Some folks on here have been repeating this garbage as well
While I presume that it’s an extreme example, I’d rather have a nice home but no capital than a tent with plenty. After all, that home itself is a form of capital in the first place, but a tent is a pretty low standard of living, especially being a person who values owning some nice electronics and a good internet connection.
That said, while I do get your idea of equality, this is entirely localized equality, and has nothing to do with the greater level of wealth inequality. Suburbia only exists due to rich downtowns subsidizing them. This isn’t the 18th century where you could get away with having a public well and firewood as the only government resources provided to support your businesses. You need proper sewage, electricity, roads, and a wide variety of other government services just for a suburb to exist, including that small-time bakery that probably only barely makes enough money to keep three types of bread on the shelves. Compared to the single bakery that has four dozen loafs, buns, and cakes that pays six figures in rent a year.
And that doesn’t take into consideration that I personally believe that mixed use buildings are the best as well. Rather than dedicated buildings for commercial and housing, you make the first floor of every building commercial, and the upper floors for homes. This way, you can even have small little bakeries every few blocks thanks to the abundance of commercial space, yet have them be both highly profitable and taxable due to the high density of local housing. People don’t have to drive 10 minutes just to get some bread (in which case they won’t bother and just go to the local super store once a week, killing the local bakeries anyways). It’s always in the suburbs that local businesses die and are replaced by megamalls and other super-sized stores. Because if it’s not in walking distance, it’s not worth going to unless if you can do all your weekly shopping there at once.
Where’s the equality when one Wallmart took over two dozen family businesses?
I understand the appeal of having a nice house with a yard, but I think that the option for just a decent home at a decent price should also be available to those who want them. Suburbia isn’t going away as we’re not turning them back into farmland, and Toronto’s low density districts (especially the commercial parts) can easily be transformed into high density mixed use housing that’ll make the city far more livable, and give far more opportunities.
It’s not even a little equal when the only homes that are made are all starting at a price point that requires six figure salaries, especially if they’re being subsidized by those who are already paying a higher percentage of their wages in taxes.
that home itself is a form of capital in the first place
Technically true, but of no greater capital utility than the tent. The home carries some capital premium as it should have a longer lifetime, but what’s that? Even if you bought a new tent every week, that’s, what, maybe $200,000 over the course of your adult life? So if you accept paying much more than $200,000 for a home you’re being economically foolish.
And, to be fair, I suppose an economy should allow people to be foolish. You have to have some fun sometimes. But is a house really where you want sink your fun? I can think of a long list of things that are more fun that erecting a structure that then becomes a job to maintain forevermore.
Where’s the equality when one Wallmart took over two dozen family businesses?
Exactly. Walmart could not exist without some level of urban density. There is good reason you don’t see them setting up in the middle of the Boreal forest. We are sparse enough that there is some, albeit limited, room for others to sell similar goods, but if you crank up the density there will be no need and all you will have is Walmart.
As before, we’ve chosen to walk the middle road by being sparse, but not extreme countryside sparse. We want some wealth inequality. We don’t want total wealth inequality. We like to have the Walmarts of the world. But we also want to give some opportunity to others.
Most Walmarts are in suburbs. They actually don’t do as well in heavily urbanized areas. At the very least, I’ve never seen one in downtown Toronto. The taxes for the amount of land they need alone destroys their profits, but in the suburbs they can take an entire block at next to zero cost and serve a good 10-20km radius because who cares about going an extra km if you can do all your shopping in one trip than two, whereas if everything is in walking distance, who cares about walking an extra block to get one little thing while you’re out doing something else like working.
I’m talking about being against suburbia and for high density urbanization. Did you know that bike lanes actually increase profits of small local businesses compared to increasing the lanes of roads? You can’t have bikes in suburbia because everything is too far away to bike to. But in high density urban environments, biking is far preferred to cars.
And also, you argue tents for cost, but did you know the average home in downtown Tokyo is only $300k? Few places are denser than Tokyo, yet some of the best parts of it you can buy four detached houses for the cost of a house in Toronto. I know I’m going all over the place, but frankly speaking, all the problems we’re dealing with in Canada with housing and life affordability are things that have been solved in other places, and we can easily learn from if there was the political will to do so.
Few places are denser than Tokyo
Laughable. Tokyo only has 6,000 people per square kilometre. Slightly less farmer field than Toronto, but only just. In fact, fewer places are more sprawling than Tokyo. Have you not seen how much land it wastes?
Kowloon Walled City has 1,346,000 people per square kilometre. Now that’s a city! Manila has 70,000 people per square kilometre. Small town numbers, but at least respectable.
4-6,000 people? You’re not even in the running. That is only just slightly more populated than a rural area.
