate. Property is bought by absentee owners who take supply out of the market, drive up prices, but do not contribute to the economy. The city is more expensive than NY without the amenities (except the outdoors), culture, or opportunity. The city should be Canada's powerhouse but it's turned into a high price v…
So what's the motivation to buying property you don't live in. Are they renting it out? The OP made it sound like many units are vacant. Are they buying and holding hoping to sell later for more? Normally a boom in high-end housing is good for local trades (plumbers, electicians, carpenters, painters, decorators, etc) as the first thing most upper-tier home buyers do when they buy a place is renovate, remodel, or at…
[deleted]