Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: rent review
Message-ID: <1443@looking.UUCP>
Date: 28 Feb 88 20:18:43 GMT
References: <1988Feb24.140628.28040@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu> <1433@looking.UUCP> <1988Feb26.225840.21116@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu> <1437@looking.UUCP> <1988Feb28.002014.29461@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu>
Reply-To: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Distribution: ont
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd.
Lines: 50

In article <1988Feb28.002014.29461@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu> eem@csri.toronto.edu (Evangelos Milios) writes:

>In the case of housing in Toronto, the demand is such that the free
>market, with or without rent control, fails to fulfill the basic right
>of the average hardworking person to decent, affordable housing. 
>Do you disagree with this statement? If yes, why? If not, what should be
>done about it?
>...eem

It's hard to agree or disagree with a sentence that includes the phrase
"the free market, with or without rent control..."   That just doesn't
make sense.  The whole thrust of the article I wrote was that there is no
such thing as the free market with rent control.  (Even without it, there
are dozens of constraints on the housing market, ranging from special
tax laws, zoning regulations and the LTA.  All of these affect prices
indirectly, but rent control is the most obvious price changer.)

I'm also not sure what is meant by "the basic right to decent afordable
housing."  Does this include Rosedale?  Certainly it would be nice, but
to call it a basic right in every location goes too far.  Fact is that,
other than with ludicrous rent controls, some cities are going to cost
more than others, and the city will always cost more than the country.
Some places (like Silicon Valley, for instance) are just not going to
be affordable to people in lower income groups, and you can't change it.

Many factors have driven up rents.  Perhaps the strongest is the arrival
of the two-income couple, or the D.I.N.K.  This strong, unforseen
increase in the demand for quality appartments *must* drive the price up.
There's nothing that can be done to stop it.  It's not surprising that
the D.I.N.K. movement centers in Toronto, either.  What are you going
to do, insist that one spouse not work?

With high DINK demand for luxury appartments, homes and condos, and
a large base of run-down rent controlled appartments, who's going to be
idiot enough to build lower middle class dwellings?  Even MURB tax
breaks didn't help.

To answer other points:
> The price dictated by the free market is too high.
As noted, the prices today don't come from a free market, but a heavily
controlled one.  And markets don't "dictate" prices.  They arrive at
them, through the aggregate of consumer demand and producer supply and
profitability.  Only rent control laws dictate prices.

> Speculators are driving the price up.

To some extent, but only because it works.  Most of these speculators
are ordinary people, though.
-- 
Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473