In 2016, 13.5% of those between 30-34 lived with their parents, and it's been rising.
Also in 2011, 73% of 25-29 year olds have never been married where in 1981 it was 26%. I mean, how can you marry when you can't even get a place of your own? How will people even seriously think about having kids if having a home of their own becomes more and more of a pipe dream?
This. 90% of modern waste comes from excesses. Everything from kitchen waste to disposables and clothes. We build cheap crap and throw them out after one use all the time, rather than getting quality and enjoying their use for years.
There's a reason why fast fashion is considered one of the greatest sources of waste in the world.
A combination of a few million new high density housing over the next decade, a complete rewrite of zoning laws to take them outside of the hands of the cities, and the removal of any need of any neighbourhood association to sign off on any new development.
Commercial producers won't make housing cheap and affordable on their own in any reasonable time-frame. Even if they instantly become able to construct as they like, market forces will take time to let housing prices cool off.
Which goes into my second point, zoning laws as they exist prevent housing from being made in the first place. Especially single family house zones are the single biggest killer of affordable housing. People already make their houses massive, to the point that they're getting close to low-rise apartments.
Which goes to the third point: the character of a neighbourhood changes every single day, so any attempt at the preservation of such a thing is just a bald faced lie, even if they're lying to themselves saying it. The neighbourhood I grew up in were all small houses, from tiny two stories to bungalows. Every single house is easily twice if not three times bigger than the ones I remember as a child. There's no trace of the neighbourhood I grew up in, aside from the fact that they don't house any more families than before. Hell, they probably house fewer people than before as I bet almost all the families there have only one child at most.
The unfortunate result if there was actually the political will to do this is that it would cause a pretty big depression as people have been conditioned into treating housing as an investment for their retirement. A necessity of modern life being used to create profit, that in itself is a non-performing asset that adds exactly zero dollars to the economy and is worse than buying a whole bunch of gold ingots in the hopes that its value will rise faster than inflation.
Personally, I'm patient so I'm fine with house prices going down slowly, as long as rentals get cheaper. It's stupid when such a high number of young decide that they're pushing off moving out of their homes due to seeing it impossible to afford one of their own. Delaying getting a home, even an apartment, means delaying getting married, presuming you're even bothering to date. Delayed marriages means fewer children, which means a stagnating and eventually dwindling population.
If the population stagnates, then everything falls apart for the elderly as the price of everything goes up as there's fewer people to make, deliver, and serve everyday items. And that's not to mention that the entire RRSP system depends on sufficient new blood putting money into it just to maintain the status quo. Lots of retirees all over the world are going back to work only because inflation has gone up a bit. How many will do so when it becomes impossible to keep inflation in the most critical areas down due to the lack of workers?
In the end, housing is the root problem, and while I fear it causing a major recession, I still think it's preferable than for housing prices to never come down. The economy will tank in the future whether the housing bubble bursts or keeps its course. But only one of those two options gives us a hopeful future beyond that bleak one.
It's good, but still needs raised barriers. You can see on the graphic a truck driving right over into the cycling lane.
As someone about the same age, I do understand your concerns, at least in part. And while things look bad, to be frank I think there's also a lot of good to see in the current world.
Traditional values and desires have little place nowadays and are becoming impossible to achieve (though I think a lot of that was true for the boomers as well, they just pretend it's not), but new things are appearing that's good. We're healthier overall than previous generations. We're surrounded with luxuries that previous generations would've considered impossible for the average person to have. We have opportunities abound to find careers, livelihoods, passions, and any number of other worthwhile pursuits that weren't possible even two decades ago.
If you let go of the preconceptions of previous generations, I believe there is a countless number of things that are good now that didn't exist even one generation ago. Maybe having a traditional career, getting married, having children, and owning a home are becoming more and more impossible, but that doesn't mean friendships, hobbies, and any number of other things of value are out of reach.
I don't make a lot of money. I've given up the idea of marrying and having kids. I will never own a single detached house. I don't even see a future where I will ever retire. But I don't think those are reasons to say I am unhappy. I enjoy each and every day, find value in my work, enjoy my hobbies, and have friends, even if some of us argue constantly about our conflicting political leanings. The world now, despite climate change, dictatorships, rich assholes hoarding everything they can, political apathy, insane and transparent corruption, and any number of other horrible things in the world or even in my own city, I think the world now is better than it has been in the past, and will continue to become better.
You just...need to let go of what drove your parents, and find new things to bring you joy that wasn't possible for them. Because there are countless things that are possible now that wasn't even when you were a child.
While I presume that it's an extreme example, I'd rather have a nice home but no capital than a tent with plenty. After all, that home itself is a form of capital in the first place, but a tent is a pretty low standard of living, especially being a person who values owning some nice electronics and a good internet connection.
That said, while I do get your idea of equality, this is entirely localized equality, and has nothing to do with the greater level of wealth inequality. Suburbia only exists due to rich downtowns subsidizing them. This isn't the 18th century where you could get away with having a public well and firewood as the only government resources provided to support your businesses. You need proper sewage, electricity, roads, and a wide variety of other government services just for a suburb to exist, including that small-time bakery that probably only barely makes enough money to keep three types of bread on the shelves. Compared to the single bakery that has four dozen loafs, buns, and cakes that pays six figures in rent a year.
And that doesn't take into consideration that I personally believe that mixed use buildings are the best as well. Rather than dedicated buildings for commercial and housing, you make the first floor of every building commercial, and the upper floors for homes. This way, you can even have small little bakeries every few blocks thanks to the abundance of commercial space, yet have them be both highly profitable and taxable due to the high density of local housing. People don't have to drive 10 minutes just to get some bread (in which case they won't bother and just go to the local super store once a week, killing the local bakeries anyways). It's always in the suburbs that local businesses die and are replaced by megamalls and other super-sized stores. Because if it's not in walking distance, it's not worth going to unless if you can do all your weekly shopping there at once.
Where's the equality when one Wallmart took over two dozen family businesses?
I understand the appeal of having a nice house with a yard, but I think that the option for just a decent home at a decent price should also be available to those who want them. Suburbia isn't going away as we're not turning them back into farmland, and Toronto's low density districts (especially the commercial parts) can easily be transformed into high density mixed use housing that'll make the city far more livable, and give far more opportunities.
It's not even a little equal when the only homes that are made are all starting at a price point that requires six figure salaries, especially if they're being subsidized by those who are already paying a higher percentage of their wages in taxes.
Alcohol is a massive tax revenue in pretty much everywhere in the world, but especially here in Canada. It's pretty obvious when you see the difference in price of a beer here compared to the states, as 90% of that difference is purely taxes. Hell, you can tell the difference between the beer/wine costs in Ontario vs in Quebec. There's a reason why people in Ottawa and Gatineau constantly cross the boarder to buy their poison of choice.
That said, there's also the fact that when the States tried to ban it, they basically created some of the richest criminals in the world in like a single year. Alcohol is so ingrained into modern society that people riot over it.
Tobacco is a comfort luxury that pretty much anybody can get off of with some effort. Alcohol is a crutch that far too many people use to avoid going to some pretty dark places.
They did, if you look at late 20th century history. The lobbying and propaganda they did at the time was insane, but there was only so much they could do when people were dying from lung cancer, had trouble breathing, and even chewing tobacco was known to cause mouth cancer.
They simply gave up trying so hard in the west and concentrated efforts in emerging markets. Do you remember the infamous video of the smoking baby a few years ago? Shit like that's eerily common in places like Indonesia.
The issue is a lack of money studying them, as the only group with the money to do all the studies needed are the ones producing the pesticides, and they have a dedicated interest in only doing enough studies to prove that there are no immediate issues with their products.
It's a conflict of interest unless if there's more government funding into examining these sorts of things, as there are no other major forces that don't have a invested interest in making sure that the studies make the products look good.
I've started listening to Ryan Hall on youtube, and unlike these guys, his prediction is that the prairies are going to be pretty warm due to the El Nino this year, and instead the cold burst is going to be further east in Ontario and Quebec.
Though he's American centric, so you can only inference results from his predictive maps, but he does say that there's a high chance (something like 25%) of a massive snow storm either around Chicago or Boston, which also means that the entire area around them including southern Ontario is going to be pretty cold.
Other early winter predictions I've seen suggest that western Canada and the prairies are going to be pretty warm this winter, while Ontario and Quebec is going to be hit by a rebounding polar jet stream. The coasts are going to be pretty wet on both sides, but the prairies are going to be very dry and warm, all the way to including most of northern Ontario.
Every source I've seen contradicts what these guys say aside from the obvious no brainers like BC's forecast.
Inflation right now is at 2.8%, which is roughly in target, which I believe is between 1-3%.
We're actually one of only a few countries that have managed to get inflation under control. I think there's like 4 others so far, and we're doing even better than the States at 3%.
Though immediately raising interest just because we reached the target would undo all the work we've put in so far, so I'm not surprised that we'll have to wait a while before interest comes back down. That said, 2025 is definitely later than I had expected.
Anybody who complains about the interest rate not going down should be reminded of all the waves of people going to the hospitals two weeks after every time lockdowns stopped during COVID (and how high the infection rates are now that COVID is 'officially over'). The second you let your guard down is the moment that everything goes to shit. Just because we're under the speed limit doesn't mean that the runaway engine has stopped, just that the brakes are working.
While I think this is an issue, I think it's a minor one. If it was a big problem, we'd see a whole bunch of 2 storey apartments sprinkled amongst single family homes. But I've never seen one in all my time in Toronto. Because there's a whole ton of regulations that make it impossible by just plain making it illegal without jumping through a whole ton of other hoops that make it far too expensive.
I'm not saying fixing this won't help, but it's just one of dozens of issues, and a minor one compared to some of them.