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There is plenty of housing for plenty of people in most parts of North America. The 'problem' is that what people _want_ is cheap housing in urban centers, a.k

There is plenty of housing for plenty of people in most parts of North America. The 'problem' is that what people _want_ is cheap housing in urban centers, a.k.a cool spots. Because that doesn't exist, we claim to have a housing shortage.

ep103 5y ago
I'm not in Canada, but I am in the NYC region, and your comment is absurd. Assuming you want to live in a safe area, but not live inside the 5 city boros, you're looking at 1MM for a house, and an hour+ commute. But yeah, "cool spots". /s
- tnel77 5y ago
  There’s certainly an element of ignorance in their comment, but there’s also some truth. I am originally from a rural area in the Midwest USA. I know a statistically significant number of people from high school and college who purposely moved to bigger cities because of “the culture” or “there’s so much more to do.” They are right. I live in a much bigger city now for those exact reasons, but the demand justifiably has resulted in wildly more expensive houses. I could buy a modest house in my hometown for $85k right now. That same house where I currently live would easily be selling for $300-350k. You make more money here, but not by much. We need to work on improving our housing density issues, but there’s an undeniable element of “I don’t want to live there” going on.
  - leshow 5y ago
    The average house price in Canada is over 800k now. In a city like Toronto I would expect that to be higher.
waterlaw 5y ago
In Ontario it's not just urban centers. Prices are going up almost everywhere. Towns with a grocery store and Tim Hortons are seeing prices explode. One problem in Canadian provinces is your taxes remain the same regardless of where you live, but if you need access to healthcare or education, then you have to live near a major city. Particularly if you want quality healthcare. In fact the cost of living goes up if you're a rural inhabitant in most of Ontario. Electricity is more expensive, heating is expensive, etc.
amanaplanacanal 5y ago
People also want to live where the jobs are, which is increasingly in cities. I expect most small towns are going to die over the next few decades.
- bobthepanda 5y ago
  I don’t know that people want to live where the jobs are necessarily (although it helps for ease of switching jobs). Personally I think the move to remote work was very overhyped during the pandemic, but it is having an impact on the housing market of smaller areas. People want to live where the amenities are, and all other things being equal more population can support more diverse sets of amenities. E.g. you need enough gay people in a town to support a regularly open gay bar, and generally speaking people want to have a choice of bars for going out.
- kbelder 5y ago
  The trend in the last couple years has been the reverse of that, but it'll be interesting to see if that continues now that the most of the pandemic restrictions are over.
- bcrl 5y ago
  I live in a rural area with a small local town about an hour outside of Ottawa. Lots of rural houses are going up, as the hour drive is okay for the occasional commute. Nothing is being built in the town (which currently has about 350 dwellings). The problem? There is no local water / sewage system, and quite a few of the wells in town get contaminated with e-coli on a regular basis. Nobody wants to build a new subdivision in the town because it doesn't have the basic infrastructure need to support development. The worst part of this is that the town has the money in the bank to build the water and sewage system. There's upwards of $8 million earmarked for the project. However, each homeowner is going to be responsible for $30k in hookup costs, and the town will have to shell out $500,000 per year to operate the new water system. Since it's a low income area, the >50% property tax increase needed to run the system won't fly, and neither will the hook-up costs. Instead, all the new builds are focused in rural areas where there is no infrastructure needed or in the larger towns / cities where costs are significantly higher but deemed to be an acceptable risk by developers.
ericmay 5y ago
I think that used to be the case and I would have argued as such as early as 2018 w.r.t NIMBY and San Francisco but I think it's becoming less true. Now sure you can buy a trailer in the middle of nowhere in the Nevada desert, but what were previously considered "cheap" houses in places like Des Moines are increasing substantially in price, and that's not just the cool spots either. You might say "Well just rent then" but rent is going up too. With that being said, naturally homes near economic activity should be more expensive. It's more expensive and always will be to live near Google's HQ in Mountain View than it will be to live in Grand Rapids, Michigan or Toledo, Ohio. That's just economic physics. It's ok, normal, natural, acceptable, and economically good. And these homes are only going to get more expensive over time as energy costs increase (EVs won't save us), road maintenance costs increase (already far out of control), and people move to live in more walkable areas. But as these costs increase, people who were expecting that it would be cheap to live in the suburbs are surprised because energy costs and moving far away just won't save them anymore like it did in the past (oh I'll live here and just have a 40 mile commute) - hence it appears that we have a housing shortage when in reality the costs are more reflective of economic reality and were artificially cheap. New housing won't help here because even if we could build more faster we'd still be building it in an economically handicapped way and rely on traveling far distances in cars and on highways, which just will not work when we can't pump cheap oil out of the ground. You have two options. The first option is dense skyscrapers. But those aren't going to be efficient enough in places unconstrained by geography. They also have maintenance issues and it'll be too expensive to keep them going in the future with much higher energy costs. The second option is medium-density mixed-use development. Think the beautiful streets with brick single family homes next to townhouses and 2 story apartments with a cafe or an office at the bottom, bikes, walking, and street cars or other similar efficient transit. These you can repair yourself and the maintenance is much lower on the long-run and they don't rely on cheap oil to be livable. But we'll keep building skyscrapers and suburbs (I didn't mention these as an option because they aren't) and the prices will just keep going up.
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  > as energy costs increase (EVs won't save us) I don't really disagree with your larger point, but I can't help but explore this nit because it seems interesting. I don't think anyone is arguing that EVs will markedly reduce energy prices; however, there is an argument that renewables will decrease energy prices by virtue of being cheaper per unit power. Of course, it will take at least a decade before renewable energy isn't supply-constrained, so I don't think anyone is expecting this to happen soon, and moreover I've heard counter-arguments that the figures associated with renewable energy aren't including the storage costs which would be required to make renewable energy suitable for base load generation or the costs to decommission/recycle hazardous solar panels and fiberglass wind turbine blades--maybe there will be a ~10 year window during which the supply of renewable energy meets/exceeds demand but before the recycling/decommissioning costs kick in en force? :)
vkou 5y ago
People don't want to live in cool spots, people want to live in spots where there is work. Since agriculture industrialized, rural Canada has no work.
AYBABTME 5y ago
You portray it as being some capricious choice by entitled brats, but ignore that there's economic and efficiency advantages for society to have more centrally located workforce and services.
- hpkuarg 5y ago
  As the current supply chain crisis evinces, efficiency shouldn't be the end-all, be-all of policy.
  - AYBABTME 5y ago
    Strange argument to switch to. If your day to day life is better because you live near where you eat and work and obtain healthcare and what not, isn't sort of hard to argue against? Where's the downside to this efficiency? It looks to me like an entirely win-win situation for the individual and society. Sometimes efficiency translates directly into resiliency. In your argument, proximity and density makes urban populations easier and cheaper to deliver to.
howinteresting 5y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economies_of_agglomeration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economies_of_agglomeration
random314 5y ago
Imagine people wanting to live close to work, instead of 2 hours away.
na85 5y ago
We do in fact have an affordability crisis in Canada. I bought a home in a small town outside Toronto (too far to be a commuter town) in 2017 for $425000, and sold it in 2020. We're friends with the people that bought it from us and on the same street in that same small town in Ontario, houses are going for $1M+ now. This is not entitled millenials wanting to live in Vancouver. This is the place where things are supposed to be affordable. This is exactly the sort of place where Boomers love to tell us to go live if we can't afford the city. Housing is cheaper if you are willing to relocate to e.g. Swift Current, Saskatchewan where a 2-bedroom home with 900 square feet will cost you $175000, but of course there are very few jobs in a small town of 15000 people that's 3 hours away from the nearest big city and the unemployment rate is among the highest in the province.
- raydev 5y ago
  Just to add to this, we live in a town of ~50k people about 2 hours out of Toronto, and house prices are up 20% yearly since before COVID. 2-3 bedroom houses, are brushing up against $1million this year. Not as bad as other parts of Canada to be sure, but most people living here have manufacturing jobs or are in the military. I don't see how this is sustainable, since there's nothing for rich people to do here.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
wizee 5y ago
Very ordinary detached family homes in decent shape pretty much anywhere in Ontario are near a million dollars or more. If people could buy a family home for vaguely affordable prices in even the most remote parts of the province, people would flock there. There's plenty of land, but getting permission to build anything in much of Canada is a difficult and slow process, even in remote areas.

ep103 5y ago

I'm not in Canada, but I am in the NYC region, and your comment is absurd. Assuming you want to live in a safe area, but not live inside the 5 city boros, you're looking at 1MM for a house, and an hour+ commute. But yeah, "cool spots". /s

tnel77 5y ago
There’s certainly an element of ignorance in their comment, but there’s also some truth. I am originally from a rural area in the Midwest USA. I know a statistically significant number of people from high school and college who purposely moved to bigger cities because of “the culture” or “there’s so much more to do.” They are right. I live in a much bigger city now for those exact reasons, but the demand justifiably has resulted in wildly more expensive houses. I could buy a modest house in my hometown for $85k right now. That same house where I currently live would easily be selling for $300-350k. You make more money here, but not by much. We need to work on improving our housing density issues, but there’s an undeniable element of “I don’t want to live there” going on.
- leshow 5y ago
  The average house price in Canada is over 800k now. In a city like Toronto I would expect that to be higher.

waterlaw 5y ago

In Ontario it's not just urban centers. Prices are going up almost everywhere. Towns with a grocery store and Tim Hortons are seeing prices explode. One problem in Canadian provinces is your taxes remain the same regardless of where you live, but if you need access to healthcare or education, then you have to live near a major city. Particularly if you want quality healthcare. In fact the cost of living goes up if you're a rural inhabitant in most of Ontario. Electricity is more expensive, heating is expensive, etc.

amanaplanacanal 5y ago

People also want to live where the jobs are, which is increasingly in cities. I expect most small towns are going to die over the next few decades.

bobthepanda 5y ago
I don’t know that people want to live where the jobs are necessarily (although it helps for ease of switching jobs). Personally I think the move to remote work was very overhyped during the pandemic, but it is having an impact on the housing market of smaller areas. People want to live where the amenities are, and all other things being equal more population can support more diverse sets of amenities. E.g. you need enough gay people in a town to support a regularly open gay bar, and generally speaking people want to have a choice of bars for going out.
kbelder 5y ago
The trend in the last couple years has been the reverse of that, but it'll be interesting to see if that continues now that the most of the pandemic restrictions are over.
bcrl 5y ago
I live in a rural area with a small local town about an hour outside of Ottawa. Lots of rural houses are going up, as the hour drive is okay for the occasional commute. Nothing is being built in the town (which currently has about 350 dwellings). The problem? There is no local water / sewage system, and quite a few of the wells in town get contaminated with e-coli on a regular basis. Nobody wants to build a new subdivision in the town because it doesn't have the basic infrastructure need to support development. The worst part of this is that the town has the money in the bank to build the water and sewage system. There's upwards of $8 million earmarked for the project. However, each homeowner is going to be responsible for $30k in hookup costs, and the town will have to shell out $500,000 per year to operate the new water system. Since it's a low income area, the >50% property tax increase needed to run the system won't fly, and neither will the hook-up costs. Instead, all the new builds are focused in rural areas where there is no infrastructure needed or in the larger towns / cities where costs are significantly higher but deemed to be an acceptable risk by developers.

ericmay 5y ago

I think that used to be the case and I would have argued as such as early as 2018 w.r.t NIMBY and San Francisco but I think it's becoming less true. Now sure you can buy a trailer in the middle of nowhere in the Nevada desert, but what were previously considered "cheap" houses in places like Des Moines are increasing substantially in price, and that's not just the cool spots either. You might say "Well just rent then" but rent is going up too. With that being said, naturally homes near economic activity should be more expensive. It's more expensive and always will be to live near Google's HQ in Mountain View than it will be to live in Grand Rapids, Michigan or Toledo, Ohio. That's just economic physics. It's ok, normal, natural, acceptable, and economically good. And these homes are only going to get more expensive over time as energy costs increase (EVs won't save us), road maintenance costs increase (already far out of control), and people move to live in more walkable areas. But as these costs increase, people who were expecting that it would be cheap to live in the suburbs are surprised because energy costs and moving far away just won't save them anymore like it did in the past (oh I'll live here and just have a 40 mile commute) - hence it appears that we have a housing shortage when in reality the costs are more reflective of economic reality and were artificially cheap. New housing won't help here because even if we could build more faster we'd still be building it in an economically handicapped way and rely on traveling far distances in cars and on highways, which just will not work when we can't pump cheap oil out of the ground. You have two options. The first option is dense skyscrapers. But those aren't going to be efficient enough in places unconstrained by geography. They also have maintenance issues and it'll be too expensive to keep them going in the future with much higher energy costs. The second option is medium-density mixed-use development. Think the beautiful streets with brick single family homes next to townhouses and 2 story apartments with a cafe or an office at the bottom, bikes, walking, and street cars or other similar efficient transit. These you can repair yourself and the maintenance is much lower on the long-run and they don't rely on cheap oil to be livable. But we'll keep building skyscrapers and suburbs (I didn't mention these as an option because they aren't) and the prices will just keep going up.

throwaway894345 5y ago
> as energy costs increase (EVs won't save us) I don't really disagree with your larger point, but I can't help but explore this nit because it seems interesting. I don't think anyone is arguing that EVs will markedly reduce energy prices; however, there is an argument that renewables will decrease energy prices by virtue of being cheaper per unit power. Of course, it will take at least a decade before renewable energy isn't supply-constrained, so I don't think anyone is expecting this to happen soon, and moreover I've heard counter-arguments that the figures associated with renewable energy aren't including the storage costs which would be required to make renewable energy suitable for base load generation or the costs to decommission/recycle hazardous solar panels and fiberglass wind turbine blades--maybe there will be a ~10 year window during which the supply of renewable energy meets/exceeds demand but before the recycling/decommissioning costs kick in en force? :)

vkou 5y ago

People don't want to live in cool spots, people want to live in spots where there is work. Since agriculture industrialized, rural Canada has no work.

AYBABTME 5y ago

You portray it as being some capricious choice by entitled brats, but ignore that there's economic and efficiency advantages for society to have more centrally located workforce and services.

hpkuarg 5y ago
As the current supply chain crisis evinces, efficiency shouldn't be the end-all, be-all of policy.
- AYBABTME 5y ago
  Strange argument to switch to. If your day to day life is better because you live near where you eat and work and obtain healthcare and what not, isn't sort of hard to argue against? Where's the downside to this efficiency? It looks to me like an entirely win-win situation for the individual and society. Sometimes efficiency translates directly into resiliency. In your argument, proximity and density makes urban populations easier and cheaper to deliver to.

howinteresting 5y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economies_of_agglomeration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economies_of_agglomeration

random314 5y ago

Imagine people wanting to live close to work, instead of 2 hours away.

na85 5y ago

We do in fact have an affordability crisis in Canada. I bought a home in a small town outside Toronto (too far to be a commuter town) in 2017 for $425000, and sold it in 2020. We're friends with the people that bought it from us and on the same street in that same small town in Ontario, houses are going for $1M+ now. This is not entitled millenials wanting to live in Vancouver. This is the place where things are supposed to be affordable. This is exactly the sort of place where Boomers love to tell us to go live if we can't afford the city. Housing is cheaper if you are willing to relocate to e.g. Swift Current, Saskatchewan where a 2-bedroom home with 900 square feet will cost you $175000, but of course there are very few jobs in a small town of 15000 people that's 3 hours away from the nearest big city and the unemployment rate is among the highest in the province.

raydev 5y ago
Just to add to this, we live in a town of ~50k people about 2 hours out of Toronto, and house prices are up 20% yearly since before COVID. 2-3 bedroom houses, are brushing up against $1million this year. Not as bad as other parts of Canada to be sure, but most people living here have manufacturing jobs or are in the military. I don't see how this is sustainable, since there's nothing for rich people to do here.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

wizee 5y ago

Very ordinary detached family homes in decent shape pretty much anywhere in Ontario are near a million dollars or more. If people could buy a family home for vaguely affordable prices in even the most remote parts of the province, people would flock there. There's plenty of land, but getting permission to build anything in much of Canada is a difficult and slow process, even in remote areas.