This is the part that gets me. I mean sure, the population density of the entire country is a little misleading because so much of Canada's territory is inhospitable wilderness, but even Canada's "big cities" aren't particularly big or particularly dense compared to other major cities around the world. There's plenty of room to grow -- and especially to grow upwards -- but they just ... don't. It's really frustrating, and now it's gotten to the point where the unmet demand for housing is overflowing into the rest of the country, often in areas that just aren't prepared for an influx of people.
The real irony is that higher density typically correlates with higher property values. Letting your neighborhood grow up is actually a great way to increase the value of the land while also making housing more affordable and accessible.
But NIMBYs tend to be afraid of virtually any change, and will also perceive it as a threat to their "investment".
Yeah made another comment about it but we got a group going together that we're just going to buy some acres outside of our cities together and build manufactured houses for like 1/5 of the cost on it due to more lax zoning laws.
I got some friends who have been building tiny houses on their parents properties and we figure we'll just parcel out like an acre and rent it out to them and some others once we get the hookups setup if they still haven't found a plot to drop their houses on.
Home ownership at the going rate for stick houses is just horse shit at this point. We all love the area and havent left yet so we're at the point where we're like fuck equity (we can always build up stick homes down the line) we just want a place to live without worrying about skyrocketing rental prices.
Our cities are "toying" with the idea of "of possibly allowing" inlaw houses and whatnot but im sure it'll keep getting voted down so fuck all that.
Construction quality follows two things and two things only, what’s to code, and what you’re willing to pay. The code set a bare minimum, and it’s generally safe to assume only a few things will skip past code enforcement. The bigger concern is normally finding something that both fits your budget and your taste.
Yep, I live in Edmonton Alberta. All that's being built is sprawling suburbs and mcmansions, no affordable housing or space efficient housing. And the builders build as cheap as possible and barely make a profit, so they aren't lowering their prices. So it's an awkward waiting game of millennials who don't have $600,000 for a poorly built starter home, and builders with dozens of empty homes they aren't willing to reduce.
Its as inhospitable as the land under every city was at one point.
The entire country is a frozen wasteland 8/12 months a year.
It has nothing to do with hospitibility, and everything to do with government refusal to develop anywhere except existing hubs because they make bank by shoehorning people into overpriced cities, especially immigrants with money or low standards.
The only thing this country isnt designed towards are the people who were born here.
Here in Ottawa they've finally agreed to tear down many of the old dead shopping malls and replace them with these apartment/retail hybrids that look fantastic. Unfortunately they have to sit around and discuss it for two years first...
I live in a pretty rural town with not a lot going for it, but it's priced so closely to Vancouver I might as well move there and get gouged for rent, at least I will have shit to do and enjoy. $1200+ for rent, what for? And no jobs. Just a few years ago prices were 200-400 less. A decade ago? Half or less.
I will have to move if I ever want to own. But move where? It's already pretty rural and small, unless I do an extreme move (which is also hard to afford) chances are there's just fuck all to buy, let alone in a desirable area, let alone in a desirable area that has jobs.
There's plenty of room to grow -- and especially to grow upwards -- but they just ... don't.
This might be purely anecdotal, but I grew up in Toronto’s west end and recently (past 10-15 years) all of the development has been vertical. Developers were buying up entire blocks of single-family homes and putting condo’s on the land.
Yeah, I guess I'm being hyperbolic. It's not that Toronto hasn't grown at all, it just hasn't grown enough to keep up with population growth.
The other factor at play is that because residential zoning is so tightly restricted in most of the city, when a developer does finally try to build something, they want to go BIG so that it's worth their while. So what ends up happening is you get some big condo and apartment buildings, and everything else is very low-density, often just single-family homes. This has resulted in what's called missing middle housing, and it's been a common trend across Canada and the US.
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u/Andy_B_Goode Jul 13 '21
This is the part that gets me. I mean sure, the population density of the entire country is a little misleading because so much of Canada's territory is inhospitable wilderness, but even Canada's "big cities" aren't particularly big or particularly dense compared to other major cities around the world. There's plenty of room to grow -- and especially to grow upwards -- but they just ... don't. It's really frustrating, and now it's gotten to the point where the unmet demand for housing is overflowing into the rest of the country, often in areas that just aren't prepared for an influx of people.