I don’t understand the article. If population growth will strain scarce housing resources, why not just cut immigration? It seems like a knob you can turn to make things balance?<p>> I have seen no coverage that presents this as a problem — not even from Quebec, which is hopelessly consumed with linguistic and ethnic political diversions and where StatCan projections present a different kind of scenario: Smaller cities like Trois-Rivières and Saguenay are projected to see their visible-minority populations rise even as their total populations decline, and not just by a little.<p>I just got back from a cousin’s wedding in Toronto. Quite a bit of my family from Bangladesh has moved there. The number of south Asians in the city is remarkable. It was nice in some ways. (Obviously nice to see family, but also to be around other folks from a similar background.) But I wonder if they can in the long term avoid the fate that’s befallen Anglo and French Canadian.
People have been predicting this for <i>centuries</i>. It hasn't gotten any more correct.<p>We know what happen when countries modernize--they invariably fall below replacement rate. So, the "solution" is to modernize the places that immigrants flee from.<p>The real issue "modern" societies are starting to have is that everything is based on a pyramid scheme (more young people than old people) that is beginning to unravel everywhere. <i>That</i> is something nobody is ready for.
I'll speak about Toronto, since it's the city I know the best. You could easily resolve the housing scarcity by densifying the suburbs, but it's artifically constrained because:<p>(a) It's legitimately hard to retroactively densify suburban areas, especially the newer suburbs like Markham, where the inefficient use of space combines with the restricted mixed-use zoning, would make re-densified residential areas difficult to support with the sparse commercial/public/transportation resources. I think it's possible, but requires some aggressive changes.<p>(b) Politicians don't want to risk angering the elderly, NIMBY, home-owning middle-class that compose the voting base.<p>I think it can be done, but the political incentives are not appealing. Still, we are seeing some hopeful signs from increasingly radicalized youth, cut off from the housing market, being converted into potential political capital by the NDP.
Perhaps Canada could use a new planned city or two on the BC coast. That area must be among the most underpopulated in the world, accounting for the mild weather and presence of fresh water.
Seems like a good article. Stable, wealthy countries like Canada are in the best position to build more housing and absorb migration from poorer regions.