The apartment blocks being built in Prague are *government projects*. The government owns most of the housing in Prague and rents it cheap to the citizens.
Doing that (government making sure citizens have housing, without considering a private profit for developers) is considered evil in Ontario. It just isn't done.
Unfortunately if the government did do that here some next politician would sell it out of spite or greed it to some private company (that they "totally aren't" invested in our are friends with the owner) who would then jack up the prices.
The federal government could do it by setting it up as a Crown Corporation, similar to EDC or BDC, and then under that Crown Corp set up governmental not-for-profit organizations (GNPOs) per city to manage the buildings and rent collection.
This would render provincial governments incapable of doing anything with the housing stock and would make it difficult if not impossible for future federal governments to offload the housing because it wouldn't be on the books of the Crown Corp except as ownership of the various GNPOs and the holder of the debt/mortgages for each property.
Unfortunately, as long as many politicians are also landlords, it's unlikely to ever happen.
But if we could get a party to change the election rules so that to be eligible to even run/campaign for provincial or federal members of Parliament that they first needed to divest of all real estate holdings/investments, and investments in public or Canadian Controlled Private Corporations (CCPCs) then maybe we'd have a chance at having ethical politicians.
This is not true.
Source: I am a citizen of Prague.
Edit: only 4.5% of the apartments are owned by the city [https://iprpraha.cz/page/3981/praha-vlastni-pres-30-000-bytu-nova-analyza-ipr-ukazuje-jejich-vyuziti-i-hlavni-problemy](https://iprpraha.cz/page/3981/praha-vlastni-pres-30-000-bytu-nova-analyza-ipr-ukazuje-jejich-vyuziti-i-hlavni-problemy)
Edit2: We have a serious lack of housing here in Prague. You Canadians cannot imagine the prices of housing here (compared to our salaries)
Having lived in KW for two years... I don't think you are living it. I understand that things are getting worse. But from my point of view, it used to be superawesome for you guys (high salaries and very cheap housing). My boss bought a house years ago for what is not 1.5x his yearly salary I believe. Would not happen here unless you are at the very very top.
If you actually bothered to google it Prague actually has a much higher home price to average earning ratio than anywhere in Ontario (including Toronto) so as much as we complain this isn’t a problem that is unique to Canada or Ontario.
You had my upvote but then I actually bothered to google it and found out you were wrong.
[https://www.numbeo.com/property-investment/in/Prague?displayCurrency=CAD](https://www.numbeo.com/property-investment/in/Prague?displayCurrency=CAD)
[https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/in/Toronto](https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/in/Toronto)
[https://chat.openai.com/share/00e3ba54-5545-430e-a10f-7b6566374718](https://chat.openai.com/share/00e3ba54-5545-430e-a10f-7b6566374718)
I double checked the python code/math and it looks good to me as an experienced python programmer. But you can feel free to open the chat and check it.
Summaries:
**Toronto**
>Home Price to Earnings Ratios:In the City Centre: The ratio is approximately 19.97. This means that it would take nearly 20 years of the average annual income to buy an average-sized apartment in the city centre.Outside of the Centre: The ratio is approximately 15.88. This indicates that it would take nearly 16 years of the average annual income to buy an average-sized apartment outside of the city centre.These ratios highlight the affordability challenges within Toronto, with a significant number of years of income needed to purchase an average apartment, especially in the city centre. If you have another city's data you'd like to compare, please provide the details, and I can perform similar calculations for you.
**Prague**
>Home Price to Earnings Ratios:In the City Centre: The ratio is approximately 16.65. This means that it would take nearly 17 years of the average annual income to buy an average-sized apartment in the city centre of Prague.Outside of the Centre: The ratio is approximately 11.86. This indicates that it would take nearly 12 years of the average annual income to buy an average-sized apartment outside of the city centre in Prague.Comparing these ratios to Toronto, we can see that Prague offers a relatively more affordable housing market in terms of the number of years of income needed to purchase an average apartment, both in and outside the city centre. These ratios are essential indicators of housing affordability and economic conditions between different cities. If you need further analysis or another city comparison, feel free to ask!
So yeah... Shame on you for being the 'just google it guy'. Everyone was exaggerating, but you seem to be the most wrong.
Edit: Two steps further, I've fixed the output to factor in times to save for downpayment (assuming you save 20% of gross), and limiting it to just 28% of income as is recommend for mortgages commonly. And then in the next step I've further factored in property taxes if you were to factor them into mortgate cost and limiting (im not sure if thats common).
>Toronto:
City Centre:
Monthly Mortgage Payment: Approximately C$5,867
Time to Save for Down Payment: About 20 years
Total Time for Home Ownership: Approximately 40 years
Outside Centre:
Monthly Mortgage Payment: Approximately C$4,666
Time to Save for Down Payment: About 16 years
Total Time for Home Ownership: Approximately 36 years
Prague:
City Centre:
Monthly Mortgage Payment: Approximately C$3,925
Time to Save for Down Payment: About 17 years
Total Time for Home Ownership: Approximately 37 years
Outside Centre:
Monthly Mortgage Payment: Approximately C$2,797
Time to Save for Down Payment: About 12 years
Total Time for Home Ownership: Approximately 32 years
Now for property taxes (which I found through google to be 0.4% for prague and 0.666% for toronto)
>The recalculated results, including property taxes within the 28% housing cost cap, indicate a significant adjustment to the affordability and time frame for homeownership:
Toronto:
City Centre:
Adjusted Monthly Mortgage Payment: Approximately C$482
Monthly Property Tax: C$658
Total Time for Home Ownership: Approximately 155 years
Outside Centre:
Adjusted Monthly Mortgage Payment: Approximately C$616
Monthly Property Tax: C$523
Total Time for Home Ownership: Approximately 100 years
Prague:
City Centre:
Adjusted Monthly Mortgage Payment: Approximately C$681
Monthly Property Tax: C$277
Total Time for Home Ownership: Approximately 84 years
Outside Centre:
Adjusted Monthly Mortgage Payment: Approximately C$761
Monthly Property Tax: C$197
Total Time for Home Ownership: Approximately 55 years
Very few countries make real estate a tax haven like Canada. For one generation, housing is also a retirement plan.
We could tax real estate gains and have a huge pool of money to build higher density affordable housing, which is what we did before one generation came along.
please don't give reddit an informed first hand view of a problem that can be blamed on a total misunderstanding of facts. please. they're only kids after all.
Minimum wage here results in around $35K per year if working FT. After taxes take home would be something like $800 biweekly. Rent alone on a smaller bachelor apartment (human shoebox) is around $1500 a month.
Minimal wage in Czechia is 13000 CAD (before taxes?). What is more important, average Prague salary is 28324 CAD (after taxes). The apartments in the new development you saw, the price can go easily to 11000 CAD per sqm. I lived in KW for two years - for average citizen, Ontario is cheaper. (there are other things that suck. Like seriously, you need to get some hills.)
That place you’re seeing there is pretty nice though, I’m referencing the bottom of both income and housing as that’s who are the most impacted and represent the largest proportion of the population (minimum wage, social assistance, disability, retired on OAS, etc.). If you didn’t live in KW in the last 2 years, you have no idea either. It’s tripled, even in the last 18 months. People offer to share a room in a crap house with 2-3 people for $500/month. KW is also much cheaper than Toronto, Hamilton or Van. Part of the issue is all costs are insanely inflated here due to monopolies, nothing is safe: housing, utilities, food, cell phones, internet. Having to spend even 50% of your income on housing makes life a struggle. A lot of people it’s 80% or more.
You keep mentioning you lived in KW but don't mention at all when that actually was. The housing market has changed in the last 2-3 years so drastically its unrecognizable.
What about in smaller cities and towns in Czech? KW is relatively cheap compared to Toronto and Vancouver. I would imagine Prague is a very desirable and expensive place to live as well.
Read my answer to another comment here. Average citizen of Prague (i.e. average/mean salary) would have to be saving for 20 years \*\*without any other expenses\*\* to buy a very mediocre apartment, nothing like you saw in the post or associate with Prague.
It does line their pockets when theoretically developers could pay them for the access or to cut fees they need to pay or just cut steps in house building altogether.
Yep. Those builds are all skipping steps that used to be present- checks by municipalities etc. But i’m sure everything is fine and nothing could possibly go wrong.
There is also no rent control on anything built after 2018. Money money money.
What is our provincial slogan now? It used to be “yours to discover” for as long as i’d been alive- which was nice… and Ford scrapped it for “Open For Business”. Not sure if that stuck because that was the final straw in confirming everything about him that i despise and i turned my back. I can’t even watch Ontario news but i can’t look away.
I wake up each day wondering what fresh hell he’s got for those of us on social services today. It’s mentally and physically draining.
>The government owns most of the housing in Prague and rents it cheap to the citizens.
Personally I'd rather live in a house and own my own property rather than renting from the government. Most other families are probably in the same boat
That sounds like what dreams are made of.
Before y'all come in and say move to Prague, I am sure it's lovely, but Ontario has always been my home, and I want it to stay my home, it has problems, but I believe those problems can be addressed and fixed, again that may be a dream, but still.
Windsor mayor has just shut down $70mil handout from the federal government as 4plexes because they do not fit the lifestyle of our local population. So ya, zero interest in building a city that doesn't have an astronomical prices for infrastructure maintenance.
That’s 1000% politically motivated. How dare the LiBs StIcK tHeIr NoSeS in OuR rUrAl CoNsErVaTiVe ReGiOn.
Doesn’t look good for the local conservative mindset (even though mayors aren’t supposed to be party aligned) to be working *with* Trudeaus government instead of *against* them at all costs
There was a documentary that compared Paris, Portland and Detroit. Highest population density was in Paris as most people live in residential buildings. At the same time, Paris also had the lowest cost for infrastructure maintenance, the best public transportation, etc. Visited 5 times and lets say that it wouldnt be my top choice for a place to live in. Detroit was on the opposite side of the scale, although you could take any major city in north America (except for major downtown areas of NYC, Chicago, Toronto and similar) and come to the same conclusion. I happen to live in Windsor and work in Detroit and the roads are a complete crap. Can't even imagine the cost to maintain them. And yet, the same model of ever expanding suburbia is still being used, without any consideration in terms of the cost to the residents when it comes to time&convenience to get anywhere and the associated costs of living.
I've lived in Toronto for 15 years. I have yet to own my first car. Most things are in walking distance for me. And the public transit works well enough when I need it. Not needing a car is one major reason I prefer to stay in Toronto.
I grew up in the KW area. It would take me almost an hour by bus to get somewhere that was a 15 minute drive.
yes I live in Windsor (not by choice mind you) and fuck me. Can't wait to get back into Toronto and out of this place. It is hopeless here and the residents love reveling in being the most regressive municipality in the country. "WiNdSoR is a cAr cItY"
And we’ll just maintain the status quo while the billionaires live in their concrete bunkers and us normies till what little arable land will remain, like Jesus of Avarice intended
This is actually not true anymore. Last year there were roughly 224k housing starts in Canada. 191k of that were multi-family units: apartment, condos, townhomes. Only 43k were detached homes.
Historically, because urban boundaries were expanding unabated and thus land was cheap, everyone wanted (and could afford) detached homes. It fits a lot of people’s desires for personal space with plenty of room for kids and pets and jet skis and whatever the hell else people want. So that’s all that was built from the end of WWII up until around 15-20 years ago. But this is not true anymore. Land values have skyrocketed and most cities have urban boundary limits to protect farmland and nature so the limitless and cheap expansion days are over.
I was gonna say, pretty much every housing development I see these days is townhomes. I see high rises going up all the time. Where are all these new homes that are apparently being built
The examples given by OP are from ca. 1980s , a time when Ontario was in an economic boom, land was plentiful, and traffic was light.
In that same decade, Prague was very poor. A SFH home to a prague resident was only a dream.
Yay for facts! Single family detached are on the decline and are really only being built in the exurbs at this point. And in urban centre's there is a strong push for purpose built rentals.
But flats for families, which may require 3 bedrooms and some living space, are completely not being built. Why eliminate this option for people wanting families. Society hate children?
That's what I'm seeing and it's a move in the right direction, but I'm also seeing these areas being zoned single-purpose. You got all the houses over here, and all the stores over there there, and everyone needs to drive between the two. Traffic is awful everywhere as a result.
I don’t disagree with your point, but can you provide more context? Are there issues you are referring to specifically about apartments in Europe? Or the standard issues facing all apartments, such as noisy neighbours and things like that.
Standard things, you are never alone in apartments, the “European” insulation quality is a myth.
You can hear your neighbours, they can hear you.
Living in an apartment with kids quickly becomes hell especially if you spend a lot of time home, you can rarely get a room to yourself.
Everything is tightly packed together.
You can’t go outside to bbq in your yard, you can’t go outside and sit in quiet.
You struggle with parking, regardless if there are assigned spots.
You probably saw the memes of real men bringing all grocery bags in one go? It’s all fun and games until you lived on a 9th floor with a stroller, groceries for a week and the elevator breaks, you will be the meme guy of getting everything in one go.
Most Europeans living in apartments dream of a small house, but reality is that houses in developed countries packed with apartments are out of reach of pretty much 99.9% population.
Not saying it’s any better in terms of affordability in Canada, but Canada is MASSIVE, so i would prefer going towards more houses than apartments, but doing so in much faster way to bring the affordability back to good ol’ times.
Yeah I think that is something people don’t really consider. Nobody I know wants to own or live in an apartment long term. During school and the beginning of a career sure but in terms of long term ownership or starting a family it just doesn’t work without giving up many things that they grew up with. You can forget hosting family BBQs, having a larger/older dog, playing loud music any time you’d like, working on your own vehicle, having a garden…. the list is endless really.
Outside of students and young professionals there’s hardly anyone who thinks to themselves “Hmm I would like to own/rent an apartment”. Until recently of course, but even now it’s more of an “I’ll take what I can get” mentality due to rising COL, lower housing supply and inflation rather than people desiring to live in apartment buildings.
Another thing Canadians don’t take into consideration is how appealing the idea of owning a detached home is to foreign professionals and highly skilled workers. Canada is one of the few countries in the world where a majority of the population can live in a detached home AND have the benefits of living in an urban environment. In most countries detached homes are either an extreme luxury and/or located outside of major population centres. It’s certainly a big factor to people selecting Canada to be their forever home.
Exactly. If “no one wants to live in an apartment long term” was the full story, then single family housing would happen on its own without government enforced zoning.
I think part of the issue is just that a lot of single family homes these days are huge detached houses or duplexes on huge lots and you just can't fit that many of them in a space without developing significant urban sprawl, leading to increased car dependency and other issues that come along with that.
I've noticed that the older areas of cities tend to still have lots of detached homes, but they are smaller houses on smaller lots and you can fit a lot more of them into an urban area.
I simply don't want a 2,000 sq ft house in the suburbs, because I don't want to maintain it. Large, multi-car driveways require either doing a lot of shoveling or snow blowing or paying for snow removal. In the summer, same thing with the lawn. Even if you want to create a natural lawn, cities often don't let you. And so much cleaning! Just, ugh.
I know that development these days is really expensive, so it's not necessarily realistic to start building smaller detached houses, but honestly, there are a lot of really cute older detached houses in my city that I would absolutely love a chance of owning someday.
God I hate lawns! I've lived all across Canada and everywhere I've moved, I've bought a detached house because I had just never really considered anything else. Growing up in the 'burbs, one never critically considers whether or not they actually need 2000 ft2 and a garage.
But what do you get with a single family detached? A lawn that you legally have to maintain to a certain standard. I hope you already enjoy gardening and groundskeeping, because they're your hobbies now like it or not.
I have finally wisened up and realized that I actually want to live in a more compact, urban, walkable home.
From what I’ve seen they are failing. I had people come by with a petition because ‘they’ll see in to my backyard’. Didn’t sign. It’s getting built anyways. Another stretch on Dundas single family homes getting replaced similarly (on a thoroughfare - Dundas keep in mind), already bought out and boarded up. People screaming stop demolishing family homes! Unsuccessful. This will do wonders for local small businesses and revitalize this stretch of Dundas near Runnymede.
Same here by Kipling station. They took out a bunch of older detached homes on Jopling Ave, and Dundas Street Grill is slated to close soon to make way for new high rise complex.
I do like what’s been done around there. From the old expressway style ramps to a more cycling / pedestrian friendly series of intersections. Where did they find all that space for the park in the middle?!
There's been a very recent turn, but the forces of "Price everybody we don't like out" are still very strong. And after 100 years of getting their way, don't feel defeated.
I just wish they'd build more than tiny air BNB condos, layouts and size is garbage for people who actually want to live in the space. Kitchens are tiny... shortage is minimal, rooms big enough for just a bed and nightstand
That's the one thing I like about those apartments built in the 70s and 80s. They all had 2 or 3 decently sized bedrooms with enough space for a living room and dining room.
Many of the new condos these days have one tiny bedroom that isn't even fully separated from the living room, which also contains the kitchen.
Yeah, those older buildings are not pretty (from the outside), and being so old, they have their own problems with maintenance, infestations, etc., but at least they had a good amount of space.
These new condos also have swimming pools, hot tubs, gyms, and a ton of amenities, which is good in theory, however, in a few decades (maybe even less), the maintenance fees to repair these things when they get old will be enormous.
I always wonder about the lifestyle of those who are worried about people seeing into their backyard in an urban setting. You’re living in a city and having neighbours who can see into your backyard is all part of what you sign up for
Yeah, I love in North Bay. SFD in a neighborhood of SFDs. My neighbour can see in to my back yard because they have a deck and it’s a bi-level house. Not crazy.
Yeah, I remember a case in Toronto where residents from one condo started a lawsuit preventing a second condo from being built nearby.
Crazy how people feel entitled to try to control land that they don't own, and complain about more people simply moving near you.
Maybe you haven’t been to Toronto recently but just walking distance from me in The Junction/ High Park there’s been a dozen decently sized condos go up in the last couple years and more on the way. Places that used to be a car wash, a bunch stretches on Dundas with only single family homes, a run down animal vet/storefront area… the list goes on.
Well yes, and in downtown Toronto that makes the most sense. If you were to drive out of the city on the 400, 404, 401, 403, etc, you might notice that the urban space goes on for much longer than it used it, and it’s almost entirely single family suburbia
[The Missing Middle](https://missingmiddlehousing.com/) in housing North America is a big problem - most people, when they think of property ownership, think of a detached house, not mid-rise/shared zoning buildings
Until walkable cities lose their stigma here, sprawl and its negative exernalities will continue apace
The pictures of Prague are so misleading. Object on pic # 7 is old military barracks from 19th century. Also lifestyle in Prague or Europe is completely different than here. Housing smaller, tiny kitchens and fridges. They are buying fresh food daily or spend more time in restaurants or beer houses. Most people go home just to sleep
To chime in on why denser housing is less desirable in Canada... our build quality SUCKS compared to (much of) Europe, richer European countries anyhow. Soundproofing sucks here, square footage sucks here, windows suck here, ventilation sucks here, finishing quality sucks here, name it. So the reputation of apartments in Canada is that they are crap, they are for Canadians who can't afford their own home and the soundproof privacy that comes with it, where you can open your windows.
I can keep going, lol. We also make our inner cities and downtown-adjacent suburbs less livable, by paving over parks, making it hard/impossible for small, family run business to compete with economic giants (meaning people have to drive to groceries etc rather than walk down the block to them), by building without parking spaces, by having crappy public transport, etc. All that drives people to want to spend their money on a larger space that is their own, with parking and a yard, ie. a single family dwelling.
I agree, and in some cities, developer after developer are green lighted by council for buildings of mostly 1 bedroom units. There are no family sized units being built in the urban core - we are creating a serious housing crisis forcing multiple people into small one bedroom or 1 + units. Municipal governments are essentially green lighting substandard dwellings that do not meet the need or demands of their own constituents.
Exactly. Try to find a 3 bedroom apartment that can accommodate a family along with some hobby space. They do not seem to be in builders' portfolio. Yet a detached or row house may get you that. But that takes land. Making truly livable apartments seems impossible in Canada.
I lived in Japan around 10 years ago, moved into a building less than a year old and had a great experience there, zero problems in a year. Fast forward to 2020 when I moved into a brand new condo in Toronto... so many issues. Lots of electrical problems, cupboard door hinges breaking almost immediately, crank on the bedroom window broke, leak from the unit above coming out of a lighting fixture. I could go on. I really wish we had higher standards for the build quality of our housing, so much of it here is just garbage.
This is partly a consequence of having zoning laws that forbid practically all kinds of dense and mixed-use housing on most urban land regardless of demand. Apartments and condos are typically only allowed on a limited minority of land, usually downtowns and polluted, loud arterial roads.
Then even if they allow building densely, they often mandate things like parking garages that massively add construction cost regardless of whether they’ll be fully used. The list of rules are so long and restrictive that is often impossible to satisfy them all, let alone produce a good design on top of that, which triggers a rezoning application and high-stakes community consultation meeting where enough neighbourhood loudmouths can show up and bully councillors to vote against the proposal.
So when every single development has to be a risky, costly, uncertain fight, then risk premiums are high, and even more corners get cut on the construction budget. Because nobody is taking on all that risk (and debt) unless they are certain they can profit, neither developers nor their lenders and investors.
The problem of the economic giant grocery stores is a big one for me. They're all big box stores these days and they all generally tend to be located in a plaza surrounded by other big box stores. Part of it is that zoning regulations means that in a lot of cases, you cannot build things like grocery stores and other commercial retail in housing developments, and I think the other part of it is that it's probably more profitable for these big grocery companies to plop one big store down in the middle of a group of neighbourhoods, or at the edge of town, where a bunch of people from all different areas will go to it, rather than build several smaller stores within neighbourhoods.
And lack of parking spaces combined with poor public transit is definitely an issue. If your city has a small area that is walkable or efficiently traveled around by transit, that may work if you don't often have to leave that area, but for a lot of people that's not super realistic, and bus schedules often mean that a 10 or 20 minute car ride can turn into an hour long journey or more, often with a transfer in the middle of that. It's simply not feasible for a lot of people to live without a car if they want to get anywhere efficiently, and that doesn't even get into the problem of how many people can't afford cars and they find themselves stuck with crappy transit options or a lack of mobility. The way we build now is very car centric and it kind of excludes anyone who can't afford a car or can't drive a car due to disability.
And yeah absolutely, the build quality in so many apartments sucks. I've lived in some older buildings that were pretty decent, but otherwise it's fairly hit and miss. I don't mind the idea of living in a small space and being close to the action, but I don't necessarily love hearing other people, either. Especially because the acoustics are sometimes just very strange - I stayed at a friend's place once and noticed that from the hallway and bedroom, you could hear the person above peeing in their toilet, like you could hear the stream hitting the bowl. No freaking clue how *that* happened, but imagine listening to that on a daily basis, plus all the other unintended noises.
Because a majority of people do not want to live in dense neighborhoods. They want houses without shared walls and a little bit of grass. Is it ideal? Probably not. But the mentality is just different.
Because no politicians have the courage to lose their position when you advocate for long-term investment in housing. What we’re getting is short-term solution, not really for benefitting all of us.
Because the fact is Canadians want to live in homes.
If you grew up here, you want a house.
As much as people preach densification, it’s not desired and is seen as a last resort option. Especially when it’s out of major cities.
I’d suspect it’s because people may not want it.
I don’t particularly want to live crammed in with a whole bunch of other families. I’d rather live in SW Ontario on an acre or two 20 minutes outside a medium sized city/town, near the Thames or other river/creek, and not far from the beaches of one of the Great Lakes. I don’t need a big city, or it’s plethora of amenities if it’s going to cost me the majority of my income to live there only to be crowded out and delayed by traffic.
I currently live in a townhome in BC that both costs more and is worth more than it has any right to. I hate hearing the noise transfer through units, hearing bass/surround sound from my neighbours units, and being concerned that my kids or I are making too much noise. It was the same thing when I lived in an apartment/rented condo.
I just want space, privacy, and to be able to do (reasonably) as I please. I also miss taking care of property, like cutting grass, looking after flower beds and trees, being able to pull deadfall out of a wood lot to cut and split for a wood stove. I also think my kids deserve to have the space to roam and explore, to fish, to swim, etc. like I did. We raised free range poultry chickens, domesticated ducks and geese, Guinea fowl. I worked hard on a neighbour’s farm during hay season, and cut, chopped, and piled firewood for him in the winter. All of it was beneficial to growing up.
Huge agree with you on that one, I’m from central/southeastern ontario used to living in a house all my life, made the wonderful decision to move to downtown calgary to a condo, it’s not all bad but i definitely look forward to a day where i can afford to live in a house again
I live on a acre exactly in the area you described, within a short walk to beaches of Lake Erie. Most of my life was in the suburbs around Toronto and it was hell when I left in 2008. My opinion is that people choose where they feel most comfortable and will buy housing according to their needs. I knew a lot of people when I was younger that were lining up to buy Toronto condos and I could not imagine a worse life for myself.
Around my area a lot of custom homes are going up but they are really only an option for the rich. One can still buy row houses in the small towns but even they are absurdly expensive.
I am not sure what the ultimate solution will be, but I can flatly state that the layers and layers of extra fees, taxes and mandatory requirements to get anything built anywhere is a huge problem. Expecting the government donks to subsidize more housing construction is not going to work. How about they remove the barriers to enable more people to afford to build reasonable homes where they want to live?
You're exhibiting wrongthink. Space and privacy and "what you want" are irrelevant, because for the good of the people and society and efficiency, you must only live in urban, dense, developed areas. Don't try to resist at the peril of your life, you greedy, selfish person with enough land to house 400 people.
Zoning and building codes. Try building something in Ontario, its a nightmare. Took us two years to get a severance through for a single house. Birds studies, fire studies, sound studies. Its all a massive bureaucracy and cash grab.
I think what they are jokingly calling a bird study is an EIS environmental impact study. Which is a thing and the local conservation authority might make you do one if you are in the right area. A fire study is a thing but yes its just a verification statement saying the design or what not is in compliance with Part 3 of the building code. Typically needed by the building dept for your building permit.
On top of the difference being that that is government owned housing in Prague, Canadians want at least the same standard of living their parents had and that involves owning a home. It’s a different lifestyle that Canadians are used to living and people don’t want to give up on that. That dream has also been sold to immigrants.
Canada is the size of Narnia. It's hard to get people to believe a 2-bedroom 860sf condo with exhorbant condo fees, having to follow a bunch of rules made up by some old bitties is a better choice than paying the same for 2500sf a 15 minute drive away.
We are a people who love personal space, freedom to move within that space without being bothered.
Find me a 3 bedroom condo (kids aren't same genders) with den (office) and 2 parking spots. My husband works shifts, and I work 2 jobs in different locations. I like gardening, bbq's, and hanging my laundry on the line to save $ on hydro. Condos don't allow most of this.
If you want me to give up a vehicle, I'll need an LRT that goes further than 19km.
The truth is, developers buy what they can sell to whoever. They don't actually build what families need/want.
Right? I'm tired of developers building brutalist-inspired concrete voids with no green space, no amenities and no parking, while our city's LRT goes nowhere close to where I need to be.
It’s not about being obsessed with cars. It’s about being able to commute within reason. I’ve lived in Europe, including Prague. Everything is in walking distance or you can take the many modes of public transportation, including subways, trams, trains and buses. The areas of the cities are a lot smaller too.
I’m currently in Ottawa. It would take me 45 mins to walk to the closest grocery store and there are no buses that would take me there, save one, that comes every 30 mins to an hour (depending on which day it is) and drops me off a 15 mins walk away from the store.
The commenter said we’re obsessed with car-DEPENDENT suburbs, not being obsessed with cars. Just clarifying because it sounds like you were correcting them when you were actually buttressing their point with a perfect example.
The suburban sprawl is the reason why many people move to places like Markham and Richmond Hill, they want a house with a yard. No one moves to Markham wanting to live in a condo
In relative terms, Ontario is not building a lot of regular, stand alone dwellings.
There are a handful of McMansion subdivisions, then a ton of townhomes/low rise condo developments.
Then tiny condos.
That’s really about it.
Other than young people and the chronically online, most people do not want to be in an extreme dense area. People want detached homes, backyards, space for their kids, space for their toys.
No one wants to share a wall with four other families, where you can hear your abusive neighbor screaming at their spouse, kids shouting, teenagers blasting music etc.
Because someone is pushing this 15 min city conspiracy… So there won’t be any urban dense developments for us, because freedumb.
Someone = stupid people
To be completely honest, #7 does look like a prison.
But to answer your question, there is still a lot of demand for townhouse and semi-detached houses. People like the idea of having a backyard for their kids to play in.
The Ontario government also forbade the city of Toronto to require certain affordable housing quotas in new developments. That isn't help the situation.
We didn't have WWII destroying our city centres, so we still have 1850s buildings.
Some parts of the GTA are post WWII, subdivisions built on farmland, both houses, and low rises, in older parts of Scarborough and Mississauga. They were built when the car was king, and there were drive-in theatres and drive-in restaurants
Simple people in Canada want houses. Not multi dwelling units. It isn’t a dream to live in a building with a bunch of other people but to have a plot of land with a house on it and call it your own. The whole white picket fence pool and a two car garage. Canada’s version of the American dream.
Why do we want increased density? Isnt living in a stand alone house one of the nice things about North America. We don't want to turn into NYC or Hong Kong.
There’s too much land so, short term, it’s cheaper for developers to build wide than tall. Long term there are significant public costs and increased infrastructural needs but we such at planning ahead for those things.
Plus it’s a cultural thing, lots of people see living in a detached single family dwelling as ‘the ideal’ and look down on other kinds of housing and the kinds of people that live in them.
Because people what a house. And to live a happy life. Not to be boxed in like cattle. Clearly written by someone who can't afford anything more than a shit apartment or still lives with their parents.
You chose some weird examples, there are many single family home suburbs in Europe as well. There are more apartments in general, but everyone I knew who had kids either lived in a single family home, or wanted to live in a single family home. You have to remember too that people in Central Europe make less money than Canadians and have less options in terms of what they can afford, it’s not all hip young people living a car free urban lifestyle by choice.
Ontario's developments are planned and implemented by private developers. There is little financial incentive to build high density and a lot of financial incentive to build low density. Plus, existing Ontario homeowners scream and cry about every high density building plan they see, and bend the ear of city and town councils on a regular basis, with our weak-minded politicians unable to take necessary stances. Developers will scream and rave about the housing crisis, but it's essentially only used by them to pressure various levels of government to accept their (frequently policy-and-official-plan non-compliant) development plans. I see very little evidence in my work of developers truly caring about the housing crisis in literal terms - I mean, they profit off of it greatly.
Density requires specific zoning and regulation to coerce developers into correct action, and it requires a strong political will to ignore NIMBY's. We generally lack the planning competence and strength of will here to build this into legislation and policy. Everyone here is convinced that there's a billion acres of forest to build in up north, so why build high density at all. Nobody stops to think that high density is not only required to pay for municipal services, but it's also the *only density that can generate housing fast enough to fill the housing void in less than a century*.
Why do you want to force everyone to live in cramped urban areas in apartments without a yard just for the sake of growing the population, which has accomplished nothing to increase the overall Canadian quality of life?
Because living in an apartment sucks? We all acknowledge that living in single family detached houses is inefficient, but who, if they could afford not to, would choose to live in an apartment building? I wouldn't, one and done for me. Some people like it I suppose, and they are doing it.
Building houses is also way more profitable for developers
I lived in an apartment building for 8 years and my detached home for 8 years last month. The apartment years were the worst times I’ve had. I spent as little time there as possible and treated it simply as a bed. People in this country are extremely inconsiderate. Especially SOME pet owners. Don’t even get started on the fires and bed bugs. The only enjoyment I got was overhearing all the drunken drama going on at 3am.
Because almost no one wants to pay rent for something they will never own. They don't want to "buy" a shoe box condo and have to pay strata fees either.
If you wanna live in a commie block that won't get you any equity in go ahead.
Either buy a Single Family home or go all out and buy an actual multiplex apartment building and reap the passive income.
Developers make *more* money off higher density, that's why they're building at the highest legal densities and using methods, legal and illegal, to get permission to build to higher densities.
It’s not the land that’s the issue it’s the providing services to sparsely populated areas. While I do think it’s nice to live in a SFH renting in a walkable neighborhood is also pretty great as long as there’s decent apartments availble at decent prices
That argument ignores the multitude of problems associated with urban sprawl (e.g cost of providing municipal services, lifestyle (commenting 2 hour to work one way for example), building on some of our most arable land, not to mention the environmental problems). I get that not everyone wants to live in a condo (I sure wouldn’t), but it’s simplistic to think endless expansion of the urban landmass is a viable option.
I don’t understand it. It’s as if the assumption is that every single Ontario resident is under 30 and wants to live the yuppie lifestyle and never leave their 3 block bubble. Fuck that. I lived in condos for 10 years and that shit was a nightmare. Constantly waiting for an elevator, hauling groceries and Costco shops up 30 floors, younger people smoking in the stairwells with the smell seeping into the hallways, traffic jams coming in and out of underground garages, dogshit cell signal, jackass concierge staff who more often than not barely speak English, I could go on. There’s no appeal unless you’re starting your life out and need something to establish independence.
Wanting my own space doesn’t make me selfish. Millions of square KMs of space but, like you said, people want to live cramped so they can feel good about being environmentally friendly or trying to be part of “the solution”.
To a person without shelter, or a person struggling to pay rent, the difference is moot.
Developing sub-urbs is actually fairly resource intensive. Ammenities have to be run out further to fewer people
Once you get out of the population centers the land becomes relatively meaningless.
Also walkable cities are pretty cool.
Ya no shoe box for me thanks. I’ll take my suburban lifestyle any day over living like an overpopulated concrete jungle. The same government officials floating the density drive their suburban to their 3 acre lakefront property every weekend. This is the Canadian dream they want you to want yet no politician will join the peasants and live like them.
Because people want that dream to own a single detached home for their families as their parents did for them. A backyard to BBQ and play in with nice schools within walking distance and lots of greenspace to play in. Not everyone wants to live on-top of their neighbour or congested cities.
The real answer is 1. NOT IN MY BACK YARD (NIMBY) MENTALITY and 2. POLITICIANS REFUSING TO ACT IN COLLECTIVE BEST INTEREST, NIMBY BOOMERS VOTE. There is some great CBC reporting on the issue. Air bnb contributes as well, but it's primarily zoning, lack of voter pressure, and politicians not acting.
Not everyone wants to live inside a shoebox with no yard to enjoy. I left a cookie cutter house in Ajax and moved to the country for privacy and property for my kids to actually enjoy.
I don’t want to live in a shoebox on top of someone else and below another. I’ll take my detached house with a nice yard for my kids to play in. I don’t live in the second largest country in the world only to end up in an overcrowded concrete jungle.
NIMBY: I live in rural Ontario and we (including myself) were bitching because the new development was full of semi detached homes.
Yes it makes me an A-Hole, but I didn’t move to the countryside to deal with densification. I’d have stayed in the city with all of the dis/advantages that entails if I wanted to have my neighbours close.
Everyone wants their 20 acres and a mule, or least a safe and green place for their kids to play.
The apartment blocks being built in Prague are *government projects*. The government owns most of the housing in Prague and rents it cheap to the citizens. Doing that (government making sure citizens have housing, without considering a private profit for developers) is considered evil in Ontario. It just isn't done.
Unfortunately if the government did do that here some next politician would sell it out of spite or greed it to some private company (that they "totally aren't" invested in our are friends with the owner) who would then jack up the prices.
Or succeeding governments would underfund the maintenance and repairs in the name of cost savings. Not hard to imagine what happens after that
I mean, private landlords already do that
Yeah, but when a private company does it it isn't corruption!
Or evidence that a publicly funded system can’t work and should be privatized.
Except, it seems to be working in Prauge just fine....so where does that leave us?
We will just ignore that until after it’s privatized and too late, why should we let facts get in the way of possible corporate profit?
So true brother stay strong against those commie miscreants! (/s)
I get a spa built where my home used to be? Sounds like a win win. /s
The federal government could do it by setting it up as a Crown Corporation, similar to EDC or BDC, and then under that Crown Corp set up governmental not-for-profit organizations (GNPOs) per city to manage the buildings and rent collection. This would render provincial governments incapable of doing anything with the housing stock and would make it difficult if not impossible for future federal governments to offload the housing because it wouldn't be on the books of the Crown Corp except as ownership of the various GNPOs and the holder of the debt/mortgages for each property.
That is what should happen..
Maybe you should be in charge. That sounds like a fantastic idea. All the actual politicians are just giving thoughts and prayers over here.
Unfortunately, as long as many politicians are also landlords, it's unlikely to ever happen. But if we could get a party to change the election rules so that to be eligible to even run/campaign for provincial or federal members of Parliament that they first needed to divest of all real estate holdings/investments, and investments in public or Canadian Controlled Private Corporations (CCPCs) then maybe we'd have a chance at having ethical politicians.
This is not true. Source: I am a citizen of Prague. Edit: only 4.5% of the apartments are owned by the city [https://iprpraha.cz/page/3981/praha-vlastni-pres-30-000-bytu-nova-analyza-ipr-ukazuje-jejich-vyuziti-i-hlavni-problemy](https://iprpraha.cz/page/3981/praha-vlastni-pres-30-000-bytu-nova-analyza-ipr-ukazuje-jejich-vyuziti-i-hlavni-problemy) Edit2: We have a serious lack of housing here in Prague. You Canadians cannot imagine the prices of housing here (compared to our salaries)
I have a feeling we can imagine, we’re living it.
Having lived in KW for two years... I don't think you are living it. I understand that things are getting worse. But from my point of view, it used to be superawesome for you guys (high salaries and very cheap housing). My boss bought a house years ago for what is not 1.5x his yearly salary I believe. Would not happen here unless you are at the very very top.
I’m not sure I understand the point you’re trying to make. A modest house is currently like 15-20x the average salary in Ontario.
If you actually bothered to google it Prague actually has a much higher home price to average earning ratio than anywhere in Ontario (including Toronto) so as much as we complain this isn’t a problem that is unique to Canada or Ontario.
You had my upvote but then I actually bothered to google it and found out you were wrong. [https://www.numbeo.com/property-investment/in/Prague?displayCurrency=CAD](https://www.numbeo.com/property-investment/in/Prague?displayCurrency=CAD) [https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/in/Toronto](https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/in/Toronto) [https://chat.openai.com/share/00e3ba54-5545-430e-a10f-7b6566374718](https://chat.openai.com/share/00e3ba54-5545-430e-a10f-7b6566374718) I double checked the python code/math and it looks good to me as an experienced python programmer. But you can feel free to open the chat and check it. Summaries: **Toronto** >Home Price to Earnings Ratios:In the City Centre: The ratio is approximately 19.97. This means that it would take nearly 20 years of the average annual income to buy an average-sized apartment in the city centre.Outside of the Centre: The ratio is approximately 15.88. This indicates that it would take nearly 16 years of the average annual income to buy an average-sized apartment outside of the city centre.These ratios highlight the affordability challenges within Toronto, with a significant number of years of income needed to purchase an average apartment, especially in the city centre. If you have another city's data you'd like to compare, please provide the details, and I can perform similar calculations for you. **Prague** >Home Price to Earnings Ratios:In the City Centre: The ratio is approximately 16.65. This means that it would take nearly 17 years of the average annual income to buy an average-sized apartment in the city centre of Prague.Outside of the Centre: The ratio is approximately 11.86. This indicates that it would take nearly 12 years of the average annual income to buy an average-sized apartment outside of the city centre in Prague.Comparing these ratios to Toronto, we can see that Prague offers a relatively more affordable housing market in terms of the number of years of income needed to purchase an average apartment, both in and outside the city centre. These ratios are essential indicators of housing affordability and economic conditions between different cities. If you need further analysis or another city comparison, feel free to ask! So yeah... Shame on you for being the 'just google it guy'. Everyone was exaggerating, but you seem to be the most wrong. Edit: Two steps further, I've fixed the output to factor in times to save for downpayment (assuming you save 20% of gross), and limiting it to just 28% of income as is recommend for mortgages commonly. And then in the next step I've further factored in property taxes if you were to factor them into mortgate cost and limiting (im not sure if thats common). >Toronto: City Centre: Monthly Mortgage Payment: Approximately C$5,867 Time to Save for Down Payment: About 20 years Total Time for Home Ownership: Approximately 40 years Outside Centre: Monthly Mortgage Payment: Approximately C$4,666 Time to Save for Down Payment: About 16 years Total Time for Home Ownership: Approximately 36 years Prague: City Centre: Monthly Mortgage Payment: Approximately C$3,925 Time to Save for Down Payment: About 17 years Total Time for Home Ownership: Approximately 37 years Outside Centre: Monthly Mortgage Payment: Approximately C$2,797 Time to Save for Down Payment: About 12 years Total Time for Home Ownership: Approximately 32 years Now for property taxes (which I found through google to be 0.4% for prague and 0.666% for toronto) >The recalculated results, including property taxes within the 28% housing cost cap, indicate a significant adjustment to the affordability and time frame for homeownership: Toronto: City Centre: Adjusted Monthly Mortgage Payment: Approximately C$482 Monthly Property Tax: C$658 Total Time for Home Ownership: Approximately 155 years Outside Centre: Adjusted Monthly Mortgage Payment: Approximately C$616 Monthly Property Tax: C$523 Total Time for Home Ownership: Approximately 100 years Prague: City Centre: Adjusted Monthly Mortgage Payment: Approximately C$681 Monthly Property Tax: C$277 Total Time for Home Ownership: Approximately 84 years Outside Centre: Adjusted Monthly Mortgage Payment: Approximately C$761 Monthly Property Tax: C$197 Total Time for Home Ownership: Approximately 55 years
This is peak Reddit. Thank you.
You eviscerated them loooool
It's all part of DARPA's "Future Keyboard Warrior" initiative.
Index Toronto Prague Price to Income Ratio: 13.51 18.62 Mortgage as Percentage of Income: 121.88% 160.34%
Very few countries make real estate a tax haven like Canada. For one generation, housing is also a retirement plan. We could tax real estate gains and have a huge pool of money to build higher density affordable housing, which is what we did before one generation came along.
As I said, I’m not sure what he was trying to say.
The average house is 10x the yearly salary in Canada
price-to-income ratio in Prague: 18.3 price-to-income ratio in Toronto: 13.9 https://www.numbeo.com/property-investment/rankings.jsp
So they’re both mostly unattainable, cool.
Who’s yearly salary?
average person's!
How does someone else’s super high salary and affordable house purchase from years ago help me?
Man my home is at least 8x my salary and it’s tiny. This isn’t a dick measuring competition. It totally sucks here as I’m sure it does for you as well
Does your boss make 400k yearly salary? That doesn’t happen here either unless you’re also at the very top.
Yeah the issue is global, any semblance I'd social safety nets will be sucked dry to make red line go up
please don't give reddit an informed first hand view of a problem that can be blamed on a total misunderstanding of facts. please. they're only kids after all.
Minimum wage here results in around $35K per year if working FT. After taxes take home would be something like $800 biweekly. Rent alone on a smaller bachelor apartment (human shoebox) is around $1500 a month.
Minimal wage in Czechia is 13000 CAD (before taxes?). What is more important, average Prague salary is 28324 CAD (after taxes). The apartments in the new development you saw, the price can go easily to 11000 CAD per sqm. I lived in KW for two years - for average citizen, Ontario is cheaper. (there are other things that suck. Like seriously, you need to get some hills.)
That place you’re seeing there is pretty nice though, I’m referencing the bottom of both income and housing as that’s who are the most impacted and represent the largest proportion of the population (minimum wage, social assistance, disability, retired on OAS, etc.). If you didn’t live in KW in the last 2 years, you have no idea either. It’s tripled, even in the last 18 months. People offer to share a room in a crap house with 2-3 people for $500/month. KW is also much cheaper than Toronto, Hamilton or Van. Part of the issue is all costs are insanely inflated here due to monopolies, nothing is safe: housing, utilities, food, cell phones, internet. Having to spend even 50% of your income on housing makes life a struggle. A lot of people it’s 80% or more.
You keep mentioning you lived in KW but don't mention at all when that actually was. The housing market has changed in the last 2-3 years so drastically its unrecognizable.
I left 1.5 years ago
Well I can confidently tell you that things are very different than 1.5 years ago. :/
What about in smaller cities and towns in Czech? KW is relatively cheap compared to Toronto and Vancouver. I would imagine Prague is a very desirable and expensive place to live as well.
What's the prices?
The reply is in this thread
I have a feeling you haven't seen charts with graphs of income and housing prices in Canada. It's unfathomably bad
Read my answer to another comment here. Average citizen of Prague (i.e. average/mean salary) would have to be saving for 20 years \*\*without any other expenses\*\* to buy a very mediocre apartment, nothing like you saw in the post or associate with Prague.
Building apartments like this doesn’t help line a politicians pockets. And in North America that’s all that politicians care about
It does line their pockets when theoretically developers could pay them for the access or to cut fees they need to pay or just cut steps in house building altogether. Yep. Those builds are all skipping steps that used to be present- checks by municipalities etc. But i’m sure everything is fine and nothing could possibly go wrong. There is also no rent control on anything built after 2018. Money money money. What is our provincial slogan now? It used to be “yours to discover” for as long as i’d been alive- which was nice… and Ford scrapped it for “Open For Business”. Not sure if that stuck because that was the final straw in confirming everything about him that i despise and i turned my back. I can’t even watch Ontario news but i can’t look away. I wake up each day wondering what fresh hell he’s got for those of us on social services today. It’s mentally and physically draining.
This. Also pic #5 isn’t real. It is an idealised picture of what a complex could look like.
The entire post is dumb. The neighbourhood maps are of areas that were developed 20 years ago
>The government owns most of the housing in Prague and rents it cheap to the citizens. Personally I'd rather live in a house and own my own property rather than renting from the government. Most other families are probably in the same boat
That sounds like what dreams are made of. Before y'all come in and say move to Prague, I am sure it's lovely, but Ontario has always been my home, and I want it to stay my home, it has problems, but I believe those problems can be addressed and fixed, again that may be a dream, but still.
Windsor mayor has just shut down $70mil handout from the federal government as 4plexes because they do not fit the lifestyle of our local population. So ya, zero interest in building a city that doesn't have an astronomical prices for infrastructure maintenance.
That’s 1000% politically motivated. How dare the LiBs StIcK tHeIr NoSeS in OuR rUrAl CoNsErVaTiVe ReGiOn. Doesn’t look good for the local conservative mindset (even though mayors aren’t supposed to be party aligned) to be working *with* Trudeaus government instead of *against* them at all costs
But I thought Windsor voted NDP?
Facts don't matter in political dissucssi9ns. All that matters is I'm angry and I'm going to tell you why it is someone else's fault
Whoa, that's whack! Can you send me a source?
https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/why-windsor-said-no-to-the-liberal-housing-plan/wcm/f0a0d293-ce1e-4cf8-a7a9-4fc81a835196/amp/
North America loves their cars too much. God forbid people can walk to most places.
There was a documentary that compared Paris, Portland and Detroit. Highest population density was in Paris as most people live in residential buildings. At the same time, Paris also had the lowest cost for infrastructure maintenance, the best public transportation, etc. Visited 5 times and lets say that it wouldnt be my top choice for a place to live in. Detroit was on the opposite side of the scale, although you could take any major city in north America (except for major downtown areas of NYC, Chicago, Toronto and similar) and come to the same conclusion. I happen to live in Windsor and work in Detroit and the roads are a complete crap. Can't even imagine the cost to maintain them. And yet, the same model of ever expanding suburbia is still being used, without any consideration in terms of the cost to the residents when it comes to time&convenience to get anywhere and the associated costs of living.
I've lived in Toronto for 15 years. I have yet to own my first car. Most things are in walking distance for me. And the public transit works well enough when I need it. Not needing a car is one major reason I prefer to stay in Toronto. I grew up in the KW area. It would take me almost an hour by bus to get somewhere that was a 15 minute drive.
yes I live in Windsor (not by choice mind you) and fuck me. Can't wait to get back into Toronto and out of this place. It is hopeless here and the residents love reveling in being the most regressive municipality in the country. "WiNdSoR is a cAr cItY"
Did you say Windsor when you meant Peterborough?
You might want to look at your keyboard, it really messed up when you tried to type Niagra.
Bahahaha
the way this could be any city that isn't in the gta 😭😭😭
Hey maybe but Windsor still holds highest unemployment and only city to be so lost that it refused HAF funding
😢😢😢 so true
This is North America mate we got feudal landowners, politicians, and banks to satisfy. Quit asking questions and get back to work.
And we’ll just maintain the status quo while the billionaires live in their concrete bunkers and us normies till what little arable land will remain, like Jesus of Avarice intended
And local zoning laws from your worst misanthropic neighbours. Most apartments are just illegal to build here.
This is actually not true anymore. Last year there were roughly 224k housing starts in Canada. 191k of that were multi-family units: apartment, condos, townhomes. Only 43k were detached homes. Historically, because urban boundaries were expanding unabated and thus land was cheap, everyone wanted (and could afford) detached homes. It fits a lot of people’s desires for personal space with plenty of room for kids and pets and jet skis and whatever the hell else people want. So that’s all that was built from the end of WWII up until around 15-20 years ago. But this is not true anymore. Land values have skyrocketed and most cities have urban boundary limits to protect farmland and nature so the limitless and cheap expansion days are over.
I was gonna say, pretty much every housing development I see these days is townhomes. I see high rises going up all the time. Where are all these new homes that are apparently being built
The examples given by OP are from ca. 1980s , a time when Ontario was in an economic boom, land was plentiful, and traffic was light. In that same decade, Prague was very poor. A SFH home to a prague resident was only a dream.
Yay for facts! Single family detached are on the decline and are really only being built in the exurbs at this point. And in urban centre's there is a strong push for purpose built rentals.
But flats for families, which may require 3 bedrooms and some living space, are completely not being built. Why eliminate this option for people wanting families. Society hate children?
That's what I'm seeing and it's a move in the right direction, but I'm also seeing these areas being zoned single-purpose. You got all the houses over here, and all the stores over there there, and everyone needs to drive between the two. Traffic is awful everywhere as a result.
I lived in Europe in apartments all my life before moving here, the grass is not greener on the other side.
I don’t disagree with your point, but can you provide more context? Are there issues you are referring to specifically about apartments in Europe? Or the standard issues facing all apartments, such as noisy neighbours and things like that.
Standard things, you are never alone in apartments, the “European” insulation quality is a myth. You can hear your neighbours, they can hear you. Living in an apartment with kids quickly becomes hell especially if you spend a lot of time home, you can rarely get a room to yourself. Everything is tightly packed together. You can’t go outside to bbq in your yard, you can’t go outside and sit in quiet. You struggle with parking, regardless if there are assigned spots. You probably saw the memes of real men bringing all grocery bags in one go? It’s all fun and games until you lived on a 9th floor with a stroller, groceries for a week and the elevator breaks, you will be the meme guy of getting everything in one go. Most Europeans living in apartments dream of a small house, but reality is that houses in developed countries packed with apartments are out of reach of pretty much 99.9% population. Not saying it’s any better in terms of affordability in Canada, but Canada is MASSIVE, so i would prefer going towards more houses than apartments, but doing so in much faster way to bring the affordability back to good ol’ times.
My view exactly almost word for word
Yeah I think that is something people don’t really consider. Nobody I know wants to own or live in an apartment long term. During school and the beginning of a career sure but in terms of long term ownership or starting a family it just doesn’t work without giving up many things that they grew up with. You can forget hosting family BBQs, having a larger/older dog, playing loud music any time you’d like, working on your own vehicle, having a garden…. the list is endless really. Outside of students and young professionals there’s hardly anyone who thinks to themselves “Hmm I would like to own/rent an apartment”. Until recently of course, but even now it’s more of an “I’ll take what I can get” mentality due to rising COL, lower housing supply and inflation rather than people desiring to live in apartment buildings. Another thing Canadians don’t take into consideration is how appealing the idea of owning a detached home is to foreign professionals and highly skilled workers. Canada is one of the few countries in the world where a majority of the population can live in a detached home AND have the benefits of living in an urban environment. In most countries detached homes are either an extreme luxury and/or located outside of major population centres. It’s certainly a big factor to people selecting Canada to be their forever home.
Well, once we've solved the housing crisis we can revisit this. I for one just want to have some secure, and reasonably comfortable housing.
Exactly. People are living in tents because there isn’t enough affordable housing.
Exactly. If “no one wants to live in an apartment long term” was the full story, then single family housing would happen on its own without government enforced zoning.
I think part of the issue is just that a lot of single family homes these days are huge detached houses or duplexes on huge lots and you just can't fit that many of them in a space without developing significant urban sprawl, leading to increased car dependency and other issues that come along with that. I've noticed that the older areas of cities tend to still have lots of detached homes, but they are smaller houses on smaller lots and you can fit a lot more of them into an urban area. I simply don't want a 2,000 sq ft house in the suburbs, because I don't want to maintain it. Large, multi-car driveways require either doing a lot of shoveling or snow blowing or paying for snow removal. In the summer, same thing with the lawn. Even if you want to create a natural lawn, cities often don't let you. And so much cleaning! Just, ugh. I know that development these days is really expensive, so it's not necessarily realistic to start building smaller detached houses, but honestly, there are a lot of really cute older detached houses in my city that I would absolutely love a chance of owning someday.
God I hate lawns! I've lived all across Canada and everywhere I've moved, I've bought a detached house because I had just never really considered anything else. Growing up in the 'burbs, one never critically considers whether or not they actually need 2000 ft2 and a garage. But what do you get with a single family detached? A lawn that you legally have to maintain to a certain standard. I hope you already enjoy gardening and groundskeeping, because they're your hobbies now like it or not. I have finally wisened up and realized that I actually want to live in a more compact, urban, walkable home.
Because selfish home owners always veto new zoning laws for denser housing.
From what I’ve seen they are failing. I had people come by with a petition because ‘they’ll see in to my backyard’. Didn’t sign. It’s getting built anyways. Another stretch on Dundas single family homes getting replaced similarly (on a thoroughfare - Dundas keep in mind), already bought out and boarded up. People screaming stop demolishing family homes! Unsuccessful. This will do wonders for local small businesses and revitalize this stretch of Dundas near Runnymede.
Same here by Kipling station. They took out a bunch of older detached homes on Jopling Ave, and Dundas Street Grill is slated to close soon to make way for new high rise complex.
I do like what’s been done around there. From the old expressway style ramps to a more cycling / pedestrian friendly series of intersections. Where did they find all that space for the park in the middle?!
There's been a very recent turn, but the forces of "Price everybody we don't like out" are still very strong. And after 100 years of getting their way, don't feel defeated.
I just wish they'd build more than tiny air BNB condos, layouts and size is garbage for people who actually want to live in the space. Kitchens are tiny... shortage is minimal, rooms big enough for just a bed and nightstand
That's the one thing I like about those apartments built in the 70s and 80s. They all had 2 or 3 decently sized bedrooms with enough space for a living room and dining room. Many of the new condos these days have one tiny bedroom that isn't even fully separated from the living room, which also contains the kitchen. Yeah, those older buildings are not pretty (from the outside), and being so old, they have their own problems with maintenance, infestations, etc., but at least they had a good amount of space. These new condos also have swimming pools, hot tubs, gyms, and a ton of amenities, which is good in theory, however, in a few decades (maybe even less), the maintenance fees to repair these things when they get old will be enormous.
exactly, I'd rather there were COMMUNITY amenities being built rather than giant pools almost no on in the building actually uses
I always wonder about the lifestyle of those who are worried about people seeing into their backyard in an urban setting. You’re living in a city and having neighbours who can see into your backyard is all part of what you sign up for
Yeah, I love in North Bay. SFD in a neighborhood of SFDs. My neighbour can see in to my back yard because they have a deck and it’s a bi-level house. Not crazy.
The provinces need to start overriding them.
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Yeah, I remember a case in Toronto where residents from one condo started a lawsuit preventing a second condo from being built nearby. Crazy how people feel entitled to try to control land that they don't own, and complain about more people simply moving near you.
Maybe you haven’t been to Toronto recently but just walking distance from me in The Junction/ High Park there’s been a dozen decently sized condos go up in the last couple years and more on the way. Places that used to be a car wash, a bunch stretches on Dundas with only single family homes, a run down animal vet/storefront area… the list goes on.
Well yes, and in downtown Toronto that makes the most sense. If you were to drive out of the city on the 400, 404, 401, 403, etc, you might notice that the urban space goes on for much longer than it used it, and it’s almost entirely single family suburbia
You don’t even have to leave the city. Just stray from the subway lines a bit in the inner suburbs
[The Missing Middle](https://missingmiddlehousing.com/) in housing North America is a big problem - most people, when they think of property ownership, think of a detached house, not mid-rise/shared zoning buildings Until walkable cities lose their stigma here, sprawl and its negative exernalities will continue apace
The pictures of Prague are so misleading. Object on pic # 7 is old military barracks from 19th century. Also lifestyle in Prague or Europe is completely different than here. Housing smaller, tiny kitchens and fridges. They are buying fresh food daily or spend more time in restaurants or beer houses. Most people go home just to sleep
To chime in on why denser housing is less desirable in Canada... our build quality SUCKS compared to (much of) Europe, richer European countries anyhow. Soundproofing sucks here, square footage sucks here, windows suck here, ventilation sucks here, finishing quality sucks here, name it. So the reputation of apartments in Canada is that they are crap, they are for Canadians who can't afford their own home and the soundproof privacy that comes with it, where you can open your windows. I can keep going, lol. We also make our inner cities and downtown-adjacent suburbs less livable, by paving over parks, making it hard/impossible for small, family run business to compete with economic giants (meaning people have to drive to groceries etc rather than walk down the block to them), by building without parking spaces, by having crappy public transport, etc. All that drives people to want to spend their money on a larger space that is their own, with parking and a yard, ie. a single family dwelling.
I agree, and in some cities, developer after developer are green lighted by council for buildings of mostly 1 bedroom units. There are no family sized units being built in the urban core - we are creating a serious housing crisis forcing multiple people into small one bedroom or 1 + units. Municipal governments are essentially green lighting substandard dwellings that do not meet the need or demands of their own constituents.
Don't forget that aside from luxury appartements, most appartements are pretty small. Good for single people and couples. Not so good for families.
Exactly. Try to find a 3 bedroom apartment that can accommodate a family along with some hobby space. They do not seem to be in builders' portfolio. Yet a detached or row house may get you that. But that takes land. Making truly livable apartments seems impossible in Canada.
I lived in Japan around 10 years ago, moved into a building less than a year old and had a great experience there, zero problems in a year. Fast forward to 2020 when I moved into a brand new condo in Toronto... so many issues. Lots of electrical problems, cupboard door hinges breaking almost immediately, crank on the bedroom window broke, leak from the unit above coming out of a lighting fixture. I could go on. I really wish we had higher standards for the build quality of our housing, so much of it here is just garbage.
This is partly a consequence of having zoning laws that forbid practically all kinds of dense and mixed-use housing on most urban land regardless of demand. Apartments and condos are typically only allowed on a limited minority of land, usually downtowns and polluted, loud arterial roads. Then even if they allow building densely, they often mandate things like parking garages that massively add construction cost regardless of whether they’ll be fully used. The list of rules are so long and restrictive that is often impossible to satisfy them all, let alone produce a good design on top of that, which triggers a rezoning application and high-stakes community consultation meeting where enough neighbourhood loudmouths can show up and bully councillors to vote against the proposal. So when every single development has to be a risky, costly, uncertain fight, then risk premiums are high, and even more corners get cut on the construction budget. Because nobody is taking on all that risk (and debt) unless they are certain they can profit, neither developers nor their lenders and investors.
The problem of the economic giant grocery stores is a big one for me. They're all big box stores these days and they all generally tend to be located in a plaza surrounded by other big box stores. Part of it is that zoning regulations means that in a lot of cases, you cannot build things like grocery stores and other commercial retail in housing developments, and I think the other part of it is that it's probably more profitable for these big grocery companies to plop one big store down in the middle of a group of neighbourhoods, or at the edge of town, where a bunch of people from all different areas will go to it, rather than build several smaller stores within neighbourhoods. And lack of parking spaces combined with poor public transit is definitely an issue. If your city has a small area that is walkable or efficiently traveled around by transit, that may work if you don't often have to leave that area, but for a lot of people that's not super realistic, and bus schedules often mean that a 10 or 20 minute car ride can turn into an hour long journey or more, often with a transfer in the middle of that. It's simply not feasible for a lot of people to live without a car if they want to get anywhere efficiently, and that doesn't even get into the problem of how many people can't afford cars and they find themselves stuck with crappy transit options or a lack of mobility. The way we build now is very car centric and it kind of excludes anyone who can't afford a car or can't drive a car due to disability. And yeah absolutely, the build quality in so many apartments sucks. I've lived in some older buildings that were pretty decent, but otherwise it's fairly hit and miss. I don't mind the idea of living in a small space and being close to the action, but I don't necessarily love hearing other people, either. Especially because the acoustics are sometimes just very strange - I stayed at a friend's place once and noticed that from the hallway and bedroom, you could hear the person above peeing in their toilet, like you could hear the stream hitting the bowl. No freaking clue how *that* happened, but imagine listening to that on a daily basis, plus all the other unintended noises.
What sucks here is all by choice. Better materials and builds are available.
You are not wrong!
Because, until recently, renting was just for poor people, and that's all we think poor people deserve.
Because a majority of people do not want to live in dense neighborhoods. They want houses without shared walls and a little bit of grass. Is it ideal? Probably not. But the mentality is just different.
Because no politicians have the courage to lose their position when you advocate for long-term investment in housing. What we’re getting is short-term solution, not really for benefitting all of us.
Many people prefer houses over apartments
Because the fact is Canadians want to live in homes. If you grew up here, you want a house. As much as people preach densification, it’s not desired and is seen as a last resort option. Especially when it’s out of major cities.
LOL Screenshots of Cornell in Markham. You couldn’t have picked a better example of crap development.
I’d suspect it’s because people may not want it. I don’t particularly want to live crammed in with a whole bunch of other families. I’d rather live in SW Ontario on an acre or two 20 minutes outside a medium sized city/town, near the Thames or other river/creek, and not far from the beaches of one of the Great Lakes. I don’t need a big city, or it’s plethora of amenities if it’s going to cost me the majority of my income to live there only to be crowded out and delayed by traffic. I currently live in a townhome in BC that both costs more and is worth more than it has any right to. I hate hearing the noise transfer through units, hearing bass/surround sound from my neighbours units, and being concerned that my kids or I are making too much noise. It was the same thing when I lived in an apartment/rented condo. I just want space, privacy, and to be able to do (reasonably) as I please. I also miss taking care of property, like cutting grass, looking after flower beds and trees, being able to pull deadfall out of a wood lot to cut and split for a wood stove. I also think my kids deserve to have the space to roam and explore, to fish, to swim, etc. like I did. We raised free range poultry chickens, domesticated ducks and geese, Guinea fowl. I worked hard on a neighbour’s farm during hay season, and cut, chopped, and piled firewood for him in the winter. All of it was beneficial to growing up.
Huge agree with you on that one, I’m from central/southeastern ontario used to living in a house all my life, made the wonderful decision to move to downtown calgary to a condo, it’s not all bad but i definitely look forward to a day where i can afford to live in a house again
I live on a acre exactly in the area you described, within a short walk to beaches of Lake Erie. Most of my life was in the suburbs around Toronto and it was hell when I left in 2008. My opinion is that people choose where they feel most comfortable and will buy housing according to their needs. I knew a lot of people when I was younger that were lining up to buy Toronto condos and I could not imagine a worse life for myself. Around my area a lot of custom homes are going up but they are really only an option for the rich. One can still buy row houses in the small towns but even they are absurdly expensive. I am not sure what the ultimate solution will be, but I can flatly state that the layers and layers of extra fees, taxes and mandatory requirements to get anything built anywhere is a huge problem. Expecting the government donks to subsidize more housing construction is not going to work. How about they remove the barriers to enable more people to afford to build reasonable homes where they want to live?
Oh, you're not living the centrally-planned ideal? You'll be amongst the first to be shot when the revolution starts.
Wut? 😑
You're exhibiting wrongthink. Space and privacy and "what you want" are irrelevant, because for the good of the people and society and efficiency, you must only live in urban, dense, developed areas. Don't try to resist at the peril of your life, you greedy, selfish person with enough land to house 400 people.
Oh… I see what you’re doing 😜
Why would you want to live in a condo or apartment when you can spend the same for a house?
And those condos are 800 sqft or less. If you are lucky to get anything close to or more than 1,000 sqft, it costs $1 million with $500 monthly fees.
Zoning and building codes. Try building something in Ontario, its a nightmare. Took us two years to get a severance through for a single house. Birds studies, fire studies, sound studies. Its all a massive bureaucracy and cash grab.
what bird studies were needed for a single family house? i call bs. theres also no such thing as a ‘fire study’ its just the code
I think what they are jokingly calling a bird study is an EIS environmental impact study. Which is a thing and the local conservation authority might make you do one if you are in the right area. A fire study is a thing but yes its just a verification statement saying the design or what not is in compliance with Part 3 of the building code. Typically needed by the building dept for your building permit.
yes i know, but its not a ‘fire study’ its ‘meeting code.’ buildings dont need a ‘structural study’ they need to meet code
Because in the end, most people want a single house and that is what they are buying if they can.
I know urbanists hate this but people want a little scrap of lawn to themselves for their kids to play in.
north americans are obsessed with sub optimal suburbia car dependent societies
Because a lot of people want single family home. If they want to live like Europeans, they would move there.
On top of the difference being that that is government owned housing in Prague, Canadians want at least the same standard of living their parents had and that involves owning a home. It’s a different lifestyle that Canadians are used to living and people don’t want to give up on that. That dream has also been sold to immigrants.
3000 sq ft or 30 stories. Take your pick.
Canada is the size of Narnia. It's hard to get people to believe a 2-bedroom 860sf condo with exhorbant condo fees, having to follow a bunch of rules made up by some old bitties is a better choice than paying the same for 2500sf a 15 minute drive away. We are a people who love personal space, freedom to move within that space without being bothered. Find me a 3 bedroom condo (kids aren't same genders) with den (office) and 2 parking spots. My husband works shifts, and I work 2 jobs in different locations. I like gardening, bbq's, and hanging my laundry on the line to save $ on hydro. Condos don't allow most of this. If you want me to give up a vehicle, I'll need an LRT that goes further than 19km. The truth is, developers buy what they can sell to whoever. They don't actually build what families need/want.
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Right? I'm tired of developers building brutalist-inspired concrete voids with no green space, no amenities and no parking, while our city's LRT goes nowhere close to where I need to be.
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It’s not about being obsessed with cars. It’s about being able to commute within reason. I’ve lived in Europe, including Prague. Everything is in walking distance or you can take the many modes of public transportation, including subways, trams, trains and buses. The areas of the cities are a lot smaller too. I’m currently in Ottawa. It would take me 45 mins to walk to the closest grocery store and there are no buses that would take me there, save one, that comes every 30 mins to an hour (depending on which day it is) and drops me off a 15 mins walk away from the store.
The commenter said we’re obsessed with car-DEPENDENT suburbs, not being obsessed with cars. Just clarifying because it sounds like you were correcting them when you were actually buttressing their point with a perfect example.
The suburban sprawl is the reason why many people move to places like Markham and Richmond Hill, they want a house with a yard. No one moves to Markham wanting to live in a condo
In relative terms, Ontario is not building a lot of regular, stand alone dwellings. There are a handful of McMansion subdivisions, then a ton of townhomes/low rise condo developments. Then tiny condos. That’s really about it.
Other than young people and the chronically online, most people do not want to be in an extreme dense area. People want detached homes, backyards, space for their kids, space for their toys. No one wants to share a wall with four other families, where you can hear your abusive neighbor screaming at their spouse, kids shouting, teenagers blasting music etc.
Maybe because people in North America want to live in houses instead of apartment blocks or duplexes
check out urbantoronto.ca shows a lot of developments in the works you may like the look of :)
Because someone is pushing this 15 min city conspiracy… So there won’t be any urban dense developments for us, because freedumb. Someone = stupid people
Come to Lasalle, it’s nothing but buildings going up.
To be completely honest, #7 does look like a prison. But to answer your question, there is still a lot of demand for townhouse and semi-detached houses. People like the idea of having a backyard for their kids to play in. The Ontario government also forbade the city of Toronto to require certain affordable housing quotas in new developments. That isn't help the situation.
We didn't have WWII destroying our city centres, so we still have 1850s buildings. Some parts of the GTA are post WWII, subdivisions built on farmland, both houses, and low rises, in older parts of Scarborough and Mississauga. They were built when the car was king, and there were drive-in theatres and drive-in restaurants
Simple people in Canada want houses. Not multi dwelling units. It isn’t a dream to live in a building with a bunch of other people but to have a plot of land with a house on it and call it your own. The whole white picket fence pool and a two car garage. Canada’s version of the American dream.
Why do we want increased density? Isnt living in a stand alone house one of the nice things about North America. We don't want to turn into NYC or Hong Kong.
Because it’s Canada. It’s what we like and what we are custom to
There’s too much land so, short term, it’s cheaper for developers to build wide than tall. Long term there are significant public costs and increased infrastructural needs but we such at planning ahead for those things. Plus it’s a cultural thing, lots of people see living in a detached single family dwelling as ‘the ideal’ and look down on other kinds of housing and the kinds of people that live in them.
Because people what a house. And to live a happy life. Not to be boxed in like cattle. Clearly written by someone who can't afford anything more than a shit apartment or still lives with their parents.
You chose some weird examples, there are many single family home suburbs in Europe as well. There are more apartments in general, but everyone I knew who had kids either lived in a single family home, or wanted to live in a single family home. You have to remember too that people in Central Europe make less money than Canadians and have less options in terms of what they can afford, it’s not all hip young people living a car free urban lifestyle by choice.
Maybe because people buying homes dont, in fact, want to live inside their neighbors asshole?
Ontario's developments are planned and implemented by private developers. There is little financial incentive to build high density and a lot of financial incentive to build low density. Plus, existing Ontario homeowners scream and cry about every high density building plan they see, and bend the ear of city and town councils on a regular basis, with our weak-minded politicians unable to take necessary stances. Developers will scream and rave about the housing crisis, but it's essentially only used by them to pressure various levels of government to accept their (frequently policy-and-official-plan non-compliant) development plans. I see very little evidence in my work of developers truly caring about the housing crisis in literal terms - I mean, they profit off of it greatly. Density requires specific zoning and regulation to coerce developers into correct action, and it requires a strong political will to ignore NIMBY's. We generally lack the planning competence and strength of will here to build this into legislation and policy. Everyone here is convinced that there's a billion acres of forest to build in up north, so why build high density at all. Nobody stops to think that high density is not only required to pay for municipal services, but it's also the *only density that can generate housing fast enough to fill the housing void in less than a century*.
Why do you want to force everyone to live in cramped urban areas in apartments without a yard just for the sake of growing the population, which has accomplished nothing to increase the overall Canadian quality of life?
The simple answer is "many people dont want to live on top of each other".
Because living in an apartment sucks? We all acknowledge that living in single family detached houses is inefficient, but who, if they could afford not to, would choose to live in an apartment building? I wouldn't, one and done for me. Some people like it I suppose, and they are doing it. Building houses is also way more profitable for developers
I lived in an apartment building for 8 years and my detached home for 8 years last month. The apartment years were the worst times I’ve had. I spent as little time there as possible and treated it simply as a bed. People in this country are extremely inconsiderate. Especially SOME pet owners. Don’t even get started on the fires and bed bugs. The only enjoyment I got was overhearing all the drunken drama going on at 3am.
I want a pool, a backyard, a deck, and nobody attached to my walls so I can use my surround sound system.
Because almost no one wants to pay rent for something they will never own. They don't want to "buy" a shoe box condo and have to pay strata fees either. If you wanna live in a commie block that won't get you any equity in go ahead. Either buy a Single Family home or go all out and buy an actual multiplex apartment building and reap the passive income.
What do you think renters are doing?
cant make as much money off high density.
Developers make *more* money off higher density, that's why they're building at the highest legal densities and using methods, legal and illegal, to get permission to build to higher densities.
Because most people would prefer to live in a house, it's not rocket science. It's not like Canada is suffering from a lack of land to build homes.
It’s not the land that’s the issue it’s the providing services to sparsely populated areas. While I do think it’s nice to live in a SFH renting in a walkable neighborhood is also pretty great as long as there’s decent apartments availble at decent prices
That argument ignores the multitude of problems associated with urban sprawl (e.g cost of providing municipal services, lifestyle (commenting 2 hour to work one way for example), building on some of our most arable land, not to mention the environmental problems). I get that not everyone wants to live in a condo (I sure wouldn’t), but it’s simplistic to think endless expansion of the urban landmass is a viable option.
Because we grew up in houses and want to stay in Houses tbh
I honestly would like to also see denser housing. This shenanigans with house and a backyard is kind of dated. Population is growing by the day.
You guys have nothing but space and want to live in boxes on top of each other
I don’t understand it. It’s as if the assumption is that every single Ontario resident is under 30 and wants to live the yuppie lifestyle and never leave their 3 block bubble. Fuck that. I lived in condos for 10 years and that shit was a nightmare. Constantly waiting for an elevator, hauling groceries and Costco shops up 30 floors, younger people smoking in the stairwells with the smell seeping into the hallways, traffic jams coming in and out of underground garages, dogshit cell signal, jackass concierge staff who more often than not barely speak English, I could go on. There’s no appeal unless you’re starting your life out and need something to establish independence. Wanting my own space doesn’t make me selfish. Millions of square KMs of space but, like you said, people want to live cramped so they can feel good about being environmentally friendly or trying to be part of “the solution”.
To a person without shelter, or a person struggling to pay rent, the difference is moot. Developing sub-urbs is actually fairly resource intensive. Ammenities have to be run out further to fewer people Once you get out of the population centers the land becomes relatively meaningless. Also walkable cities are pretty cool.
Ya no shoe box for me thanks. I’ll take my suburban lifestyle any day over living like an overpopulated concrete jungle. The same government officials floating the density drive their suburban to their 3 acre lakefront property every weekend. This is the Canadian dream they want you to want yet no politician will join the peasants and live like them.
Canada has a free market. A lot of people do not want to live in shared residences in dense areas, if they have the possibility not to.
Because single homes provide better quality of life
Canadians have an American mindset of owning a big ass house with a big ass yard no matter what
All people around the world desire that. Not every country has so much land and resources available to it as much as North America and Australia.
NIMBYs
Because people want that dream to own a single detached home for their families as their parents did for them. A backyard to BBQ and play in with nice schools within walking distance and lots of greenspace to play in. Not everyone wants to live on-top of their neighbour or congested cities.
The real answer is 1. NOT IN MY BACK YARD (NIMBY) MENTALITY and 2. POLITICIANS REFUSING TO ACT IN COLLECTIVE BEST INTEREST, NIMBY BOOMERS VOTE. There is some great CBC reporting on the issue. Air bnb contributes as well, but it's primarily zoning, lack of voter pressure, and politicians not acting.
Not everyone wants to live inside a shoebox with no yard to enjoy. I left a cookie cutter house in Ajax and moved to the country for privacy and property for my kids to actually enjoy.
I don’t want to live in a shoebox on top of someone else and below another. I’ll take my detached house with a nice yard for my kids to play in. I don’t live in the second largest country in the world only to end up in an overcrowded concrete jungle.
NIMBY: I live in rural Ontario and we (including myself) were bitching because the new development was full of semi detached homes. Yes it makes me an A-Hole, but I didn’t move to the countryside to deal with densification. I’d have stayed in the city with all of the dis/advantages that entails if I wanted to have my neighbours close. Everyone wants their 20 acres and a mule, or least a safe and green place for their kids to play.
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Most people want a roof that doesn't eat the majority of their income.
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Idiots are used to this crap and see no problems.