Quote:
Originally Posted by Keith P.
One thing to remember about housing and what it costs is that expensive housing is a relatively recent phenomenon of just the last 5 or 6 years.
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That's right although that's particular to the Halifax market. Prices first became unaffordable in BC, then that spread to Ontario, then NS (and AB), in a predictable fashion. HRM was very anti-development for a long time, which didn't cause immediate problems, but contributed to the explosion in prices and slow correction once the demand did arrive.
Real income growth in Canada has also been weak and a lot of basics like food have become unaffordable while taxes are high even on modest incomes, like NS charging a marginal rate of about 15% on income over 30k or so, which is in the poverty range today.
I think this comes down completely to policy decisions today and recent choices by governments. Arguments about how things were many decades ago aren't really relevant. Even if life was worse before, why would that be a reason to keep bad policy choices around that can be fixed now?
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