Submitting for this truly astonishing quote:

" Landlords in Quebec, however, feel they need to catch up to other provinces as Quebec is still one of the most affordable places to live in the country, said Jean-Olivier Reed, a spokesperson for the Quebec Landlord Association (APQ)."

    • BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca
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      4 months ago

      You don’t improve walkability by spreading things out, you actually want the exact opposite.

      Speculation is harder if there’s more of something available.

      Social housing… I fail to see any connection to the amount of land in a country.

      • acargitz@lemmy.caOP
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        4 months ago

        Yes but we are not talking generally about the correlations, we are specifically talking about Singapore which you brought up as a place where many policies are implemented and there is still a housing crisis. My response is that the Singapore scenario suffers from extreme scarcity of land which would explain a lot of Singapore’s problems and is therefore not a good counterargument for the Canadian context which is very very difficult.

        • BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca
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          4 months ago

          Their population hasn’t increased at all in the last 6 years, so how does a lack of land explain the cost increases of housing they’re seeing over that period?

          • acargitz@lemmy.caOP
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            4 months ago

            You misrepresent what I’m saying. I’m saying that the constraints in one vs the other country are so vastly different that you can’t draw direct conclusions.

            I have no idea how the Singaporean society and economy functions. Maybe they need more space for factories and vertical farms. Maybe the previous situation was too crowded to begin with and they are taking up more space. I don’t know. Do you?

            And regardless, it’s up to you to explain why the real estate market of a tiny island city state is a useful paradigm from which to learn policy lessons in the second largest country on earth. It’s a counter-intuitive position, so the maxim that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence applies.

            • BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca
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              4 months ago

              You’re using the “no true scotsman” defence right now. There is no other country comparable to the size of Canada in the world other than Russia, so does that mean we can only look at them for policy?

              “I don’t know about this place so I’m not going to be able to even consider it’s policies” - That’s an ignorance argument.

              Where’s your proof that any of the policies you’re suggesting will work? Do you have a single example of them working elsewhere?

              • acargitz@lemmy.caOP
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                4 months ago

                No I am not. I am not even defending: I did not reject off hand your position, I said it is implausible based on what I know, explained why I think it is implausible and asked for you to explain why you think it isn’t. It’s dialogue, not sparring.

                I don’t even have to provide “proof” of policies working. You are the one that said none of them would work, i.e., you’re the one that makes a blanket statement. I’m saying try them all, some combination will probably do it, because these all sound like good ideas that are also not mutually exclusive. You’re asserting something logically stronger than me, so you’re the one with the burden of proof.

                • BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca
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                  4 months ago

                  The person who makes the original assertion needs to prove it, not the one that “asserts something logically stronger”

                  I can also just point to the fact that we’ve tried a bunch of these policies at a smaller scale, other places have tried a bunch of these policies at various scales, and as far as I know there isn’t a developed country that has declining home prices in cities, or that have managed to keep any of their bigger cities affordable.