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Originally Posted by someone123
There's also a fallacy that the supply of land for urban development is fixed. It was growing back in the 1950's-70's as new areas were developed. They were in most cases the same sort of greenfield sites as would need to be developed today (forest, farms, low density rural houses), and they were opened up with new transportation infrastructure. There has been a policy decision to dial back this type of development.
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It's not a fallacy when, in Toronto's case, there is a fact of the matter--there's a greenbelt--and that entails fixed land supply. Even without that, there's a limit to how far cities can reasonably sprawl. Transportation infrastructure effectively collapses distances but at a certain point you run out of space for enough roads to serve SFH sprawl, at least in any kind of centralized city, and are stuck intensifying anyway.
I think we've agreed before that behind the expensiveness of Canada's cities looms a severe infrastructure deficit. It's a big problem. It's why our cities have taken the comical shapes they have, with intense cores and super-dense tower developments strung along scant metro lines. If Vancouver and Toronto doubled their existing transit systems, the populations of each could loosen their belts, so to speak, and stand to move to many suddenly more desirable, areas.
Speaking of belts, something we don't understand well in Canada, or North America, is that the suburbs have hemmed the cities in. If we hadn't binged on sprawl, it would be easy for cities to extend their transit systems into greenfield and for housing development to follow. This used to happen all the time. It still happens in some parts of the world.
But, again, that's housing. Not houses. If we wanted cheap
houses we'd allow nothing but SFHs and sprawl to the end of earth. But does that make housing affordable? Probably not. And it definitely wouldn't make living more affordable--transport expenses are part of the calculation when we choose a place we can afford to live. Anyway, even if we want cheaper houses in Toronto, at the expense of cheaper housing, let's not pretend that a house in Markham is a substitute good for a house in the Annex.
Quote:
Originally Posted by someone123
Immigration adds to housing demand. I think we all agree Canada can't support 5 million immigrants per year. Yet if you question 400,000 (> 1% of the national population per year) in a similar way you are told that you probably believe that target is too high because you are racist. I don't think the anti-immigrant racists are a significant force in Canada or that this point adds anything useful to the discussion. But either way Canada needs to pick an immigration target and it will affect housing. I'd argue that a lot of the way we talk about environmental impact and population growth is kind of bogus since most of our growth here is from migration, not natural increase. We seem to want to move more of the world's population to Canada yet lower the human footprint in Canada relative to other places at the same time.
The high immigration flow plus heavy red tape on greenfield development is an outlier historically for overall policy. There are other factors as well (interest rates, zoning and planning/taxes/fees), but those 2 alone are significant. And I don't think it's an accident that these policies are extremely friendly toward asset-rich middle aged and older people.
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Can't really disagree with anything you're saying here.
5 million immigrants a year is an interesting question. Canada couldn't support that many with its current laissez-faire approach (which is actually a great way of doing things). But if Canada decided to go all USSR and launch massive top-down infrastructure improvements in underpopulated areas like Northern Ontario, the prairies, and the Maritimes, complete with huge government housing developments? It would be massively disruptive but it could also be massively successful.
Contemplating this leads us back to the point that Canada isn't building enough infrastructure to support its growth.
The immigration + climate change thing is a source of crazy dissonance all around. A ruthless climate change hawk would suggest that we kick Canadians out of Canada to lower emissions. Instead we get arguments from every other part of the map.
"I don't think it's an accident that these policies are extremely friendly toward asset-rich middle aged and older people."
Yeah, absolutely. And that's created another wrinkle in the Canadian property market: irrational exuberance. At the end of the day, prices are high because people are paying them. Some of those people are immigrants, but there are plenty of born Canadians who believe that owning property is going to make them rich because it worked out for those middle-aged and older people--their parents.