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Comment by tyu100 | Hacker News Reader

Vancouver has done nothing but massively build new housing, one of the most prolific metros in North America. There were just lots of greenfield and brownfield areas to build on first, rather than up-zoning existing residential areas. (Olympic Village, now NE False Creek). The transit and other systems can barely handle the existing density as it is.

It doesn't matter how much you upzone SFH areas when you have tens of thousands of new people coming to your metro every year, it will never be enough.

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If you could add some sourced numbers to this comment it would be helpful. You might be right or wrong but I can't tell from this comment alone.

Lots of data here: http://www.metrovancouver.org/services/regional-planning/Pla... to answer many questions about Vancouver housing. They average about 20,000 new housing units per year.

If 10s of thousands of people are moving to an area, there is easily a way to build enough housing.

All you have to do is build more than 10s of thousands of apartments.

This really isn't that hard. Just pick a small 1 square mile area in a singular section of your city and say "THIS is the high density zone. Anyone can build any amount of 20-30 story buildings."

And then you simply keep zone laws the same in all the other "low" density areas.

Everyone wins. The new people who are moving to a city get their apartments, and the suburban people can keep their yards.

First you have to put a stop to all the speculation. Otherwise half of those apartments will be empty, owned by people overseas.

This is what's happening in SF. The eastern side of the city is the high-density zone, and as prices get higher and higher, it's pushing farther west, into Cole Valley and the central Mission.

What's stopping the process is (a) rent-controlled tenants occupying buildings built before the time rent control no longer applies, and (b) prop 13. Both give people very strong incentives not to move.

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