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Fine-able Offense posted:I'm not entirely sure what you are talking about, but none of your post addressed what I was talking about, which is the fact that most people move out of their apartments on a voluntary basis often enough that the aggregate impact of rent control is negligible. Bah. I misread. Yes, you are entirely right. Excuse my rambling.
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Mar 22, 2013 00:38
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Cultural Imperial posted:But having experienced european suburbs where public transit isn't available/and or reliable and the residents are too poor to buy cars, I urge you to consider that your exposure to this particular gospel of sustainable planning is not sufficient. What, so we fix this by spending the money we could have spent on making transit available and reliable on fixing roads for the poor to not drive on with the cars they can't afford? Nobody is arguing roads should be left to rot and gently caress up your car. Cars ain't going away any time soon, you have nothing to worry about.
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Mar 22, 2013 00:41
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ductonius posted:Replacing overpasses is all fine and dandy, but creating extra lane capacity is worthless. Every city in the world has bad traffic, bar none. That's traffic in cities. The more you try to alleviate road congestion the more ridiculously distorted your idea of roads becomes. The interstate in and around Seattle has as many lanes going in either direction as the *new* Trans Canada has in total *and* they have a center express way that's six lanes wide again. With three times the lanes they *still* have congestion. The more lanes you build for cars, the more convenient a road will be and the more cars there will be on the road. Traffic will always more or less balance until all roads between any two places are equally inconvenient. You'll have spent all this money, paved over all this land, built all this infrastructure and you'll be just as stuck in traffic as you were before. That's fine and I understand the theory of induced demand. I even agree that we're seeing this problem in Vancouver. On the other hand, that urban car dystopia of silicon valley actually saw car use shrink immediately after the dot com bust because the population shrank. I would say that traffic will balance until all roads between any two *desireable* places are equally inconvenient. Roads are only one variable in the equation of building strong, environmentally friendly, desirable cities to live in. Others include but are not limited to commerce, education and security. ductonius posted:On the other hand, building light rail takes cars *off* the road because suddenly the trains can get you there for $5 and you don't have to sit in traffic and you get there on time because the trains are run by computers and you can get completely shittered at a bar where you're going and go home by the same method you arrived. Fewer people decide to drive because light rail does the job and does it very well because it's a dedicated people moving system, as opposed to roads which are good at moving things point to point but terrible at moving people point to point. I travel extensively and I live within 20 minutes by Canada Line to the airport. I am also within walking distance of at least 5 bars. I would love nothing more than to see extensive light rail lines in Vancouver, so I could live more frugally rent-wise, but you have to put things into perspective. You've just listed off cities with populations of about 10 million (when you include their outer regions). Economically, how is a podunk city of 1.2 million supposed to support this sort of infrastructure?
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Mar 22, 2013 00:42
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Cultural Imperial posted:Economically, how is a podunk city of 1.2 million supposed to support this sort of infrastructure? Here are some comparable examples for us to consider.
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Mar 22, 2013 00:48
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Mr. Wynand posted:What, so we fix this by spending the money we could have spent on making transit available and reliable on fixing roads for the poor to not drive on with the cars they can't afford? My point is that spending 3.3 billion on rapid transit isn't going to solve the problems that the gateway project was meant to fix and the problem of building a strong, sustainable city requires a more holistic solution than urbanization. How many transit lines will 3.3 billion buy you? 1.5? It strikes me as incredibly callous that your solution to building a sustainable city is to punish everyone in the fraser valley with a 3 hour commute.
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Mar 22, 2013 00:51
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Cultural Imperial posted:It strikes me as incredibly callous that your solution to building a sustainable city is to punish everyone in the fraser valley with a 3 hour commute. Please explain how improving mass transit from the exurbs to the downtown core will increase commutes.
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Mar 22, 2013 00:52
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I don't know what your point is. Aucklund, Adelaide and Perth have equivalent populations to Vancouver and transit systems which have equivalent daily riderships to the Skytrain.
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Mar 22, 2013 00:59
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Cultural Imperial posted:I don't know what your point is. Aucklund, Adelaide and Perth have equivalent populations to Vancouver and transit systems which have equivalent daily riderships to the Skytrain. The point is that commuter rail (rather than urban transport which is what Skytrain is) can be an excellent way to bring people in from the suburbs, even in lower-density cities similar to Vancouver.
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Mar 22, 2013 01:02
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Fine-able Offense posted:Please explain how improving mass transit from the exurbs to the downtown core will increase commutes. I don't even understand what you're asking me. So, sorry, I can't.
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Mar 22, 2013 01:02
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Fine-able Offense posted:The point is that commuter rail (rather than urban transport which is what Skytrain is) can be an excellent way to bring people in from the suburbs, even in lower-density cities similar to Vancouver. I completely agree with you. On the other hand, I don't think the money spent on the Port Mann could have just been reallocated to reduce car use. What the lower mainland really needs is, sadly, both the gateway project and *also* another 3 billion for some sort of transit connecting existing rail infrastructure with the fraser valley. edit: And I say 'sadly' because there's no way this is going to happen with the state of BC's economy.
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Mar 22, 2013 01:07
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Cultural Imperial posted:My point is that spending 3.3 billion on rapid transit isn't going to solve the problems that the gateway project was meant to fix and the problem of building a strong, sustainable city requires a more holistic solution than urbanization. How many transit lines will 3.3 billion buy you? 1.5? Yes, about 1.5 for skytrain type lines. So suppose we do that, we build a second skytrain to Surrey, and use the remainder to improve bus service to the new line (as well as the old one), and bring the tunnels/bridges up to code. Then we will actually have improved their commute, without loving over Vancouver. Or better yet, let's not do that, let's just build 2 main tram lines (or BRT or something)and connect those to the expo line, and improve bus service and we will probably have enough left to put the tram up to UBC. Then we will have improved the commute in both surrey AND vancouver, taken cars off the road and increased the catchment area for ubc students that can't afford to live anywhere near a reasonable commute atm). Tah-loving-dah. Is transit just part of a more holistic solution? Yes of course it loving is. Drop more commercial zones inside the surrey suburbs. Build up some mixed-use high-density zoning along the new transit lines. This increases local employment which improves the commute even further and also saves low income households' gas use for day to day shopping, banking etc., which, because we also have commuter transit, means they can probably get by without a car at all! In surrey, in an affordable neighborhood. ... or we can bulild a giant bridge. Maybe that will do all those things too somehow.
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Mar 22, 2013 01:12
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Having lived in Surrey for most of life and moving north of the river to somewhere where there is decent transit has demonstrated to me that anyone who lives south of the river (such as Cultural Imperial) has no bloody clue. Transit sucks south of the river because there is a demand to have low-density housing. As a result, roads are the only effective way to get around the city. Due to this, buses become inefficient due to the fact that they have to travel long distances to get people anywhere. As a result of these distances, they become inefficient because they do not carry a lot of people at any given time and then take forever to get from A to B, causing people to prefer their vehicles because they are faster. This is the tragedy of the suburbs. Extending SkyTrain or whatever around Surrey is pointless right now because the city has yet to reach the critical mass required to make rapid transit function. Light rail is a stop gap, but it won't improve commutes because it'll just end up as a bus replacement as Surrey has yet to make their city centre a large area for jobs. It's definitely improving but Surrey needs to get its poo poo together first before we can proceed. If you want to bitch and moan about how transit works in the suburbs, evaluate why you live out there and what you give up as a result. If you want that nice plot of land at a reasonable mortgage, then the suburbs are for you because you cannot get that nice plot north of the river. If you want that decent transit, then you're going to pay more and get less. I don't want a big home so living near transit works for me and is well within my means. Good transit only works when there are enough people around to ride it. Also, I do own a vehicle too and it stays in the parkade for 21 days out of the month.
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Mar 22, 2013 02:32
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Cultural Imperial posted:It strikes me as incredibly callous that your solution to building a sustainable city is to punish everyone in the fraser valley with a 3 hour commute. The problem is that the more you make it possible to commute by car the more you make it impossible to commute by anything but car. The long commutes made possible by car make commuting by bike or foot impossible, so you either encourage commuting by car, in which case you create a system where everyone is burdened by the necessity of owning a car, or you don't, in which case you have congestion. Besides, cities that work well for cars work poorly for people so commuting by car is something that needs to be discouraged. If you look at cities they can be divided into "places for people" and "no place for people", or "place" and "no place". Absolutely everything that has to do with cars in a city creates "no place" in a city. Parking lots are "no place". Nobody goes to the parking lot just because. Roads that can accommodate lots of traffic are "no place". Gas stations are "no place". On-ramps, off-ramps, viaducts, tunnels, bridges, used car lots, wrecking yards are all "no place for people". If you fill your city with cars, you will have no place for people. ductonius fucked around with this message at 02:38 on Mar 22, 2013 |
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Mar 22, 2013 02:34
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ductonius posted:Absolutely everything that has to do with cars in a city creates "no place" in a city. Parking lots are "no place". Nobody goes to the parking lot just because. Roads that can accommodate lots of traffic are "no place". Gas stations are "no place". On-ramps, off-ramps, viaducts, tunnels, bridges, used car lots, wrecking yards are all "no place for people". It's fairly ironic that this was grasped clearly by both the original city planners of Vancouver in the early 1900's, as well as the ones who struck down the freeway proposal in the 1970's, yet we're still having to explain such a basic concept to people. Surrey is a hell-hole for transit because it never had decent city planning, it grew organically block by block as farmland was swallowed up for subdivisions, which is why navigating it is now a maze. Contrast that with Vancouver, which was laid out on a rigid NSEW grid with well-planned street sizes that accounted for growth well into the future. This is a massive detour, though, so getting back on topic might be a good move.
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Mar 22, 2013 02:57
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Oh good more well considered government affordable housing initiatives that this thread has been calling for. http://business.financialpost.com/2012/12/21/feds-ok-another-50-billion-of-mortgage-guarantees-for-private-sector-players/ quote:Feds OK another $50-billion of mortgage guarantees for private-sector players I bet they have to pay taxes too, the horror.
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Mar 22, 2013 04:55
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Throatwarbler posted:Oh good more well considered government affordable housing initiatives that this thread has been calling for. You keep saying these things, but [citation needed].
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Mar 22, 2013 05:58
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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/empty-condo-myths-untrue-research-shows/article1151247/ So apparently Vancouver's vacancy rate isn't so high? I have no idea what to even believe.
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Mar 22, 2013 15:51
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Cultural Imperial posted:The Canada Line cost 2 billion. With that 3.3 the billion, how would you expand transit in the lower mainland, such replacing non-earthquake proof overpasses, creating extra lane capacity, improved on-ramps etc would be unnecessary? How is rapid transit supposed to fix all these deficiencies?
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Mar 22, 2013 16:19
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SpaceMost posted:Because gently caress the suburbs and gently caress all the suburbanites who think their godawful wasteful lifestyles should be subsidized and the true costs externalized. If you want to live in suburbia, then pay the price of living in suburbia. And making life easier for cars is never a long term solution since it just encourages people to live farther and father away like in the US. Eventually the "upgrades" fall apart since the convenience of the car eventually encourages traffic jams and hellish commutes due to capacity being chewed up. There's a good reason why sensible urban plan focus on mass transit, biking and walking while punishing car use.
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Mar 22, 2013 16:29
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But suburban feelings guys  Skinny jeans!
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Mar 22, 2013 17:36
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Baronjutter posted:http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/empty-condo-myths-untrue-research-shows/article1151247/ "Published Sunday, May. 24 2009," This is actually exactly the study I was referring to earlier. And I just noticed it's the same Mr. Yan (now Professor Yan) as the earlier article. So, surely he was aware of his older methodology when he made his newer study. We can be quite certain that the newer numbers (27%) are the more accurate ones.
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Mar 22, 2013 17:53
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Throatwarbler posted:Oh good more well considered government affordable housing initiatives that this thread has been calling for. edit: above article is from the end of 2012, disregard below rant ARghhhhh this is the opposite of helping. I don't get it, why was Flaherty just this week poo-pooing the CMHC while and then increase the available government backed insurance to their private competitors just a few days later. Oh wait, I do get it, he's just being a caricature of "conservative" economics: socialize the losses, privatize the profits! Ahaha, gently caress that guy. Mrs. Wynand fucked around with this message at 18:31 on Mar 22, 2013 |
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Mar 22, 2013 17:57
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Mr. Wynand posted:Oh wait, I do get it, he's just being a caricature of "conservative" economics: socialize the losses, privatize the profits! Ahaha, gently caress that guy. But but but... the job creators! Yeah, gently caress that.
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Mar 22, 2013 18:04
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Mr. Wynand posted:"Published Sunday, May. 24 2009," Ah I missed the date. Some other forum I go to recently posted that article as if it was new.
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Mar 22, 2013 18:06
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Throatwarbler posted:Oh good more well considered government affordable housing initiatives that this thread has been calling for. Mr. Wynand posted:ARghhhhh this is the opposite of helping. Waaait... that article was from 12/27/2012. This isn't nearly that crazy. The housing drops only started in earnest January. So he could just be urgently backpedaling, which is quite exclusable I guess.
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Mar 22, 2013 18:20
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Here's the Vancouver foreign ownership slide deck. http://www.btaworks.com/2013/03/21/btaworks-foreign-investment-in-vancouver-real-estate-presentation-at-sfu-woodwards/
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Mar 22, 2013 20:17
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Hopefully slide 9 will put the myth of hot asian money to bed.
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Mar 22, 2013 20:19
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Cultural Imperial posted:Hopefully slide 9 will put the myth of hot asian money to bed. I don't know... I know people who have tax information sent to their local representatives / lawyers instead of their actual home domicile. Edit: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2013/03/21/bc-condos-empty.html Pixelboy fucked around with this message at 21:22 on Mar 22, 2013 |
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Mar 22, 2013 21:19
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Pixelboy posted:I don't know... I know people who have tax information sent to their local representatives / lawyers instead of their actual home domicile. Exactly, In addition, no federal government department, agency or crown corporation currently tracks foreign ownership statistics with respect to residential properties. Even if the government were to have this data, it would be extremely difficult to track the source of origin of transactions going through representatives and lawyers.
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Mar 23, 2013 01:34
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Deathreaper posted:Exactly, Agreed. Also, it's not hard to form a numbered company to do the transaction. I also know people who've done that as well.
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Mar 23, 2013 04:28
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Deathreaper posted:Exactly, The banks should have something related to this. That much money can't go anywhere without economic statisticians cataloguing it somewhere. Maybe not under housing, but you'd see tons of money coming in under some series of data (such as in balance of payments data).
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Mar 23, 2013 12:26
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quote:Whether we like to admit it or not, Vancouver is an urban resort whose value mostly resides in its real estate and not much else. And when that’s the case, you’re going to encounter the types of situations that we see now, with some buying condos as expensive business-class lounges and others purchasing them as an investment decision. oh dear. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/the-great-unoccupied-condo-scandal-get-over-it/article10251782/
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Mar 24, 2013 05:57
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Cultural Imperial posted:oh dear. So this author is okay with regulations to curtail speculative activity (at least in the short term), presumably because that results in a baseless increase in prices, but his response to complaints about this is to imply that people taking issue with activity in Vancouver are racist, or "you either believe in a free market system, or you don't"?
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Mar 24, 2013 06:12
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JawKnee posted:So this author is okay with regulations to curtail speculative activity (at least in the short term), presumably because that results in a baseless increase in prices, but his response to complaints about this is to imply that people taking issue with activity in Vancouver are racist, or "you either believe in a free market system, or you don't"? Curtailing short-term speculative behavior is possible (high taxes on gains and such), but it's basically impossible to stop most of the other behavior. It's extremely easy to lie about property occupancy, and arbitrary restrictions on foreign ownership are bullshit at best and downright racist at worst. Vancouver is a nice place to live, so nice in fact, that they have attracted a lot of international buyers. This sucks if you are a Vancouverite because the foreigners are generally high-income individuals from top-income cities, and have more money than you to pay for housing. Hawaii is a great example of this sort of phenomenon. Not much you can do about that reality other than dissuade people from coming to the city.
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Mar 24, 2013 06:19
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shots shots shots posted:Vancouver is a nice place to live, so nice in fact, that they have attracted a lot of international buyers. This sucks if you are a Vancouverite because the foreigners are generally high-income individuals from top-income cities, and have more money than you to pay for housing. Hawaii is a great example of this sort of phenomenon. Not much you can do about that reality other than dissuade people from coming to the city. The article posted suggests that most of the absentee investment is by Canadians - though Canada is a big place so to my mind there's not a huge amount of difference between absentee owners. While I don't think there should be restrictions on foreign ownership, I would like to see some kind of regulation with respect to people actually living in the units they've purchased, rather than treating them solely as a commodity, difficult though that might be to achieve.
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Mar 24, 2013 17:15
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I think sticking in regulation would be the easy way out. The hard but right way to fix this is to give vancouverites, canadians and foreigners a good reason to stay and earn a living. In other words, build a real economy.
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Mar 24, 2013 17:17
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JawKnee posted:The article posted suggests that most of the absentee investment is by Canadians - though Canada is a big place so to my mind there's not a huge amount of difference between absentee owners. While I don't think there should be restrictions on foreign ownership, I would like to see some kind of regulation with respect to people actually living in the units they've purchased, rather than treating them solely as a commodity, difficult though that might be to achieve. If there's any sort of monetary incentive to keeping your flat occupied, vacancy rates will plummet to nearly zero overnight, because it's insanely easy to fake that sort of thing. The only other way I could imagine is if the Canadian government grants out huge concessions of land to housing coops, but those have a ton of issues inherent with giving the right to make housing decisions to an opaque, unaccountable board. NYC has coops that significantly lower the price of ownership, but they have problems violating housing laws all the time, discriminating against race, religion, kids, source/level of income, etc.
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Mar 24, 2013 18:01
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JawKnee posted:The article posted suggests that most of the absentee investment is by Canadians - though Canada is a big place so to my mind there's not a huge amount of difference between absentee owners. While I don't think there should be restrictions on foreign ownership, I would like to see some kind of regulation with respect to people actually living in the units they've purchased, rather than treating them solely as a commodity, difficult though that might be to achieve. One of the posts earlier in this thread (not too far, a few pages at most) showed a map of the distribution of foreign owners. The vast vast vast majority (like, more then 75%) were from the GVRD itself. Honestly, this confirms what I've actually seen in terms of landlords - most seem to be local professionals, basically still middle class (though towards the upper end thereof), buying an "investment home". That editorial was mostly garbage but he is probably right about the super duper rich being primarily interested in penthouses and kits beach homes that have nothing much to do with the regular apartment market for the rest of us plebes.
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Mar 25, 2013 00:14
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JawKnee posted:So this author is okay with regulations to curtail speculative activity (at least in the short term), presumably because that results in a baseless increase in prices, but his response to complaints about this is to imply that people taking issue with activity in Vancouver are racist, or "you either believe in a free market system, or you don't"? I don't want a free market system.
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Mar 25, 2013 01:38
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I've still never heard why a Vienna model couldn't work here or anywhere not Vienna.
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Mar 25, 2013 02:23
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