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> 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 U

> 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" housing in dense cities makes it _worse_.

KittenInABox 2y ago
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.
- cyberax 2y ago
  It's important because there's no way to make dense urban housing cheaper. Nobody has managed to lower down housing prices by increasing density (no, Austin in Texas doesn't count, guess why?). The solution is not to build ever denser communities, but to make it so that people don't _have_ to move into a large city from an ever-shrinking list.
- 9rx 2y ago
  > 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.
graeme 2y ago
The issue with this is most parts of large cities are substantially less dense than incredibly livible neighborhoods such as the plateau area of Montreal. It is illegal to build such a neighborhood in 99% of Canada. People love it here, people start families here, tourists visit, it's quite, lots of parks and shops. And it's 3-4 as dense as most areas of most major cities. But we've made it illegal to build. For zoning, double stairway rules, minimum parking rules, setback rules, strict permitting requirements, and thousands of other things.
- cyberax 2y ago
  > It is illegal to build such a neighborhood in 99% of Canada. And that is good. It's making Canada liveable and keeps the prices from skyrocketing EVEN HIGHER.
  - rfrey 2y ago
    The claim that increasing housing supply would increase prices probably requires some argument.
    - bluefirebrand 2y ago
      As long as foreign wealth can continue to buy up properties as they are built, the actual housing supply doesn't really increase That's a pretty large part of the problem
      - shakna 2y ago
        The actual housing supply also doesn't increase if you prevent building houses...
        cyberax 2y ago
        It can increase more rapidly if you prevent increasing _density_.
    - cyberax 2y ago
      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 statistics database. And no, Austin (TX) doesn't count. It decreased prices by decreasing the _population_.
mitthrowaway2 2y ago
Canada's housing crisis goes well beyond just the large cities. It extends into small towns as far as the Yukon. It may be a somewhat different situation compared with the US.
- cyberax 2y ago
  Smaller town in Canada don't really have skyrocketing prices. For example, in Whitehorse in Yukon the average house was $420k (or $550k inflation adjusted to 2024) in 2015, and $660k in 2024. So less than 20% growth after inflation within the last decade. During that time, Vancouver BC went from $640k ($820k after inflation) to $1300k. The average square footage also went down in BC, but stayed stable in YK.
  - bluefirebrand 2y ago
    > For example, in Whitehorse in Yukon the average house was $420k (or $550k inflation adjusted to 2024) in 2015, and $660k in 2024. So less than 20% growth after inflation within the last decade. These are already insanely high prices for such small, remote, and undesirable cities
    - cyberax 2y ago
      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 across the board.
      - twixfel 2y ago
        It’s still a housing shortage problem if what houses there are, are situated where people don’t want to live.
thaumasiotes 2y ago
> Once again, there is NO SHORTAGE of affordable housing either in the US or in Canada. > None. Nada. Zilch. Ноль. 零 Interesting. 零 means zero. But my (non-native!) instinct says that it's impossible to use it this way. I feel like you'd need 没有. Classical Chinese has a negative universal quantifier 莫 (though in a technical sense it's an adverb and doesn't modify or stand in for nouns), but I don't think I've ever seen anything similar in modern Mandarin. I feel like I'd have to use a positive quantifier and a negative claim.

KittenInABox 2y ago

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.

cyberax 2y ago
It's important because there's no way to make dense urban housing cheaper. Nobody has managed to lower down housing prices by increasing density (no, Austin in Texas doesn't count, guess why?). The solution is not to build ever denser communities, but to make it so that people don't _have_ to move into a large city from an ever-shrinking list.
9rx 2y ago
> 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.

graeme 2y ago

The issue with this is most parts of large cities are substantially less dense than incredibly livible neighborhoods such as the plateau area of Montreal. It is illegal to build such a neighborhood in 99% of Canada. People love it here, people start families here, tourists visit, it's quite, lots of parks and shops. And it's 3-4 as dense as most areas of most major cities. But we've made it illegal to build. For zoning, double stairway rules, minimum parking rules, setback rules, strict permitting requirements, and thousands of other things.

cyberax 2y ago
> It is illegal to build such a neighborhood in 99% of Canada. And that is good. It's making Canada liveable and keeps the prices from skyrocketing EVEN HIGHER.
- rfrey 2y ago
  The claim that increasing housing supply would increase prices probably requires some argument.
  - bluefirebrand 2y ago
    As long as foreign wealth can continue to buy up properties as they are built, the actual housing supply doesn't really increase That's a pretty large part of the problem
    - shakna 2y ago
      The actual housing supply also doesn't increase if you prevent building houses...
      - cyberax 2y ago
        It can increase more rapidly if you prevent increasing _density_.
  - cyberax 2y ago
    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 statistics database. And no, Austin (TX) doesn't count. It decreased prices by decreasing the _population_.

mitthrowaway2 2y ago

Canada's housing crisis goes well beyond just the large cities. It extends into small towns as far as the Yukon. It may be a somewhat different situation compared with the US.

cyberax 2y ago
Smaller town in Canada don't really have skyrocketing prices. For example, in Whitehorse in Yukon the average house was $420k (or $550k inflation adjusted to 2024) in 2015, and $660k in 2024. So less than 20% growth after inflation within the last decade. During that time, Vancouver BC went from $640k ($820k after inflation) to $1300k. The average square footage also went down in BC, but stayed stable in YK.
- bluefirebrand 2y ago
  > For example, in Whitehorse in Yukon the average house was $420k (or $550k inflation adjusted to 2024) in 2015, and $660k in 2024. So less than 20% growth after inflation within the last decade. These are already insanely high prices for such small, remote, and undesirable cities
  - cyberax 2y ago
    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 across the board.
    - twixfel 2y ago
      It’s still a housing shortage problem if what houses there are, are situated where people don’t want to live.

thaumasiotes 2y ago

> Once again, there is NO SHORTAGE of affordable housing either in the US or in Canada. > None. Nada. Zilch. Ноль. 零 Interesting. 零 means zero. But my (non-native!) instinct says that it's impossible to use it this way. I feel like you'd need 没有. Classical Chinese has a negative universal quantifier 莫 (though in a technical sense it's an adverb and doesn't modify or stand in for nouns), but I don't think I've ever seen anything similar in modern Mandarin. I feel like I'd have to use a positive quantifier and a negative claim.