frostbiker @ frostbiker @lemmy.ca

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2 yr. ago

Canadians, like most developed countries, already have a very low birth rate. If you want to reduce the growth of human population, you have to look at countries and regions where the birth rate is significantly higher than two children per woman.

If you are concerned about the carbon footprint of individual people, you need to look at where most of that carbon goes and what can be done about it. In Canada, the two major contributors are heating and car use, both of which would be reduced by transforming suburban single family home developments into walkable medium density mixed-use neighborhoods.

Climate change makes these fires more likely every year, so what are we doing about it? I don't want my children to inherit ashes and badlands.

The fifty year statistics were also computed wrong, for the same reason you already explained. It doesn't make much of a difference since the probabilities are so small anyway.

Generally agreed, but also remember that the federal government sets immigration targets, which affects demand

Supply and demand are key factors in pricing. If no one wanted to buy houses, prices would go down

I agree that both increasing supply and decreasing demand would move prices down. At the same time, while the different measures that we can take to increase supply would require months if not years to have an effect, there are several things we can do to reduce demand overnight. Here are some examples:

• Increase taxes on empty homes and homes owned by non-resident landlords. For example, by increasing property taxes while at the same time providing a refundable tax credit for your primary home when you file your income taxes
• Reduce yearly immigration targets and reduce the number of other visas, such as student visas
• Do not automatically grant citizenship to babies born in Canada unless their mother is legally residing here

Don’t be lazy and DRIVE

For the briefest of moments I felt a spark of blinding hot rage in my heart. Now I am left with the lingering feeling of wanting to smash my head against a rock.

Thank you for that experience.

I never wanted my house to be a stock market investment. It’s just that I want some consistency.

But earlier you also said:

And now that I have a tiny piece (on paper but owned by the bank) I am hoping (like most Canadians) to take that piece and cash out to retire on in 10-15 years time

I.e. you see your home as an investment from which you expect to see a positive return, but now you are afraid that it may lose some of that value.

I get it: I would also like my investments to grow. The reality is that investing comes with risk. People who want to minimize that risk keep their money in a savings account, a GIC, or treasuries. With low risk come low returns, though. There is no free lunch.

Here is what is different: when we overbid for housing and it becomes expensive, real people suffer from homelessness and overcrowding. The same isn't true of stocks or other investments.

If we devalue my apartment, why did I spend decades of sweat and toil to purchase it? Then it feels like I was playing the stock market.

I considered the price of housing to be inflated, so instead of buying a home, I rented and invested the difference in the stock market.

Why is it okay for me to lose the the hard-earned money I invested in the stock market, but it is not okay for housing prices to go down? When stocks go down I still need to pay rent every month, but when house prices go down you don't lose your home.

Either we treat housing as an investment, in which case we need to accept the risk that prices will go down, or we treat it as a basic life necessity, in which case it must be affordable. We can't say: "I bought a home with my hard work, so now it must pay for my retirement".

But that is the problem: when I go to a cashier I feel rushed to bag everything and pay in the time it takes a professional to scan everything. When I go to a self-checkout register, items are scanned exactly at the same rate that I bag them.

At the same time, there is hardly any waiting for self-checkout lines. In other words, for my taste they are better in almost every way.

Trams deserve to be separate from car and bike traffic: it allows trams to be faster than cars and it protects cyclists from falls. We need to stop thinking that cars should be everywhere by default.

Townhomes, duplexes-triplexes-quadplexes, and 3-4 story walkups should be allowed everywhere in the country

And allow mixed-use buildings by default as well. It would be so convenient to have little shops everywhere so that people don't need to drive in order to pick up daily necessities, such as groceries. That is how cities used to work until recently.