Canada's 'housing bubble' deemed close to bursting

[Harrison]

Originally Posted by urbandreamer

There was an arts festival happening in downtown Leduc when I visited, 16th July. I found the idea of this social club amusing:
https://imgur.com/a/MoCJlwc
Downtown Leduc reminded me of Alliston or maybe Bolton.

I found the Hwy 2 entrance into Edmonton depressing: the ugliest kind of rundown C city Ontario type of sprawl (Cambridge, West London, Essa-Barrie, Courtice) with a small airport and then suddenly you're in Strathcona which looks a bit like downtown London, then there's the underwhelming skyline across the river into Winnipeg 2.0.

lol what did Edmonton ever do to you? Underwhelming skyline if you are comparing it to Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver or even Calgary, maybe.

The Highway 2 entrance isn't anything to write home about, that's for sure, but I can't reallly think of a 'nice' freeway entrance to a Canadian city other than the Sea to Sky into North Van, the Gardiner going to DT Toronto or Memorial Drive to DT Calgary.

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

I am not wealthy. Why should we build on farmlands?

Originally Posted by goodgrowth

"Why should we build on x ?" is the basically the motto of the housing crises perpetuators and just gives further ammo to any NIMBY.

The housing issue won't be solved until the "sprawl" discentive mechanism is based on an objective metric(non-regressive property tax/LVT) and not reverting picking winners and losers of "acceptable land use/developments".

Yup, let's just wreck the Niagara escarpment and build more tract housing on (some of) the most fertile soil in Canada







https://www.thestar.com/ths/news/hamilto...a-escarpment-development-violations.html

[O-tacular]

Originally Posted by Harrison

lol what did Edmonton ever do to you? Underwhelming skyline if you are comparing it to Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver or even Calgary, maybe.

The Highway 2 entrance isn't anything to write home about, that's for sure, but I can't reallly think of a 'nice' freeway entrance to a Canadian city other than the Sea to Sky into North Van, the Gardiner going to DT Toronto or Memorial Drive to DT Calgary.

If it's any consolation he compared the Bow river to a sewage canal.

I do agree with him that the entrance to Edmonton is depressing and awful though. From the poo coloured Welcome sign to the atrocious big box barf that you need to drive through to get anywhere. Not to mention the confusing mess of the Anthony Hyandai which has diverted me outside the city multiple times as I have tried to enter it. It's unwelcoming.

[O-tacular]

Originally Posted by Wigs

Yup, let's just wreck the Niagara escarpment and build more tract housing on (some of) the most fertile soil in Canada







https://www.thestar.com/ths/news/hamilto...a-escarpment-development-violations.html

You should post this in the Conservative thread for those pretending that Conservative Governments care about the environment.

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by Harrison

lol what did Edmonton ever do to you? Underwhelming skyline if you are comparing it to Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver or even Calgary, maybe.

The Highway 2 entrance isn't anything to write home about, that's for sure, but I can't reallly think of a 'nice' freeway entrance to a Canadian city other than the Sea to Sky into North Van, the Gardiner going to DT Toronto or Memorial Drive to DT Calgary.

Don't mind him. He once called the Bow River in Calgary a sewage canal even though it literally is a glacier fed river from the Rockies that everyone uses recreationally and Calgary's industrial base is Southeast of downtown

[Harrison]

Originally Posted by Wigs

Don't mind him. He once called the Bow River in Calgary a sewage canal even though it literally is a glacier fed river from the Rockies that everyone uses recreationally and Calgary's industrial base is Southeast of downtown

Oof, the Bow is very nice, especially compared to other urban rivers in North America. Sewage canal? We don't even have those in Canada anymore afaik.

[Harrison]

Originally Posted by O-tacular

If it's any consolation he compared the Bow river to a sewage canal.

I do agree with him that the entrance to Edmonton is depressing and awful though. From the poo coloured Welcome sign to the atrocious big box barf that you need to drive through to get anywhere. Not to mention the confusing mess of the Anthony Hyandai which has diverted me outside the city multiple times as I have tried to enter it. It's unwelcoming.

I have a soft spot for the entrance signs - they're definitely early 1980s chic and have the accompanying 'shopping mall floor tile brown' colouration to match, but they're distinctly Edmonton, no doubt about that.

The Henday signage is bad (lanes for 'Bypass' and 'Downtown') and I hope gets fixed by the Province at some point.

[lio45]

Love the 1980s sign.

Needs an update though — to “City of Losers”.

[goodgrowth]

Originally Posted by Wigs

Yup, let's just wreck the Niagara escarpment and build more tract housing on (some of) the most fertile soil in Canada

Pushing the gas pedal(immigration) and brake(anti-development mentality) at the same time ain't working. Something has to give.

"Environmentalists" and "urbanists" have had many decades to fight for a cultural change on zoning and land use and they have absolutely failed. And it's because many are actually NIMBY's themselves at the end of the day. Their actually objection isn't sprawl...it's other people...otherwise you could have upzoned at anytime to limit sprawl.

Land use needs to be dictated much more on economic value and market demand and much less on central planning.

Sprawl needs to be priced via non-regressive property taxes and not a top down/"just make development stop and hope it all goes away" approach.

[rivercity]

Originally Posted by Harrison

Oof, the Bow is very nice, especially compared to other urban rivers in North America. Sewage canal? We don't even have those in Canada anymore afaik.

The City of Winnipeg seems to think the Assiniboine and Red rivers can be used as such..

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by rivercity

The City of Winnipeg seems to think the Assiniboine and Red rivers can be used as such..

That's nothing. Hamilton basically covered up the fact they were leaking 300 Million plus of litres of sewage into Hamilton harbour... for 26 years!

https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/26-year-leak-...ed,it%20went%20undetected%20since%201996.

[SFUVancouver]

Originally Posted by Wigs

That's nothing. Hamilton basically covered up the fact they were leaking 300 Million plus of litres of sewage into Hamilton harbour... for 26 years!

https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/26-year-leak-...ed,it%20went%20undetected%20since%201996.

Incompetence =/= Covered up.

And you under-quoted the leak by 37 million litres. Altogether, the leak discharged about 1,500 litres of untreated sewage each hour for 26 years. Or about 400 ml every second. Yuk.


source

Now the Chedoke Creek Spill was something on an altogether different scale of magnitude: 24 billion litres of combined sewer and stormwater discharged over only four years. That works out to about 685,000 litres per hour, or 190 litres every second. Picture the internal volume of this fridge dumping into the creek every second.


source

YUK!

[jonny24]

Originally Posted by Harrison

lol what did Edmonton ever do to you? Underwhelming skyline if you are comparing it to Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver or even Calgary, maybe.

The Highway 2 entrance isn't anything to write home about, that's for sure, but I can't reallly think of a 'nice' freeway entrance to a Canadian city other than the Sea to Sky into North Van, the Gardiner going to DT Toronto or Memorial Drive to DT Calgary.

I love the view of downtown Hamilton coming into view as you go down the escarpment on the 403:

https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.2459362,-...KgE65PV6VW-uf5POHmztQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

Streetview doesn't do it justice. Of course, by that point you've technically bee "in" Hamilton for a while...

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by SFUVancouver

Covered up =/= incompetence.

And you under-quoted the leak by 37 million litres. Altogether, the leak discharged about 1,500 litres of untreated sewage each hour for 26 years. Or about 400 ml every second.

If you want to believe total incompetence, okay. Hamilton as a former Mafia stronghold has a habit of sweeping things under the rug.
But you're correct the article states they just recently discovered it

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by jonny24

I love the view of downtown Hamilton coming into view as you go down the escarpment on the 403:

https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.2459362,-...KgE65PV6VW-uf5POHmztQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

Streetview doesn't do it justice. Of course, by that point you've technically bee "in" Hamilton for a while...

Agreed

[urbandreamer]

I was referring to the unsightly mess of concrete bridges and rocks piled along the Bow as looking like a sewage canal, although I was coming from paradise aka BC so anything else looks like 🞵🞵🞵🞵. Speaking of 🞵🞵🞵🞵, where do people poo in downtown Calgary? I struggled to find any decent public toilets.

[O-tacular]

Originally Posted by urbandreamer

I was referring to the unsightly mess of concrete bridges and rocks piled along the Bow as looking like a sewage canal, although I was coming from paradise aka BC so anything else looks like 🞵🞵🞵🞵. Speaking of 🞵🞵🞵🞵, where do people poo in downtown Calgary? I struggled to find any decent public toilets.

Those rocks are flood protection installed after the epic flood of 2013 which you may or may not have heard about:



As for toilets, yes there should be more public bathrooms. Didn't you complain about the one on Prince's Island though?

[Coldrsx]

LOLZ

In response to the TorontoLife article
https://urbanaffairs.ca/sportzing/i-moved-to-alberta-and-i-havent-hated-anything-about-it/

[yaletown_fella]

Opening up unproductive farmland and brownfields for tract housing in the 905 will help kill the artificial scRcity that contributes to overpriced condos and rentals in the 416. Some people act like allowing the free market for tract housing in the 905 is anti urban.
A healthy free market needs options for everyone or else the base price of a condo unit will soar

And talk about an alarmist article and lack of critical thinking
It would be cost prohibitive to build tract housing on the sedimentary rock of the escarpment.

And I noticed a lot of greenbelt protestors by Queens Park are the same crew of NIMBY Beaches homeowners in Toronto who drive around in SUVs and rally against secondary units and anything over 4 floors on Queen St E

[theman23]

Originally Posted by Coldrsx

LOLZ

In response to the TorontoLife article
https://urbanaffairs.ca/sportzing/i-moved-to-alberta-and-i-havent-hated-anything-about-it/

Cant wait until Jack Campbell's piece. Will Dallas Eakins write one too?