Cost of housing in Canada

[Halifax Tar]

Flippantly- then don't. I don't want to live in any city, so I don't.

More seriously-

What makes people that would choose a different, less car dependant) way of life mindless followers?
What makes a 15 minute city more of a "contrived construct" than current cities built though meticulous and onerous application of land use planning, zoning, and by-law enforcement?

I think the concern comes from the implementation. There doesn't seem to be much public support for it in Halifax, yet the city pushes forward.

I have no issue with it if thats what the populace of that area wants. It makes sense.

 

[Good2Golf]

Your society is broken when people sell parking spots for 200K. Or sell parking spots at all.

New York City: “Hold my beer!” ($225K USD = $300K CAD)

For Parking Space, the Price Is Right at $225,000 (Published 2007)

As real estate elsewhere languishes, Manhattan property is still escalating in price, and that includes parking spots.

www.nytimes.com

 

[Quirky]

We already live in 15min cities, you have access to all services within your bubble of 15min, depending on traffic.

 

[Halifax Tar]

With respect, the post you referred to was about a 200k parking spot in Toronto. That's not an issue in London, or Halifax, or Lethbridge. Seems a reasonable inference that the "society" you're condemning is limited to that of the problem area. If that was not the case- my apologies.

As to the commie conspiracy theory- again apologies. That wasn't directed at you, but your post was the logical leap off point for that tangent around land use planning, transportation, and the connection to housing.

A society is bigger than a single city. This is indicative of whole of Canada, as the title of the thread is Cost of housing in CANADA.

I think you read much more deeply into things than is required, which leds you to come to conclusions that are widely out of step with the original statement.

 

[Good2Golf]

We already live in 15min cities, you have access to all services within your bubble of 15min, depending on traffic.

Other than amongst others, those people who choose deliberately to live outside of those convenient 15-minute cities and do things like…you know…supply Canadians in the 15-minute cities with food, etc.

Canada isn’t Europe where it is convenient to argue in a facile manner that everything can and should be done within comfortably affordable mini-Nirvanas.

 

[Brad Sallows]

There's nothing wrong with having neighbourhoods which resemble autarkies to the people who live in them, as long as everyone recognizes they are not really autarkies. But some of the aspirations are going to fall short. Many of the people who work in downtown Vancouver in high-end jobs are going to want to continue living in high-end neighbourhoods and municipalities: Kits, Point Grey, Kerrisdale, West Vancouver, British Properties, etc.

 

[OldSolduer]

Had a thought - why do newly married couples and others insist on having huge houses? I mean really.....

 

[Brad Sallows]

Had a thought - why do newly married couples and others insist on having huge houses? I mean really.....

They grew up in one.

People seem to want what their parents have, but some don't seem to grasp that the acquisition occurred over decades. I went through my board-and-bricks-bookshelf phase (not quite literally), as did the generation before me.

 

[Halifax Tar]

Had a thought - why do newly married couples and others insist on having huge houses? I mean really.....

I think it has to do with social status.

 

[Quirky]

Had a thought - why do newly married couples and others insist on having huge houses? I mean really.....

What's your definition of huge? Typical family of 2 kids would comfortably need a 4-5 bedroom dwelling especially when the kids are teens. The 4 of us went from a 1 bedroom apartment, to a 3 bed duplex to finally a 5 bedroom house. Things were way cheaper back then though. It's not the couples fault for wanting the same space for themselves and their kids that they had growing up. You can still get a 5 bedroom "huge" house for sub $400k in this country.

 

[Weinie]

Flippantly- then don't. I don't want to live in any city, so I don't.

More seriously-

What makes people that would choose a different, less car dependant) way of life mindless followers?
What makes a 15 minute city more of a "contrived construct" than current cities built though meticulous and onerous application of land use planning, zoning, and by-law enforcement?

I detest the agglomeration of "advice/policy" that the powers that be dispense under the guise of making things better, while willfully ignoring/subsuming their own biases and agendas. I get seat belts, I often don't get the flavor of the hour, or minute, that disappears when it comes up against reality/practicality. This is where I see this positioned. The government is offering a solution that fits their agenda.

 

[YZT580]

We already live in 15min cities, you have access to all services within your bubble of 15min, depending on traffic.

This 15 minute concept is pushing for a return to the 50's and before with mom and pop grocery stores, shoe stores and a Tip Top Tailors located every 6 or 8 blocks. The owners of these stores live in the two floors above and the kids all walk to school. They have closed all those schools and sold the land for apartment blocks. Most kids are now bused, at least where we live. Shopping is done at Walmart and Costco. Where there is a grocery store it is now known as a supper store and they are found every 10 miles or so. With digitization you might get rid of the commute for certain jobs but that only covers a relatively small percentage of the working population. Certainly none of the trades or actual manufacturing positions would be included only the white collar types. Company towns are possible but only if it is a new-build where the land is assembled and the housing built before the industry actually goes in: otherwise the costs will be exorbitant.

We systematically destroyed the neighbourhood notion. It wasn't so much the family car as it was the destruction of the local school, the local store and the community park. IMHO

 

[IKnowNothing]

The likelihood that planners can out-guess the mob is always low. The prudent assumption is always that the limited amount of brainpower they can bring to a problem, coupled with their manifest inability to acquire and digest large amounts of information and the absolute certainty that they will be unable to overcome the local knowledge problem, will produce results that fall short of what might be possible.

We're discussing planning in two different contexts. I'm talking about urban planning, not the merits of centralization of economic control.

The status quo is not a natural state, it was created by past urban planners.

 

[Weinie]

We're discussing planning in two different contexts. I'm talking about urban planning, not the merits of centralization of economic control.

The status quo is not a natural state, it was created by past urban planners.

NIMBY enters (again) the chat.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Neighbourhoods don't become destroyed; they age to a different demographic mix. Many neighbourhoods start with young families, because that is a source of demand for new neighbourhoods. The kids go to a newly-constructed neighbourhood school, often accompanied by a convenience store existing chiefly off the demand for sundries by the kids. Move the clock forward a few decades and inevitably the percentage of kids drops, so some schools shut down and are repurposed (often enough as community centres and parks, although I suppose there may be places in Canada which don't attempt to preserve local park space because the politicians occupying city hall can piss off the people in those neighbourhoods with impunity). If you know what to look for, you can spot the buildings which used to be convenience stores.

 

[Brad Sallows]

We're discussing planning in two different contexts. I'm talking about urban planning, not the merits of centralization of economic control.

The status quo is not a natural state, it was created by past urban planners.

Urban planning is a kind of central planning. The planners have their assumptions and limited data and evidence, and are not usually required to explore unforeseen consequences.

 

[OldSolduer]

Urban planning is a kind of central planning.

And we all witnessed how central planning doesn't translate well to the proletariat....da comrade?

 

[Brad Sallows]

And we all witnessed how central planning doesn't translate well to the proletariat....da comrade?

That was central planning carried to a ridiculous extreme - the elimination of market pricing eliminates just about the only useful source of information to support productive resource allocation.

 

[IKnowNothing]

Urban planning is a kind of central planning. The planners have their assumptions and limited data and evidence, and are not usually required to explore unforeseen consequences.

Granted.

The very issues we're discussing (dependence on cars, cost of housing in certain areas, parking spaces that cost more than houses) represent a set of said unforeseen (and undesirable) consequences. Exclusionary zoning (housing density), exclusionary zoning (barring commercial and mixed used use from residential areas), sprawling suburbs, shitty transit options, gridlocked streets.

To some the status quo is an abomination, and the 15 minute city represents very literal utopic goal to be brought about.

To some the status quo is the natural order of things, and the 15 minute city represents a perverse attempt at destroying our way of life though forceful government manipulation.


In my opinion both are wrong. Realistically, 15 minute city simply represents a shift how municipalities are going to try to do things at the local level, which will result incremental attempts to unwind the unforeseen and undesirable consequences from the past planners of para 1.

 

[Brad Sallows]

In my opinion both are wrong. Realistically, 15 minute city simply represents a shift how municipalities are going to try to do things at the local level, which will result incremental attempts to unwind the unforeseen and undesirable consequences from the past planners of para 1.

So status quo is the result of millions of people adapting over decades to relatively coarse decisions, so the solution is to make some new relatively coarse decisions?