[hackly]

Billboards have run before (“Can’t afford a home? Have you tried having rich parents?”, etc). A protest was organized but very few showed up. None of this work when the ruling class is benefiting from the lack of housing.

You need something more attention grabbing. Something Titan-like that the media will run with for days. Something like what started the Arab spring or similar movements. Not advocating for self-immolation, but it has to be dramatic enough to wake people up.

There are too many incumbents benefiting from the status quo that it’ll take a monumental effort to turn things around.

[dmix]

If the primary issue is the wealthy controlling housing then why is the brand new Toronto mayor, a representative of the working class party (NDP), have zero stuff about reforming housing policy like zoning and height limits, or anything about anti-NIMBYism? Basically the stuff that's very obviously been holding back development forever.

Chow would probably be at the front of any Arab Spring type protest in Toronto championing housing.

Yet her whole website is the same shit we've been sold as solutions since the 1970s: city wide rent control that has repeatedly resulted in a long term reduction in housing supply, a small set of new gov built skyscrapers that will take a decade to build and come in at twice the cost of budget, doubling down on disincentivizing renting properties by 2xing the amount of legal worries property renters have to go through when dealing with bad tenants, some weak stuff about city spending $100M to buy homes off the market so they don't get renovated (so basically 10 homes), etc, etc.

https://www.oliviachow.ca/plan

Is the NDP the party of the wealthy elite in Toronto? Over valuing protecting a small amount of exclusive neighbourhoods with old Victorian homes at the expense of the rest of the (very large and varied) city and only ever allowing expensive skyscrapers to be built?

The answer to that might be yes. But it's hard to disconnect those critiques from the language and policies of municipal politics here in Toronto... and almost every major western city. Which always sounds the same, while conventiently blaming someone else.

[light_hue_1]

> If the primary issue is the wealthy controlling housing then why is the brand new Toronto mayor, a representative of the working class party (NDP), have zero stuff about reforming housing policy like zoning and height limits, or anything about anti-NIMBYism? Basically the stuff that's very obviously been holding back development forever.

I have no idea what you're complaining about. All of the policies you want are what she is promising. And has done.

She made it so that you can now build four story, four unit multiplexes. It's right there on the website you linked. This already happened a few months ago.

And she says "Olivia would streamline, coordinate and simplify the approval process for housing so we can get more built, faster."

And she wants to put a wealth tax on those expensive homes you don't like.

You can complain that the city could move faster. But, all of the things you want are what she is doing.

[dmix]

> Olivia would streamline, coordinate and simplify the approval process for housing so we can get more built, faster

Those are generic sentences without substance. Of course the city wants to be efficient. But unless I hear specifics I'm extremely skeptical.

> She made it so that you can now build four story, four unit multiplexes

Good, but city approval for heights is probably the most boring and lowest hanging of my complaints. Zoning reform and NIMBYism is 90% of what reduces supply and kills off meaningful development.

This is a multi-decade crisis, it's not a minor policy debate in city council.

Even if they can get approval for a 4 story multiplex the fact 90% are building skyscrapers instead of other (legal) arrangements happen because it's the only one people are willing to risk $$$ on. It's extremely risky to run a development project in the city, because a) where you can build is severely capped so you have to build as high as possible and b) if you're going to navigate all of roadblocks and NIMBY backed lawyering you better be getting a property who's ROI can fund teams of lawyers and support years of development, often well before any construction start.

If we actually want to solve the housing crisis we literally need to start razing whole blocks of single family homes, industrial areas, old office buildings, etc and build high density housing.

This is radical stuff. Nothing about what Chow is proposing is anywhere close to addressing the crisis.

[ZoomerCretin]

Four unit multiplexes is a joke. No city with a population above 100k should have any restriction on height or density of any kind. With the cost of acquiring a house and the permitting BS, I'm sure very few of these multiplexes will be profitable to build.

[nvy]

>Is the NDP the party of the wealthy elite in Toronto?

Always has been.

[wk_end]

Why would you expect anything different? Left-NIMBYism is a real - and unfortunate - thing, especially among older members of the left, and Chow's been in politics for 30 years.

I'm a pretty boring social democrat in most regards, so saying this as someone who generally holds fairly leftist views on many things: the leftist ideology, very roughly speaking, believes that government intervention results in better results for the common man than a capitalist market left to its own devices; this gestures directly towards price controls, zoning laws, every kind of regulation, and socialized housing. Leftists are deeply skeptical of market-based solutions; even basic economic principles like supply-and-demand are viewed with skepticism by association with Economics as a field, which tends to be viewed (not totally or necessarily wrongly) as a false science that's more of an ideological tool of capitalists than anything. They view profit-making and companies that seek to make profit - like developers - as fundamentally impure and in need of reining in. And because of decades of urban sprawl in North America, they associate development with environmental destruction, even though, ironically, one important way we could help save the environment is by densifying the hell out of our cities. And don't get me started on fears of gentrification - although there we're beginning to blur the line between "progressives" and leftists, but those lines are already pretty blurred.

I know enough left-NIMBYs to know that their intentions are pure - it's not a case of ladder-kickers. Just a particularly bad strain of thought that's - like you said - pretty widespread in municipal politics. Probably because NIMBYism transcends ideology in a way - there's different kinds of NIMBYism across the spectrum, always with the same outcome, and many voters will happily cross party lines to keep their neighbourhood just the way it is, thank you very much.

Happily, in my experience younger urbanists - even the left-wing ones - tend to (though don't always) recognize the excesses of left-NIMBYism.

[TulliusCicero]

They're absolutely ladder-kickers, because they're kicking the ladder.

That they may have nice words and ostensibly good intentions doesn't change the fact that they're kicking the ladder and will continue to do so.

They're only "not ladder kickers" in the same way typical Republicans "aren't sexist" but continue to keep voting for the sexist party.

[wk_end]

I suppose I should've said they not intentional ladder-kickers; quite the opposite: they genuinely believe that their policies, and only their policies, will actually lead to more affordable housing.

This is in comparison to more conventional NIMBYs, who don't really care - they feel entitled to "preserve neighbourhood character", say things like "city's full, don't move here", that sort of thing.

[JimtheCoder]

"Happily, in my experience younger urbanists - even the left-wing ones - tend to (though don't always) recognize the excesses of left-NIMBYism."

They probably had to pay the jacked up real estate prices...

[davidy123]

People are living longer and healthier and more independantly, which means they want to stay in their city homes in their 60s - 80s. What do you want to do, put them in warehouses? Plus there is a lot of immigration, but we need that.

There is an ongoing process of densification, it can be faster but it can't be done too quickly, it's not fair to blot out people's views or destroy neighbourhoods or destroy every remnant of past eras.

With these dynamics it's no surprise that city housing is so expensive, and I don't think it comes down to one factor like interest rates or greedy people, so that billboard is just political pandering. What would your attention-getting measure ask for?

I get the impression a lot of people are complaining they can't afford a family home basically in a prime-ish city location. Can't blame them for wanting that, but an option could be to move outside the cities. Properties are quite affordable, and there are some good transit corridors and decent towns (and advantages of living in the country), though better commuting options will always be welcome.

This is what I've done, an hour outside a city, I'm on a forested acre with a lake, with beautiful views year-round. I'm far from house poor so I can afford to travel all winter or do overnights in any city.

To enable this, I would push for better commuting, with more hubs and extended service so it's super easy to get to downtowns. But resolving scarcity of talent in the trades would also be key.

[davidy123]

I didn't mean "but" we need that, I meant "and" we need that. In case there's any doubt, I am 100% for immigration.