Re: who to hire
Given the macro factors in play, town councils are trying to stick a finger in the dike.
No disagreement that it takes permanent residents for a community to thrive. But the situation you describe didn't happen by accident - it's the confluence of a lot of separate, presumably well intentioned, policy actions.
Vancouver, which started out life as a mill town and continental railway terminus, and was still largely a working class economy when I was growing up there, has graduated into a bifurcated economy composed of high paid software writers and MBA-carrying consultants layered on top of a vast and growing minimum wage service sector of baristas and oyster bar waitresses that serve them. The mills, refineries, railway yards and virtually all of the industry associated with them are mostly gone. Did the Chinese steal all this. Hardly. Today even the Port of Vancouver is under intense protest over its efforts to expand.
The cost and time to permit anything is incredibly expensive, and other than housing development the chances of success are abysmal. The city politicians have been seized with the idea that a zero-carbon economy is a necessary condition for the future and the regulatory blanket reflects that. Even the home building industry is going to have to accomodate this, and I don't see that doing anything to help make housing more affordable.
The wealthy, and those that have the power to write their own ticket (our elected officials), can absorb these costs. Private entrepreneurs and salaried residents are having a really difficult time, and it'll get worse.
Empty houses and property bubbles are a sign there is a dearth of productive investment opportunity to attract that capital. Central bank provided cheap and abundant credit, combined with taxpayer sponsored mortgage insurance for high leveraged loans (in our case CMHC) just makes a stupidly bad situation worse.
Originally posted by dcarrigg
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No disagreement that it takes permanent residents for a community to thrive. But the situation you describe didn't happen by accident - it's the confluence of a lot of separate, presumably well intentioned, policy actions.
Vancouver, which started out life as a mill town and continental railway terminus, and was still largely a working class economy when I was growing up there, has graduated into a bifurcated economy composed of high paid software writers and MBA-carrying consultants layered on top of a vast and growing minimum wage service sector of baristas and oyster bar waitresses that serve them. The mills, refineries, railway yards and virtually all of the industry associated with them are mostly gone. Did the Chinese steal all this. Hardly. Today even the Port of Vancouver is under intense protest over its efforts to expand.
The cost and time to permit anything is incredibly expensive, and other than housing development the chances of success are abysmal. The city politicians have been seized with the idea that a zero-carbon economy is a necessary condition for the future and the regulatory blanket reflects that. Even the home building industry is going to have to accomodate this, and I don't see that doing anything to help make housing more affordable.
The wealthy, and those that have the power to write their own ticket (our elected officials), can absorb these costs. Private entrepreneurs and salaried residents are having a really difficult time, and it'll get worse.
Empty houses and property bubbles are a sign there is a dearth of productive investment opportunity to attract that capital. Central bank provided cheap and abundant credit, combined with taxpayer sponsored mortgage insurance for high leveraged loans (in our case CMHC) just makes a stupidly bad situation worse.
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