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Comment by throwaway316943 | Hacker News Reader

It’s almost like it’s progressively getting worse as more people crowd in.

The very, very easy way to fix that is to build enough housing. Places don't suck because a lot of people live there, they suck for lots of reasons that are orthogonal to the population.

That’s very subjective, my definition of suckiness definitely factors in population density.

I don't think it's subjective at all. There are cities that are clean and safe and well run, and you might not want to live there because they have a lot of people, but that doesn't make the city bad. I think your preference to live away from people is subjective, and that's fine, but the rule can't be that you get to live right where you want and no one else can move. Either people can move or they can't. I presume you don't live in the neighborhood you grew up in?

I’m not saying the solution is for people to not move, I’m in favour of people living where they want. I don’t have the solution to the problems caused by rapid growth, it’s probably some combination of allowing mixed zoning so that there is enough housing and supporting businesses for the new residents along with better planning of or restrictions on municipal expansion to avoid sprawl and encourage better use of the land within the existing municipality. There’s probably a bunch of other reforms necessary to prevent the bad parts of gentrification and provide more of a safety net for people who get displaced. It’sa big hairy problem for sure.

Rapid change is disruptive. No remedy will please locals who don't welcome those changes. Folks who lived in Austin 30 years ago (before the growth in Round Rock, Georgetown, and the Hill Country, and the invasion of high tech) chose to live there because it was affordable and offered a fun weird mix of music & academics unique for hundreds of miles (perhaps similar to Santa Fe's acculturation 40 years ago). That precious mix has diminished to make their home less weird, more commercial, and damned expensive.

There's no easy fix for this, especially in a place as extremely laissez-faire as Texas, where urban planning and zoning are seen as mortal sins.

Canada's really getting hit. Market looks like a gaming table. Housing drastically needs protection from speculators.

Take Vancouver - even though they passed residency laws, with penalties. Average price in 1977: $90k. 2017:$1.05M. Average price dropped to $900k in Dec 2020 ... now $1.4M.

https://www.zolo.ca/vancouver-real-estate/trends

This is the correct identification of cause that people don't want to accept.

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