Goodbye Toronto, hello Winnipeg: Are Canada’s young giving up big city dreams? | Hacker News Reader

Goodbye Toronto, hello Winnipeg: Are Canada’s young giving up big city dreams?

theglobeandmail.com

15 pointsilamont17 comments

Key quote is further down in the article, although I don't know if the referenced study accounted for health care costs:

"Mr. Yan conducted a study looking at the median housing values of various North American cities, as well as median incomes. He found that while Vancouver is the third most expensive city to live in, it is ranked 50th in income, with a median household income of $72,622. Toronto’s ranked 32, with a median household income of $78,373.

San Jose and San Francisco, where all the big tech firms are located, are the first and second most expensive cities in North America, respectively, but they’re also No. 1 and No. 2 in median household income. If median income were higher in Canada’s largest cities, then those 30-somethings would make these urban hot spots more of a long-term destination, he says."

EDIT: Andy Yan's data for the initial comparisons are based on Stats Canada numbers, which means his initial set[1] of studies and analysis seem to have focused on Canada-only.

[1] https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/radical-disconnect-...

I live in Toronto. It's relatively expensive, but the rent prices don't factor in tons of things:

1. You don't need a car, carshares like Zipcar work great, which saves $1000/month ($200/month parking, $200/month insurance, $300/month gas, $300/month lease/maintenance)

2. Stress level and commutes - walking is a pleasure (especially with the PATH in the winter), while driving is stressful and harmful to your health. The 1-2 he you save daily with commutes/driving is life that you get back.

3. Opportunity cost - you can do 2-3 free meetups/events per week to meet new people and network. The interchange of ideas and connections is priceless

4. You don't need a house. A house is a luxury and so is having kids.

You can still find 1br units for $1500-$2000/month. Condos are for sale in the city for $400,000.

It's not that living in Toronto is expensive. It's people's misconception that owning a house and having children are basics, when they're actually luxuries. My response to not being able to afford living in the city while spending on other luxuries is usually too bad. Figure out your priorities and make sacrifices.

All of what you said makes sense in the context of being a relatively, financially mobile, single person.

Having a children and home that isn't the size of a shoebox is the norm in most regions of Canada, and should not be considered a luxury. So yeah, it is that Toronto is expensive, if you want these things out of life.

To your point re 400k condos, I would very much question the quality, size, and location for these. 400 seems very low and below market for the city.

You can get an OK-quality condo for $400k, but it's definitely not going to be located in downtown or midtown. The condo fees I've seen however are unfortunately pretty high across the board, anywhere from from $500 to $900/month.

The condo fees explode in most new developments between year 2 and 5, often tripling in the city.

Additionally, the baseline fee burden is amplified by the practice of developers counting guest suites as sold by pre-selling the suite to the condo corporation, who then place the financing costs of the guest suites onto the unit owners.

I did not know about this. I'm pretty inexperienced in this area, so I appreciate the heads up about that.

Usually $0.60-$0.70/sqft. Some terribly built and managed buildings are higher. If you're at 600 square feet I wouldnt expect to pay more than $450/month.

This is however much less than the repairs and maintenance on a house. Replacing a roof? Furnace? Lawn work? Have fun.

Plus having concierge to receive packages for you is fantastic.

They're small, to be sure. You get 400-500 square feet. Enough to eat, sleep, work a little from home and watch movies with company. Perfectly livable. There's both modern and older buildings at that price range.

I feel this is a bit sensationalized. If one didn't want to put up with Toronto housing prices, there are many other affordable choices within 1-2h drive from Toronto. No need to pack up and move to Winnipeg which, btw, is the murder capital of the country [1]. And this is in a year that Toronto is seeing some of its worst gun violence since the mid 2000s.

[1] https://globalnews.ca/news/4347007/manitoba-has-highest-homi...

Winnipeg is in the top ten, but definitely not the murder capital of Canada: https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/these-are-the-canadian-...

To put it in perspective, the murder rate of 2.9 per 100,000 makes Winnipeg about as dangerous as San Jose, CA or Raleigh, NC.

I’m still amazed that we consider a 1-2h commute acceptable.

I would not consider that acceptable. I guess the assumption is that you would commute into Toronto for work. But that is not what I was talking about. I meant that there were places close by that one could have a life. For example, Kitchener-Waterloo, London, Hamilton. All these places have way more affordable housing and job opportunities.

London is approximately 2 hours driving from Toronto. Kitchener-Waterloo is similar. Only Hamilton is close to the 1 hour mark, and housing prices have been rising there as well.

Well I did say 1-2h in the GP.

It's not, but it's better than moving a couple thousand kilometers away from your friends and family, denying your kids to their grandparents if you're married etc.

Guess it depends how much you like your family.

Less glibly, you commute every day, even those that live close-ish to their parents will typically see them less than once a week. Obviously this is range dependent, but there are plenty of moves that would result in increased quality of life without complete elimination (or even reduction) of family time.

Personally I'd argue that giving children more time with their parents is more important than "denying" the grandparents access, but I also don't have kids, so what do I know?

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