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Comment by bitxbitxbitcoin | Hacker News Reader

Almost as if the large companies would like those unable to buy homes to misdirect their ire.

The large companies just don’t account for very many homes. Once you control out for homes under construction, that just isn’t the issue. The issue is that we dramatically restrict how much housing anyone can build, specifically, upward.

The city I live in isn't restricting it. Condos are going up as fast as they can be built and the parks are still filling up with tent cities and rents are still doubling. Something just doesn't add up. I'm in Canada (don't want to give exact city, sorry).

Well, without specific numbers and statistics, it's hard to know if demand for housing are being met.

I’m on King on a 504a right now. It’s massively restricted. You just can’t tell by looking. “Lots” isn’t a measurement.

I don't know if you've looked at Canadian housing news in the last few days, but do you really, really think that "condos are going up as fast as they can be built"? Because if you do, I think you're very misinformed.

Yes that is an issue. There isn’t only one issue. As an extreme illustration, think about trailer homes and trailer parks as an example.[0]

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/27/us/mobile-home-park-owner....

Zoning hurts, labor shortage hurts, speculation hurts, sprawl hurts, etc.

We don’t really need to look for a single cause. All of these things are happening and interacting with each other.

In general - zoning causes the sprawl and the speculation, and worsens the labor shortage. It is the only root cause.

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