Quote:
Originally Posted by FactaNV
|
Well-written and not incorrect, but I would have hoped for a more substantial critique.
It asks that we go easier on the profit-driven housing sector because any sort of housing is good housing. Which is fair enough. But is the intended conclusion really just that all types of housing are good, and we need to build more of everything? This kind of argument allows to writer to avoid taking any position. Isn't the flipside of "everything is good" that "nothing is bad?"
Isn't the elephant in the room of this piece that we currently rely almost entirely on the private sector for housing? That more social housing units have been sold to private developers in the last decade than have been created? Isn't that enough, do they really need more cheerleaders?
Societies must necessarily make choices on how to direct limited resources. Could it be worth mentioning that some types of housing ought be higher priority for this resource distribution than others? That the difference between us and the cities we most admire for their liveability in places like France, Austria, Netherlands, etc. are the share of social housing stock, not the degree to which we support private developers?