Can payments persuade Canadian residents to move away from dying villages? • Hacker News Board

Re: Can payments persuade Canadian residents to move away from dying villages?

#101

Post by greggarious » Thu, Sep 22, 2016, 7:14 PM UTC

burnt1ce wrote: post #6

I actually live in Toronto and I agree real estate here is expensive. What I don't get is WAY more expensive in places like London, Hong Kong, New York and San Francisco but I don't hear as many complaints or alarms going off in those areas. Why? Is this just me being oblivious?

I'm an American, so take what I say with a grain of salt... but maybe part of it is that Canada has a small population but a large land area.

There's basically four major cities a Millenial would consider: Vancouver, Toronto, Monteal, and Ottawa. (And I've heard the latter crapped on even by Canadians.)

Montreal is lovely, but if you're an Anglophone.

Compare with the United States: New York is a large city, but I could live in Philadelphia if I wanted to go slightly cheaper. If Seattle is to expensive, there's Portland.

It seems to me that basically everyone who wants to live in the "big city" seems to either cram themselves into Vancouver or Toronto. (Ottawa didn't seem to have the level of bustle I'd expect for a capital compared to say, London or DC)

So basically, the TL;DR is people in NYC or SF choose to be there. You basically pick a climate, then pick a price range.

Re: Can payments persuade Canadian residents to move away from dying villages?

#102

Post by abz10 » Thu, Sep 22, 2016, 7:16 PM UTC

acveilleux wrote: post #96

abz10 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be tricky. I think fairness depends on the value for money - it's possible that they don't need as many services that are being provided with. It's also possible they could provide for themselves cheaper - perhaps with a few lifestyle changes. In anycase it would be up to them to decide what to do. I understand that it's not a politically viable solution but I wanted to add to the list of options the idea…

One of the main service provided to the village in the article is a ferry with a subsidized rate since it's on an island. Without ferry, there's not going to be a village.

If the village cannot survive without taxes and without a subsidized ferry then I think the answer is clearly to allow the village to disband. You'd no longer need to force other canadian taxpayers to subsidise island residences lifestyles.

Re: Can payments persuade Canadian residents to move away from dying villages?

#103

Post by at-fates-hands » Thu, Sep 22, 2016, 7:19 PM UTC

Unman wrote: post #25

at-fates-hands wrote: post #3

One of my new favorite shows on Vice actually did a show about how abandoned Newfoundland is. They pointed out the over fishing of the area then the government banned fishing outright which started the collapse. https://video.vice.com/en_ca/video/Newfoundland-Coast/57bddb...

The way your (brief) sentence is written it sounds as though the government is given a good deal of credit for imposing the moratorium, whereas there's a good deal of evidence to suggest that they consistenly mis-managed it. It looks as though a combination of poor ecological models, concentration on simple resource production statistics, consulting only with large capital holders instead of small, local stakeholders…

Thanks for the link to the book, it looks like an excellent read. I'll be digging into that tonight.

Yes, the show points out exactly what you say. There was an increase in large scale, industrial fishing using huge trawling boats that quickly depleted the resources.

It seems this is an ongoing theme - as humans we just think natural resources will never run out.

Re: Can payments persuade Canadian residents to move away from dying villages?

#104

Post by ersii » Thu, Sep 22, 2016, 7:19 PM UTC

dmix wrote: post #94

paavokoya wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Believe it or not, not everyone wants to participate in society once they've done their fair share (retired)

I didn't say anything about seniors needing to 'participate in society' after retirement. I specifically said "non-seniors" have no industry to participate in there... which makes economic sense to relocate them. My point related to seniors was related to the increased medical care costs required for remote poorly serviced communities. They don't even have a fire department...

I'd seriously be fine with that. I would not mind giving up all social services, especially not if I got a cashback. That said, I would expect this to come with 'no taxation in the future' as well. That said, I am not everybody.

Re: Can payments persuade Canadian residents to move away from dying villages?

#105

Post by abz10 » Thu, Sep 22, 2016, 7:19 PM UTC

speeder wrote: post #98

abz10 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about stopping the services as well a stop taxing them? Then if it is viable they can stay.

I wish there was ANY government willing to do that in the entire world. Most governments won't ever do that, because it effectively means allowing a independent nation in their lands. For example: I am from Brazil, and I am most certainly paying in taxes much more than I get in services, police is unreliable (even simple calls to emergency number because I saw shady shit, never worked, sometimes it didn't even connec…

I hear you. Panama and Belize are poor man's tax havens if you can work remotely with a foreign source of income. I live in Panama. I haven't seen a homeless person since leaving SF.

Re: Can payments persuade Canadian residents to move away from dying villages?

#106

Post by sten » Thu, Sep 22, 2016, 7:21 PM UTC

lmm wrote: post #39

mhurron wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now people prefer the urban areas. That's not new. What also isn't new is that when those same people get married and have kids, they'll be looking to move out of that urban environment. And all of that is completely unrelated to what the article is about.

I think it is releated. The economic factors that have shifted jobs away from the land and into the cities are the same ones that attract young people to the cities.

People are also having less children which lessens the pressure to exit the city.

Re: Can payments persuade Canadian residents to move away from dying villages?

#107

Post by msbarnett » Thu, Sep 22, 2016, 7:24 PM UTC

ersii wrote: post #95

msbarnett wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not even "the Canadian government". This was purely a Provincial scheme to lower costs.

Isn't a province... government? Might not be the State/Federal government, but yet surely it's government one way or another?

> Isn't a province... government? Might not be the State/Federal government, but yet surely it's government one way or another?

To me, saying "The Canadian government is doing X", is a statement about the activities of the Federal government. The use of the definite article implies singularity. A provincial government is not the Canadian government -- it's one of many in a federal system.

It might in some narrow sense be technically accurate to rewrite the headline "Texas Urges Court To Ban Enforcement Of All Federal Pro-Transgender Restroom Policies In Workplaces" to read "the US Government Urges Court To Ban Enforcement Of All Federal Pro-Transgender Restroom Policies In Workplaces", but it's misleading to the reader and drops a lot of important context. It leads to an impression of a much broader situation than actually exists.

Re: Can payments persuade Canadian residents to move away from dying villages?

#108

Post by abz10 » Thu, Sep 22, 2016, 7:29 PM UTC

acveilleux wrote: post #97

abz10 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could the down-voters at least tell me why? Thx

That's not how Canada works. We're way to the left of the US. Furthermore, that's outside the power of the provincial government to do.

I understand that it's not politically viable. But I don't think that disqualifies it from a suggestion worth exploring. Politics can change, especially when the money starts running out.

Re: Can payments persuade Canadian residents to move away from dying villages?

#109

Post by agentultra » Thu, Sep 22, 2016, 7:29 PM UTC

They tried this in the fifties too with the out-harbour communities in Newfoundland like Fogo. Many communities disappeared but Fogo and others stayed and developed something called the Fogo Process.

It's sad really. The Marconi Tower is there. Some of the earliest settlements in North America were founded in Newfoundland. It's one of the most beautiful places on Earth to boot.

If you visit you can still find traces of the abandoned communities. Most would just float their houses towards the main island. Some were left behind. It makes for an interesting hike.

Some people out there love it. Generations going back to the 1700's have made their life on those islands. I think some portion of the population will refuse no matter how much is offered.

Re: Can payments persuade Canadian residents to move away from dying villages?

#110

Post by CountSessine » Thu, Sep 22, 2016, 7:34 PM UTC

trapperkeeper79 wrote: post #34

mikeash wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear a ton of complaints about SF. Maybe you hear more about Toronto because it's where you are?

Poster has a point. Toronto real-estate has been said to be on the verge of collapse since 2004. It keeps growing at insane rates .. we're talking around 10% per annum (don't recall the actual figure). Also, this is despite a ton of construction .. we're talking near-China level cranes here ... any open space near subway lines turns into condos. Lots of stories of people flipping pre-construction units, waiting in li…

Lots of stories of people flipping pre-construction units, waiting in line for days to put a deposit down on new construction

This has to be one of the strangest complaints, along with shadow flipping, that's come out of the real-estate debacle here in Vancouver.

Builders need to achieve 100% or near 100% sell-through on units in a project. Doing that through a pre-sell is hard, so they've traditionally offered a small discount on pre-sells. Buyers have typically been ok with committing themselves to a pre-sell because of the discount. Everyone's needs are satisfied.

If a pre-sell buyer decides to flip the property immediately, what harm is there in that? Is it that you didn't get the discount? This has exactly no impact at all on the steady-state market price of property; it's just a matter of who the builder decides to give this small one-time discount to.

Worse, it's a distraction from the real reason that real estate has become so expensive in Vancouver and Toronto, which is foreign investment. The BC government imposed a foreign investor tax here and the market is now in a slow-motion collapse; I've been watching about 2 dozen detached houses on realtor.ca and none of them have sold. Some have already dropped their asking price by about 100k-200k and they're still on offer.

If you want a real solution to housing prices, kick out the foreign speculators.