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Comment by cvccvroomvroom | Hacker News Reader

This is creating an artificial Tulip bulb crisis where people could live instead of these rent-seeking vampires either letting them idle or renting them on Airbnb. Pass a law that homes must be occupied by the owner at least 10% of the time or property taxes go up 900%. Creating a class of land barons and serfs doesn't bode well for the future of humanity.

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Just build more houses. North America is big. Stop fighting over scraps.

The fact that it's big doesn't matter. Building a million homes in North Dakota won't help anyone.

People need to live near cities, where jobs are. Outside our privileged white collar world where remote work is easy, others need to live in metro areas.

We need to build in and near cities, and improve the transit infrastructure.

We also need to create cities, and revitalize dying ones. There are many small towns in the US and Canada where I'd love to buy a house, but they all tend to suffer from the same terminal decline pattern: crumbling infrastructure, lack of opportunities, and a single WalMart supplying everyone while choking out all other business.

I sometimes daydream about building a city, just one, that prioritises cycling and walking over cars.

If you like cars, you can literally live everywhere else.

In NA there's pretty much only Montreal

Let’s build a second city for those who prefer not to have cars dominate. :)

I guess the question is if that alone is enough of a selling point to form a city.

And then, the issue is always how you prevent the nimbys from taking over once the first batch of housing has been built.

"Build more houses" was meant as a shorthand for "Upzone cities".

You realize you are advocating for a massive regressive tax on renters right? Where are people going to live if they are not in a position to or don’t want to buy a house?

More taxes on rentals means higher rents for those too poor to buy…

But how do u enforce the “must be occupied 10% of the time” part?

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