A video sponsored by a housing developer, suggesting that the real problem with the cost of housing is high taxes and the pesky nay-saying public.
They also never mention the high and increasing vacancy rate of newly built luxury housing. Just trust us! Rich people will move in soon!
Just across the border from Vancouver, the Seattle Housing Authority is rebuilding modern apartment complexes that are actually intended for low income, disabled and first-gen immigrant residents, not luxury condos that some theoretical rich person maybe might buy someday.
So you turned off the video in the first few minutes I see 🤣
I was wondering if the sponsorship joke was a bad idea since people would bail before the punchline. For those who didn’t watch (you really should), it’s not sponsored by developers, it was a joke about exactly these types of accusations.
They mention that there is also a huge need for social housing. In fact they have a whole other video about it. But the idea that those two approaches aren’t compatible is misguided.
They nearly had me with the developer sponsorship joke too. In this video the point is made that not every new development is geared toward living compared to stretching profit as much as possible within regulations. Overall they make the case that:
subsidized/affordable housing > vastly increasing the supply in any way > doing nothing and restricting any development.
They also take issue with modern shoebox apartments in highrises be called luxury housing, when there is more pushback against high density development compared to single family mansions which should be the real luxury development.
I think the Westbank sponsorship was a joke as they follow it up with a surfshark sponsorship. But it was a dicey joke to make
Otherwise nice links!
A lot of people (especially on Reddit and Lemmy too) don’t understand even the basics of economics. They see “luxury” and immediately make their judgement. “The rich”, “up there”, and “elite” are probably the most used words in comments. Not everything is immediately a conspiracy. Most of it is just basic economics. Plain and simple.
Well, unfortunately economics can still involve some level of conspiracy at times. And even basic economics can get quite complicated!
But I agree with you otherwise. Even though I am very critical of the existing economy and think it should be radically changed, I think you have to seek to understand and engage with economic data and research in order to build an informed critique. Obviously most people are not very economically literate but I find it especially annoying with those who are passionate about these topics. At a certain point that ignorance can only be sustained willingly.
I would love to see more informed economic discussion here, particularly on how left politics can be more economically rigorous. I think our ideals are sound, but how we achieve them needs to be informed by the real facts and not what we wish they were.
I’m not sure about Canada, but in the states, there are also different codes for luxury apartments.
In my local area luxury apartments don’t need to be rent controlled like all the other rentals around. So luxury apartments are by far the most built apartments lately.
Yeah, ten years ago any apartment complex near campus that had undergone any renovations within the prior 15 years was being marketed as “luxury.”
Most of them were still cramped places with terrible materials and paper thin walls. The students living in them were frequently heavily dependent of financial aid or their parents had saved diligently for 20 yrs. There were some “elites,” but most of them were international students.
