Quote:
Originally Posted by Hack&Lube
Like the Wallstreet crisis, greed is to blame. Cheap and abundant land and developers building suburbs like there is no tomorrow...
The city could have curtailed all this with proper zoning laws.
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I'm not a fan of this post. Too vague.
Greed is to blame? Greed how? Like homeowners are greedy for wanting a house and yard? Or they're greedy for wanting a place they can afford? Or is it the evil land developers that are greedy?
You do know that society does not function well when a small portion of the people own the majority of land, right? So why is it a bad thing if the wealth is spread out among the middle class? I see nothing wrong with a middle class, and to have a middle class, property ownership is key.
Is it the land developers that you're chastizing? If so, why? They're just providing a product that is in demand. Just like clothes makers and electricity providers. It's not like houses are being build on the outskirts of town while inner city condos are left vacant. There are higher density projects all over the city that are selling and filling up just as fast as the 'sprawling' suburbs. People are still moving here and they need places to live.
As for city zoning laws, judging by your comment, I doubt you're very familiar with the zoning laws in Calgary, or in any city. Getting land re-zoned in Calgary is not easy. The application process takes forever. And it's not lax at all.
What are these proper zoning laws you speak of? I can tell you that if zoning laws in Calgary were the type that forced people to build up instead of out, people would simply move to Red Deer or Dirty-Stinking-Mulletville, and Calgary would quickly become stagnant.
Zoning a city is like walking a tightrope. It has to be flexible enough to be appealing to developers and buyers, but still be strict enough to keep development orderly.
So what I'm saying is that your comment makes it sound like we're in the wild west and people are sticking flags in the dirt and building things arbitrarily, which is simply not true. And greed may be the root of the problem, but greed is also the root of every other problem known to man, so pointing out it's presence in this equation is moot.