Canada's 'housing bubble' deemed close to bursting

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Acajack

It will be interesting to see how this pans out as a pretty huge chunk of the population literally views the problem with suburbia and sprawl as solely related to burning fossil fuels to get around it, and to and from it.

Exactly. Renting with roommates in Vancouver vs having a higher-paying job (especially when looking at net income*) in Dallas and owning a house that you commute to and from in a self-driving EV powered by Sunbelt-output solar panels... given approximately equivalent environmental footprints... nearly everyone sane would pick the latter.



*Texas has no personal income tax.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

So, why stay in the big city?

Usually because of career goals and social networks.

I imagine the market for M&A specialists is pretty thin in Sudbury.

Also having a been visible minority person in a lot of smaller cities, during my military career, I'll just say it sucks. This is not a complaint about racism. There's less access to one's community and family. There's less food options. Dating sucks. Etc. The quality of life experienced can be very different based on one's background. That compels people to choose certain places.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by someone123

I think these days a lot of American cities have a higher quality of life than Canadian cities offer. I see this when I visit American West Coast cities and compare them to Vancouver. Canada has crippling housing prices now and a mediocre economy. I think a lot of this disparity only exists due to limitations on mobility and imports/exports for Canadians.

Our GHG emissions are actually higher per capita in Canada than they are in the US. A lot of that is probably higher per capita fossil fuel production. But I think the reality is that it's debatable that Canada is doing better in these other ways that are supposed to make up for the increasingly glaring shortfalls like 15 years of stagnating real per capita GDP. I mentioned the theory of unsustainable suburbia as an example. We are not really seeing it so far. I wonder how this narrative will change as EVs become more common. It feels like there is a lot of motivated reasoning while more important quality of life basics are glossed over.

When I said the US term to be worse in terms of sprawl and the resulting environmental, infrastructural and energy usage problems, I didn't mean to imply that it was worse in every way including those I didn't mention. In terms of energy usage, I was mainly referring to transportation. I mean it is worse in those specific ways and that this is still a problem regardless of areas in which the country does well. I think your argument might be more persuasive if there were a strong reason to believe that the things the US is good at are somehow because of its sprawl rather than in spite of it (or more accurately, indifferent to it).

It's also important to remember that while Canada does better in this area, it isn't that much better. We're just at the beginning of attempting to change the form of our cities, and making major changes are difficult and disruptive.

In terms of how we're "not seeing" the unsustainability of suburbia, I don't think that's true. I think the NJB video about the costs of sprawl gives a really good account of how it's unsustainable in terms of how it's high costs are a burden to more efficient areas. There are many ways in which we're seeing the negative effects.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Usually because of career goals and social networks.

I imagine the market for M&A specialists is pretty thin in Sudbury.

If an M&A specialist has to have multiple roommates in Vancouver to live, they area horrible M&A specialist.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Usually because of career goals and social networks.

Pretty sure the only thing that actually anchors someone123 to Vancouver is that his adulthood social networks (i.e. most of his close friends who haven't yet decamped for more affordable climes) are all based there.

If they all made a pact to move to Moncton or Halifax together, it would probably be a winning move for everyone involved

[someone123]

Originally Posted by lio45

I think we can have a consensus on the above, but we won't be able to have a consensus on which of the two lifestyles described above is unarguably the "better" or "higher quality" one.

I don't disagree but it's not really about what's better, it's about whether we're improving or regressing in different areas. I would just publish the data and then people can draw their own conclusions. My point is that the physical reality of the housing (e.g. in a large owner-occupied house or not) is inherently useful info and probably more informative than mystery meat statistics like CPI-adjusted real income figures. I think a lot of these statistics muddy the waters rather than proving anything objective.

I only see the "but you have a supercomputer in your pocket" argument brought up when it comes to housing affordability. I have never seen anybody argue that the pocket supercomputers weigh against or outweigh say the American healthcare issues and so on.

[goodgrowth]

I'd say the most likely to migrate to the US are highly skilled 1st gen immigrants in Canada. They have no real ties so to them it's an easier decision.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by lio45

Exactly. Renting with roommates in Vancouver vs having a higher-paying job (especially when looking at net income*) in Dallas and owning a house that you commute to and from in a self-driving EV powered by Sunbelt-output solar panels... given approximately equivalent environmental footprints... nearly everyone sane would pick the latter.



*Texas has no personal income tax.

Of course, suburbia and sprawl have ecological impacts other than transportation-related fossil fuel burning: heat islands, massive amounts of paved surfaces, disruption and destruction of natural habitats, expansion of the "artificialized" land area, etc.

Though I'd say most of those issues are largely lost on that same huge mass of people.

Perhaps there will need to be awareness building on that front as well, but let's keep in mind that it took 40-50 years to convince us that fossil fuel burning to move ourselves was a bad thing, and we're still according to the most optimistic estimates a decade or two away from weaning ourselves off that.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Also having a been visible minority person in a lot of smaller cities, during my military career, I'll just say it sucks. This is not a complaint about racism. There's less access to one's community. There's less food options. Dating sucks. Etc. The quality of life experienced can be very different based on one's background. That compels people to choose certain places.

That's a very old school way to look at finding a mate, no? Why does it matter if your spouse isn't of the same ethnocultural background as yourself?

(Honest question, there's no right or wrong answer.)

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by lio45

That's a very old school way to look at finding a mate, no? Why does it matter if your spouse isn't of the same ethnocultural background as yourself?

(Honest question, there's no right or wrong answer.)

I didn't say anything about limiting one's own choices. Let's just say that a brown guy and a white guy in Moose Jaw or Cold Lake aren't going to get the same number and quality of matches on Tinder.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Usually because of career goals and social networks.

I imagine the market for M&A specialists is pretty thin in Sudbury.

Also having a been visible minority person in a lot of smaller cities, during my military career, I'll just say it sucks. This is not a complaint about racism. There's less access to one's community and family. There's less food options. Dating sucks. Etc. The quality of life experienced can be very different based on one's background. That compels people to choose certain places.

I'd say YMMV when it comes to that. At least dating-wise.

Unless you're an absolutely ugly dork, I'd wager it's probably quite fun to be the only black teenaged boy somewhere like St-Jean-Port-Joli.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I'd say YMMV when it comes to that. At least dating-wise.

Unless you're an absolutely ugly dork, I'd wager it's probably quite fun to be the only black teenaged boy somewhere like St-Jean-Port-Joli.

Yeah, I was kinda going to point out the same thing; the few black guys at my high school were top athletes and has an exotic je-ne-sais-quoi to them (a vaguely "American" aura, for some reason). And they were very popular. (Except maybe with their dates' Boomer Old-Stock-Québécois parents )

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by lio45

That's a very old school way to look at finding a mate, no? Why does it matter if your spouse isn't of the same ethnocultural background as yourself?

(Honest question, there's no right or wrong answer.)

I don't think that's what he's saying.

He's saying he misses a sense of community and good food of his heritage.

and the dating pool is TINY in small towns.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Wigs

and the dating pool is TINY in small towns.

That's indeed true for everyone, but I'm fairly confident that Truenorth's complaint as phrased was that the dating scene in a small Canadian town sucks even more when you're a vizmin. (I'm not doubting him on that.)

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I'd say YMMV when it comes to that. At least dating-wise.

Unless you're an absolutely ugly dork, I'd wager it's probably quite fun to be the only black teenaged boy somewhere like St-Jean-Port-Joli.

It's not like we don't have data that shows this phenomenon. Match.com analyzed response rates by race and sex:



https://qz.com/149342/the-uncomfortable-racial-preferences-revealed-by-online-dating/

Aside from that, dating is a numbers game at the end of the day. And smaller cities suck for everyone in the regard. They just suck a tiny bit more if you're not in the dominant demographic of the area.

It's not just race either. I would imagine being LGBTQ in a town of 20 000 is going to suck compared to being an alphabet person in a top 6 metro.

In any event, my broader point is that people choose where to live on many factors. And how one defines quality of life can vary substantially. Reducing this view down to how much square footage one can get is pretty dumb.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by lio45

That's indeed true for everyone, but I'm fairly confident that Truenorth's complaint as phrased was that dating in a small Canadian town sucks even more when you're a vizmin. (I'm not doubting him on that.)

I think it also depends on which visible minority you are and which sex you are too.

Some visible minorities of a certain sex might do better dating in all white town than their brothers or sisters of the other sex.

I'd like the chances of a South Asian or East Asian girl more than than of their brothers - with equal aesthetics in consideration. Black guys probably do better than black girls though.

Then for example Latin Americans (Hispanics) of either sex would probably do well dating-wise in a small Quebec town. (Probably the case anywhere in the ROC too.)

Anybody getting uneasy yet?

(Please remember I did not make humans the way they are!)

[GenWhy?]

Originally Posted by lio45

2022 middle class guy: doomed to rent forever; has several roommates (and not by choice); has no car; can't consider starting a family; possesses the portable, wireless equivalent of a 1982 trillion-dollar NASA supercomputer all to himself; can access world-class Indian or Japanese food in a minute's walk from his place; can catch a plane to any exotic destination anytime he wants; can access literally infinite amounts of information instantly from anywhere.

I think if you adjust that to lives alone or w/ sig other, rents, and has a car (or not, by choice). They'd be middle class.

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by lio45

That's indeed true for everyone, but I'm fairly confident that Truenorth's complaint as phrased was that the dating scene in a small Canadian town sucks even more when you're a vizmin. (I'm not doubting him on that.)

well if you're in a small town that's 95-99% White and you're not White you're going to have dating struggles in the already tiny kiddie-sized dating pool. In an ideal world, it should obviously not be like this.

If you're female however you might not encounter as much an issue as a male might, because guys will date practically any female that expresses interest in them (initially)

As smaller regions become more diverse this becomes less of an issue. Thankfully diversity is getting more evenly distributed in Canada over time.

I'm old enough to remember in Niagara when if you asked say where a Thai restaurant was people would say "a what now?"
"oh you probably have to go to Toronto or Buffalo to find that type of restaurant"

Now even the smaller municipalities have at least 1 Thai place. South Asian is still hard to come by besides St. Catharines and Niagara Falls.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

It's not like we don't have data that shows this phenomenon. Match.com analyzed response rates by race and sex:



https://qz.com/149342/the-uncomfortable-racial-preferences-revealed-by-online-dating/

Aside from that, dating is a numbers game at the end of the day. And smaller cities suck for everyone in the regard. They just suck a tiny bit more if you're not in the dominant demographic of the area.

It's not just race either. I would imagine being LGBTQ in a town of 20 000 is going to suck compared to being an alphabet person in a top 6 metro.

In any event, my broader point is that people choose where to live on many factors. And how one defines quality of life can vary substantially. Reducing this view down to how much square footage one can get is pretty dumb.

But this also denies the fact that someone had to be the first Pinoy person in Winnipeg, or the first Italian person in Sault Ste. Marie.

Every ethnic community has its "pioneers".

Not that I think that every single place needs to have every single ethnicity represented. That's basically impossible.

But if it's important to people (as it seems to be), then someone has to make the first move.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Wigs

I don't think that's what he's saying.

He's saying he misses a sense of community and good food of his heritage.

and the dating pool is TINY in small towns.

Which is why I am a fan of the idea that everyone should leave home, see the world and then put roots where they want to be. For some, it is their hometown. For others, it is anywhere else.
For example, me, I am planing my roots not where my hometown is.