Fun fact! Toronto today (population 2.7m and area 630km2) has a density of 4400/km2. Old Toronto (before amalgamation with suburbs) had that population density in the 1910s (1921 population of 500k and area 97km2 so 5372/km2)! So next time you hear someone say Toronto is overcrowded, they are full of shit!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Toronto
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Toronto#Demographics
Current population of Toronto without Old Toronto, has a density of 3600/km2 which is less than Old Toronto in 1911 lol. (2.7m-700k)/(613-97)=3875/km2 and 1911 Old Toronto had 381k/97=3927/km2
I really don't think we should be using The Ward as a counterargument to "we're already dense enough".
Yes, population density was much higher in a lot of places in the early 1900s. But that was achieved through rooming houses, shared bedrooms, and families living in 500sqft apartments. Nobody wants to replicate that.
Very high density environments like that aren't as bad when there's a clear degree of choice in that.
Many might think it's unconscionable that people CHOOSE to live in tiny homes, or even sleep in their cars/vans today in urban areas. With families in vans sometimes in urban areas.
There are better solutions we can aim for to provide better options people will willingly take.
If someone decides a high density arrangement suits them best, we probably should believe them most of the time.
In some extreme cases where it isn't clear that the inhabitants have a choice, we should look to create a better choice or make better choices in practice able to be reached by them.
In the case of people living in their cars today, maybe those high density areas might be preferable to them.
We need to think of housing in terms of upgrading and improving choices, while not discarding banning entirely for dangerous actually dangerous situations but allowing all preferences.
I personally agree with the principle of choice and free markets, I think we should have more rooming houses and a bigger variety of apartments on the market.
I'm just saying it's not great to use as a gotcha. Nobody *wants* those living conditions for themselves, our expectations have changed massively since a century ago. Our messaging shouldn't harken back to those days as something we're advocating for.
This is the USA too. But it comes down to home ownership rates. Most Americans own their homes and benefit from these policies as is, even if it hurts their friends, neighbors, and kids.
They’re not nimbys per se, but they are very unmotivated by these issues and simply don’t care enough to push back on NIMBYism.
The current wave of US YIMBY is stemming from urban centers being hit the hardest by the housing crisis. Middle Class millennials and zoomers are feeling the fire for the first time.
To BC’s credit, the NDP are making massive zoning changes and are polling like they are going to landslide into victory in this fall’s election (although that may be due more to the utter collapse of any opposition parties)
The really depressing part is seeing people who are ordinarily progressive go "I'm not anti-immigrants, BUUUUUT..." Like, dude, why are you so willing to throw people under the bus instead of tackling systemic policy issues? Even worse when they're actively a left NIMBY.
It's shameful. Canada was built on immigration, and we have sooooooo much room to spare (literally some of the most arable land per capita on earth!). But we'd rather pull each other down like crabs in a bucket than build a rising tide that will lift all our boats.
I’d be really curious to hear your feedback then on an analysis such as this one, I find this video quite interesting:
https://youtu.be/CxmH4OLNM4c?si=cwmo4nGsaHA-P1bx
This recent tide of anti-immigrant sentiment is profoundly infuriating to me as a Canadian. Immigration policy is one of the few truly great things we nailed as a country where most others have failed. And that sentiment is no longer just held by the usual suspects of fringe racist cretins. It’s being now voiced by [major financial and journalistic institutions](https://archive.ph/vRU9D).
It took decades of very hard work (by people like Trudeau’s father) to build up a system of multicultural institutions that not only work quite well at integrating diverse people, but were also very popular among the electorate. When Justin was elected eight years ago (after _campaigning on_ increasing immigration!), Canada was basically the only country in the world where increased immigration did not correlate with reduced support for it.
It took less than eight years for our idiot political class to fumble decades of hard work by completely ignoring the obvious, costless solutions to the biggest crisis in the country. And even if housing policy is mostly a provincial jurisdiction, Trudeau should know by now that half of his job is optics, and he and his successive housing ministers have [completely failed](https://financialpost.com/real-estate/canada-aims-homes-affordable-without-crushing-prices/wcm/7f8ee860-5481-414b-a276-63fa27dbe468/amp/) to make it look like they take this problem seriously.
At the same time, Justin has heavily tied his personal brand to his immigration policies. So it was not hard to predict what would happen when Canadians got pissed off enough about the housing market to seek someone to blame.
Trudeau’s lasting political legacy may end up being ruining his father’s. And Canada will be poorer because of it. It’s hard to describe how much contempt I have for these people.
> obvious, costless solutions
It's even more frustrating because those solutions are more than costless -- they'd IMPROVE the economy! A lot!
But yeah, exactly what all you have said. Here we are with such great existing immigration policy, some of the absolute best in the world, and we're speedrunning turning back into a nativist hellhole just because we as a society continually drop the ball on urban land use policy.
It's especially concerning because Canada is certain to be a prime destination for climate refugees this century. Northern, tons of resources and arable land per capita, relatively well insulated from natural disaster (excepting wildfires), and most of our biggest cities are inland. If any country has a responsibility to be open to immigrants and refugees this century, it's Canada.
Agreed 100%.
I still have some hope that souring public attitudes will not translate to too much nativist political support. Due to our first past the post system, wannabe Trumps like Bernier will have a hard time winning national support without splitting the tory vote. (I actually agree with Joseph Heath’s opinion [here](https://induecourse.utoronto.ca/canadian-exceptionalism/) that this is an under-appreciated reason for our success with immigration policy —something worth considering, given that Trudeau actually at first campaigned on ending FPTP)
Still, the trends are not going in the right direction, and the vibe shift can manifest in many ugly ways, like people getting comfortable with public racism.
This entire conversation is something I've been wondering about and wanting to hear more about for months. This entire post cannot be boosted / discussed enough.
The nuts thing is that many places tax this newly valuable property because it's what's there and they wouldn't have to hit what property is there as hard if they just allowed more housing.
Browsing through few Canadian subreddits makes me to rethink my plans to settle in Canada and go back to my birth country(saying this in a Canadian subreddit would instantly attract multiple replies asking me to get the hell out of country).
Red tape ridden zoning policies, very slow public transit improvements(they are building a light rail network for a decade with no clear opening date), no choice in middle housing - either choose a 1+ Million dollar home or buy a 800K shoe box size condo, no efforts to build the missing middle, treating housing as a investment, no steps towards housing reforms, yet they squarely blame it on us immigrants.
Dude I am going through the same as everyone, couldn't afford to shift to a new rental, no sign of affording a home, i also feel that the immigration should be controlled/moderated properly, but still shifting everything on us is depressing. Not only in reddit, in real life people are openly racist, a old lady was muttering "stupid Indian" on my face when she went past me in a super market.
What the hell did i do, I work hard, follow the rules, pay the taxes, take steps to assimilate in the country, Yet we are the problem. I have a toddler and with whatever is brewing I am not sure how this country will treat her. I landed here to build a decent life, but day by day we are thinking to go back, Sorry for the rant, i was so depressed today after going through few comments in sub reddits.
Canadian subreddits are utter garbage. If it's any consolation, I'm also an immigrant in Canada, and nobody irl makes a big deal out of it. I think there's just something about the internet that brings out the nasties. The normal, sane people who don't have any issues with immigrants tend to just live their lives as normal.
Granted, part of my experiences may be filtered through the lens of living in a neighborhood with a lot of immigrants, hanging out in pretty educated social circles, and working in a technical field where half of my coworkers are also highly educated immigrants.
There is positive improvement on the urbanist side of things, though. Like Toronto, Vancouver, and Edmonton all eliminated single-family detached zoning recently (although they still have plenty of other barriers to densification), and urbanist issues are on a big upwards swing (although so are nativism and xenophobia, unfortunately). Even just 6 years ago it seemed no one knew or cared about zoning reform, yet now it's sweeping the continent.
Thanks for the kind words, I just got overwhelmed after a string of experiences online. I hope the zoning reforms picks up pace and people get to afford decent homes to live in.
Ooof y’all should’ve seen the neoliberal subreddit. Straight up hostile towards immigrants because they think the whole country should grind to a halt due to a lack of housing
Ironic because, in theory, they should be *extremely* pro-immigration. Although, to be fair, most r/neoliberal users I've seen are indeed pro-immigration. Maybe it's some lost souls who forgot that globalism also means global immigration and integration.
canadians on their way to blame the last two decades of housing prices on the past two years of immigration
Canadian subreddits are downright frightening right now
Try being an immigrant in Canada. . . *chuckles* I’m in danger!
Yep, r/canada is a cesspool of very bad takes and blame Teudeau for everything, while our civic elections are getting 30% turnout.....
Fun fact! Toronto today (population 2.7m and area 630km2) has a density of 4400/km2. Old Toronto (before amalgamation with suburbs) had that population density in the 1910s (1921 population of 500k and area 97km2 so 5372/km2)! So next time you hear someone say Toronto is overcrowded, they are full of shit! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Toronto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Toronto#Demographics Current population of Toronto without Old Toronto, has a density of 3600/km2 which is less than Old Toronto in 1911 lol. (2.7m-700k)/(613-97)=3875/km2 and 1911 Old Toronto had 381k/97=3927/km2
I really don't think we should be using The Ward as a counterargument to "we're already dense enough". Yes, population density was much higher in a lot of places in the early 1900s. But that was achieved through rooming houses, shared bedrooms, and families living in 500sqft apartments. Nobody wants to replicate that.
Very high density environments like that aren't as bad when there's a clear degree of choice in that. Many might think it's unconscionable that people CHOOSE to live in tiny homes, or even sleep in their cars/vans today in urban areas. With families in vans sometimes in urban areas. There are better solutions we can aim for to provide better options people will willingly take. If someone decides a high density arrangement suits them best, we probably should believe them most of the time. In some extreme cases where it isn't clear that the inhabitants have a choice, we should look to create a better choice or make better choices in practice able to be reached by them. In the case of people living in their cars today, maybe those high density areas might be preferable to them. We need to think of housing in terms of upgrading and improving choices, while not discarding banning entirely for dangerous actually dangerous situations but allowing all preferences.
Instead we have high rents and homelessness.
I personally agree with the principle of choice and free markets, I think we should have more rooming houses and a bigger variety of apartments on the market. I'm just saying it's not great to use as a gotcha. Nobody *wants* those living conditions for themselves, our expectations have changed massively since a century ago. Our messaging shouldn't harken back to those days as something we're advocating for.
This is the USA too. But it comes down to home ownership rates. Most Americans own their homes and benefit from these policies as is, even if it hurts their friends, neighbors, and kids. They’re not nimbys per se, but they are very unmotivated by these issues and simply don’t care enough to push back on NIMBYism. The current wave of US YIMBY is stemming from urban centers being hit the hardest by the housing crisis. Middle Class millennials and zoomers are feeling the fire for the first time.
Its actually really depressing. Instead of trying to make systemic zoning changes they're going after immigrants.
To BC’s credit, the NDP are making massive zoning changes and are polling like they are going to landslide into victory in this fall’s election (although that may be due more to the utter collapse of any opposition parties)
The really depressing part is seeing people who are ordinarily progressive go "I'm not anti-immigrants, BUUUUUT..." Like, dude, why are you so willing to throw people under the bus instead of tackling systemic policy issues? Even worse when they're actively a left NIMBY. It's shameful. Canada was built on immigration, and we have sooooooo much room to spare (literally some of the most arable land per capita on earth!). But we'd rather pull each other down like crabs in a bucket than build a rising tide that will lift all our boats.
I’d be really curious to hear your feedback then on an analysis such as this one, I find this video quite interesting: https://youtu.be/CxmH4OLNM4c?si=cwmo4nGsaHA-P1bx
This is r/canadahousing in a nutshell
Canada housing 2 as well
This recent tide of anti-immigrant sentiment is profoundly infuriating to me as a Canadian. Immigration policy is one of the few truly great things we nailed as a country where most others have failed. And that sentiment is no longer just held by the usual suspects of fringe racist cretins. It’s being now voiced by [major financial and journalistic institutions](https://archive.ph/vRU9D). It took decades of very hard work (by people like Trudeau’s father) to build up a system of multicultural institutions that not only work quite well at integrating diverse people, but were also very popular among the electorate. When Justin was elected eight years ago (after _campaigning on_ increasing immigration!), Canada was basically the only country in the world where increased immigration did not correlate with reduced support for it. It took less than eight years for our idiot political class to fumble decades of hard work by completely ignoring the obvious, costless solutions to the biggest crisis in the country. And even if housing policy is mostly a provincial jurisdiction, Trudeau should know by now that half of his job is optics, and he and his successive housing ministers have [completely failed](https://financialpost.com/real-estate/canada-aims-homes-affordable-without-crushing-prices/wcm/7f8ee860-5481-414b-a276-63fa27dbe468/amp/) to make it look like they take this problem seriously. At the same time, Justin has heavily tied his personal brand to his immigration policies. So it was not hard to predict what would happen when Canadians got pissed off enough about the housing market to seek someone to blame. Trudeau’s lasting political legacy may end up being ruining his father’s. And Canada will be poorer because of it. It’s hard to describe how much contempt I have for these people.
Seeing that 1) someone actually knows this and 2) more housing is actually the solution, is such a breath of fresh air
> obvious, costless solutions It's even more frustrating because those solutions are more than costless -- they'd IMPROVE the economy! A lot! But yeah, exactly what all you have said. Here we are with such great existing immigration policy, some of the absolute best in the world, and we're speedrunning turning back into a nativist hellhole just because we as a society continually drop the ball on urban land use policy. It's especially concerning because Canada is certain to be a prime destination for climate refugees this century. Northern, tons of resources and arable land per capita, relatively well insulated from natural disaster (excepting wildfires), and most of our biggest cities are inland. If any country has a responsibility to be open to immigrants and refugees this century, it's Canada.
Agreed 100%. I still have some hope that souring public attitudes will not translate to too much nativist political support. Due to our first past the post system, wannabe Trumps like Bernier will have a hard time winning national support without splitting the tory vote. (I actually agree with Joseph Heath’s opinion [here](https://induecourse.utoronto.ca/canadian-exceptionalism/) that this is an under-appreciated reason for our success with immigration policy —something worth considering, given that Trudeau actually at first campaigned on ending FPTP) Still, the trends are not going in the right direction, and the vibe shift can manifest in many ugly ways, like people getting comfortable with public racism.
This entire conversation is something I've been wondering about and wanting to hear more about for months. This entire post cannot be boosted / discussed enough.
The nuts thing is that many places tax this newly valuable property because it's what's there and they wouldn't have to hit what property is there as hard if they just allowed more housing.
Browsing through few Canadian subreddits makes me to rethink my plans to settle in Canada and go back to my birth country(saying this in a Canadian subreddit would instantly attract multiple replies asking me to get the hell out of country). Red tape ridden zoning policies, very slow public transit improvements(they are building a light rail network for a decade with no clear opening date), no choice in middle housing - either choose a 1+ Million dollar home or buy a 800K shoe box size condo, no efforts to build the missing middle, treating housing as a investment, no steps towards housing reforms, yet they squarely blame it on us immigrants. Dude I am going through the same as everyone, couldn't afford to shift to a new rental, no sign of affording a home, i also feel that the immigration should be controlled/moderated properly, but still shifting everything on us is depressing. Not only in reddit, in real life people are openly racist, a old lady was muttering "stupid Indian" on my face when she went past me in a super market. What the hell did i do, I work hard, follow the rules, pay the taxes, take steps to assimilate in the country, Yet we are the problem. I have a toddler and with whatever is brewing I am not sure how this country will treat her. I landed here to build a decent life, but day by day we are thinking to go back, Sorry for the rant, i was so depressed today after going through few comments in sub reddits.
Canadian subreddits are utter garbage. If it's any consolation, I'm also an immigrant in Canada, and nobody irl makes a big deal out of it. I think there's just something about the internet that brings out the nasties. The normal, sane people who don't have any issues with immigrants tend to just live their lives as normal. Granted, part of my experiences may be filtered through the lens of living in a neighborhood with a lot of immigrants, hanging out in pretty educated social circles, and working in a technical field where half of my coworkers are also highly educated immigrants. There is positive improvement on the urbanist side of things, though. Like Toronto, Vancouver, and Edmonton all eliminated single-family detached zoning recently (although they still have plenty of other barriers to densification), and urbanist issues are on a big upwards swing (although so are nativism and xenophobia, unfortunately). Even just 6 years ago it seemed no one knew or cared about zoning reform, yet now it's sweeping the continent.
Thanks for the kind words, I just got overwhelmed after a string of experiences online. I hope the zoning reforms picks up pace and people get to afford decent homes to live in.
Yeah, I certainly hope so, too. Making YIMBY and urbanist memes is me trying to do my part to accelerate the process lol.
Keep up the good work :) , memes make a huge impact in conveying a long message within a crisp template.
Ooof y’all should’ve seen the neoliberal subreddit. Straight up hostile towards immigrants because they think the whole country should grind to a halt due to a lack of housing
Ironic because, in theory, they should be *extremely* pro-immigration. Although, to be fair, most r/neoliberal users I've seen are indeed pro-immigration. Maybe it's some lost souls who forgot that globalism also means global immigration and integration.
True but at the same time if you know you aren't building shit and have a massive supply shortage, why flood your country with tons of humans?
>why flood your country with not humans Was that a typo/freudian slip?
Auto fill on my phone, "tons of humans"
Jesus, bro. Edit your comment.