Posted Sep 25, 2007, 5:21 AM
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Calgreedian
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Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Alberta
Posts: 1,132
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bassic Lab
The author of the editorial is either incompetent or knowingly trying to mislead people. I'm not aware of Mr. Marriott's credentials but if he was an academic (something I'd doubt as most editorials written by academics with mention the position held by the author, or atleast refer to them as Doctor) I'd be ashamed to have him representing my institution. While supply was a major factor in the run up of prices, regulations (except those related to standards, like safety) were not a signifigant factor inhibiting supply and those that were are not being argued against in this editorial. Simply put the governments in the Calgary area are not limiting sprawl in a manner that harms supply.
The real limitations on supply of housing stock are three fold. One is the limitations on the supply of labour, they simply don't have the man power to biuld housing much faster they currently are, this is ignored in the article. The second would be the governments failure to adequately regulate the development bussiness to eliminate some of the monopolistic practices that are driving up the cost of empty lots. Developable land is held in too few hands by those that are willing to artificially reduce supply to drive up prices. This is not as major of an issue but it could be dealt with, the cozy relationship between land developers and the different levels of government is really to blame here. Thirdly are a number of government regulations that actually encourage sprawl as opposed to limiting it. These are primarily zoning issues that could be relaxed, secondary suites and that sort of thing. Except these various zoning regulations that limit supply existed prior to the price run up so they can not be blamed for it.
We aren't Portland, we don't have a greenbelt limiting the supply of developable land within the metro. Mr. Marriott is writing as if we did, which is wrong on a number of levels. Any thing that the city is doing to curb development is obviously a nonfactor as all development has not moved out of the municipality to other areas without such controls. If he was right no one would be biulding houses in Calgary and instead all new suburban construction would be occuring in other jurisdictions, like Airdre and Chestermere. This is not the case.
Mr. Marriott should go back to whatever two bit, (sprawl oriented) bussiness funded, academic ethics challenged, think tank he crawled out of.
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Good response, I'm going to agree with you here. While I may be close to the "market believer, who doesn't see much beyond a company's profit margins and is usually a conservative by ideology" that Boris speaks of, this article is not about pro-market, laissez faire economics, its mostly about pro-sprawl. I would be more supportive of the author's viewpoint if he agreed to force all suburban developments to effectively capture all the costs of their lifestyle choice. In other words, moving much closer to a user pay system. Toll roads, property taxes based on costs to service the lot, etc. are all ideas I support.
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"The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind."
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