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Canadians Unable to Afford Safe Housing Are Turning to Medically-Assisted Death

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Re: Canadians Unable to Afford Safe Housing Are Turning to Medically-Assisted Death

#71

Post by actionfromafar »

twblalock wrote: post #39
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with encouraging builders to go hard with few restrictions is you end up with a low-density urban sprawl that introduces a ton of its own issues. You end up with massively long commutes and a ton of infrastructure that now needs to be maintained, and none of that cost falls on the builder so they happily build fields of new homes miles away from work places or services.

> The problem with encouraging builders to go hard with few restrictions is you end up with a low-density urban sprawl that introduces a ton of its own issues. You only end up with that if that is what sells, i.e. that is what homebuyers want. If the average Canadian didn't want that, the developers would build something else. Your real problem here is with the preferences of the people who buy new homes, and you are…

What a current buyer wants in a Nash equilibrium of weird incentives and zoning laws, is the Just the Way Things Are?

Re: Canadians Unable to Afford Safe Housing Are Turning to Medically-Assisted Death

#73

Post by db48x »

twblalock wrote: post #39
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with encouraging builders to go hard with few restrictions is you end up with a low-density urban sprawl that introduces a ton of its own issues. You end up with massively long commutes and a ton of infrastructure that now needs to be maintained, and none of that cost falls on the builder so they happily build fields of new homes miles away from work places or services.

> The problem with encouraging builders to go hard with few restrictions is you end up with a low-density urban sprawl that introduces a ton of its own issues. You only end up with that if that is what sells, i.e. that is what homebuyers want. If the average Canadian didn't want that, the developers would build something else. Your real problem here is with the preferences of the people who buy new homes, and you are…

That’s true, but take a look at the zoning laws as well. Some places have better zoning laws than the US and Canada. I think that Japan is frequently mentioned here, because there are only a dozen types of zones and all of the ones that allow housing allow the property owner to rebuild at a higher density. (There are several types of industrial–only zones that give them a way to prevent homes from being built too near heavy industry.)

Re: Canadians Unable to Afford Safe Housing Are Turning to Medically-Assisted Death

#74

Post by mumblemumble »

ajmurmann wrote: post #25
thinkingkong wrote: post #4

Whats wild about affordable housing in Canada is that for every newly built unit we lose 15. Yet almost nobody is talking about that part. You cant build your way out of the problem before you plug the leak. But there are obvious misaligned incentives to do that. The value system of our economy and culture seems to be obsessed with making basic needs a profit center, at all costs, regardless of the consequence.

How do these 15 units get destroyed/lost?

If it's anything like what's happening in Chicago, what happens is a mix of existing multi-unit buildings being torn down and replaced with single-family homes or 2-3 unit luxury condos, and whole swaths of existing 2- and 3-flat buildings comprising maybe 15 or 20 affordable units being torn down to make room for apartment/condo developments with 20 luxury apartments, but only two of them designated as affordable housing.

Re: Canadians Unable to Afford Safe Housing Are Turning to Medically-Assisted Death

#75

Post by cmdli »

frostwarrior wrote: post #40
nostromo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not attacking you, your heart is in the right place, but your comment illustrates the problem. Housing absolutely should be a profit center. Home and multifamily builders should be unleashed to build as much housing as they can. Let them be greedy; let them get rich. It’ll make housing more affordable for everyone. High housing costs aren’t a failure of the free market - they’re a failure of central planning at e…

By the free market alone, letting everyone get a home sounds like a terrible decision. There's a finite number of people that need a home and by the point everyone gets their own home, your business is doomed. On the other side, letting housing to be crazy expensive, with few people capable of getting a new house, will always be profitable.

Keep in mind that corporations are extremely focused on short term profits. Home builders would love to build every single person a home and make tons of money, even if it wasn’t a long term business. Add in the potential for convincing people to buy a new house every 20 years like cars and you’ve got a major profit center.

Why aren’t they building these homes? How are they being stopped? Typically the thing that is stopping homes from being built is governmental restrictions on how many homes can be built (ie zoning laws).

Re: Canadians Unable to Afford Safe Housing Are Turning to Medically-Assisted Death

#77

Post by jeromegv »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #63
fshbbdssbbgdd wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Canada, exclusionary zoning rules prohibited the construction of mid-rise housing in most cities. Developers would build it if the system wasn’t set up to stop them from doing so. They want to sell more units of housing per acre of land.

As I asked another user - so you belief that the suburban sprawl would be high density housing instead? We'd have giant apartment buildings on the edge of the city?

No, they would be in the center of the city where it is currently illegal to do it.

Listen to this recent podcast from 99% invisible (or read the summary), it explains it very well. Most of the territory of Toronto excludes apartment buildings.

https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-missing-middle/

Re: Canadians Unable to Afford Safe Housing Are Turning to Medically-Assisted Death

#78

Post by db48x »

ZoomerCretin wrote: post #68
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I asked another user - so you belief that the suburban sprawl would be high density housing instead? We'd have giant apartment buildings on the edge of the city?

> We'd have giant apartment buildings on the edge of the city? Not necessarily high rises, but certainly apartment buildings, yes. This is the development pattern you see in places like Austin, Texas.

Yes, you see that in a lot of places. The city zoning laws mandate single–family homes, but then you get to the city boundary and revert to the county rules and a bunch of apartment complexes suddenly appear as if by magic.

Re: Canadians Unable to Afford Safe Housing Are Turning to Medically-Assisted Death

#80

Post by twblalock »

actionfromafar wrote: post #71
twblalock wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem with encouraging builders to go hard with few restrictions is you end up with a low-density urban sprawl that introduces a ton of its own issues. You only end up with that if that is what sells, i.e. that is what homebuyers want. If the average Canadian didn't want that, the developers would build something else. Your real problem here is with the preferences of the people who buy new homes, and you are…

What a current buyer wants in a Nash equilibrium of weird incentives and zoning laws, is the Just the Way Things Are ?

Zoning laws don't come out of nowhere. People like living in suburbs, so their governments pass zoning laws that keep the area suburban.

Zoning laws are an expression of preferences by the existing homeowners who want their neighborhoods to retain their current characteristics.

Look at the history of how this happened. The suburbs did not magically appear out of nowhere after WWII against the wishes of the population, and they were not legalized into existence with zoning laws. They were built, people liked them and bought houses in them, and then they passed zoning laws to keep them.

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