[HN Gopher] Thousands of young people are fleeing Toronto - econ...
___________________________________________________________________
Thousands of young people are fleeing Toronto - economists say city
will suffer
Author : outrun86
Score : 46 points
Date : 2023-10-08 20:44 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.thestar.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.thestar.com)
| _spduchamp wrote:
| I own second-hand clothing stores in Toronto and Montreal. From
| what I see, Toronto is a rat race. I see people really struggling
| to hustling to cover the costs of living. It stands in pretty
| sharp contrast to Montreal where I see there are still some
| affordable places to live and people have a bit more money to go
| out and have a good time. That just from my perspective.
| fatih-erikli wrote:
| Question is where do they go and will they find a better place
| than Toronto. I haven't been there, however it looks like a
| reasonable place to live. There is everything a young person
| would want. Everyone is fleeing everywhere then they don't find
| what they were looking for then they flee back.
|
| As a person living in the border of middle east, Toronto is a
| place that people would like to migrate.
| jfghi wrote:
| Way too expensive
| fatih-erikli wrote:
| I think it's much more expensive to be a migrant. You do know
| how to live cheaper in your native country. It's difficult
| for a foreigner to learn those later.
| Lalabadie wrote:
| Natives know how to live cheaper in this country: move away
| from Toronto.
| tmpX7dMeXU wrote:
| Seems like a false dichotomy to me.
| fatih-erikli wrote:
| - Spending money for language course
|
| - You do not know the places for cheap prices
|
| - Being a target for tourist scams
|
| many other hidden costs I forgot to say
| acc_297 wrote:
| Just for context I live in Montreal about 6 hours east and have
| _most_ of the same job prospects but just to quote the very
| first source I found:
|
| " You would need around 8,129.0C$ in Toronto to maintain the
| same standard of life that you can have with 6,400.0C$ in
| Montreal "
|
| And I really do feel that as a recent graduate I pay for a 1
| bedroom apt what some friends in Toronto pay to share a 5
| bedroom house it's a big investment for a young person just to
| live there
| criddell wrote:
| What's the solution? When a story about suburbs appears, the
| ideas promoted by the Strong Towns group are mentioned. Is there
| a similar set of ideas for fixing cities?
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| Make the Canadian populace less timid and less risk averse.
| ethanbond wrote:
| Land value tax. Makes speculation infeasible and low-density
| development uneconomical and eliminates the incentives that
| drive restrictive zoning.
|
| Also allows the public to capture the financial upside of
| public infrastructure projects (e.g. building a billion dollar
| subway _today_ produces a huge amount of wealth for the
| landowners who happen to be near that project, in the form of
| increased rent -- that can and should be captured by the public
| who paid for it).
| crooked-v wrote:
| A simple starting point is changing local zoning that
| implicitly or explicitly requires single-family homes in most
| places. Even just allowing rowhouses would make for
| significantly higher density in some places.
| nemo44x wrote:
| There's a place for that but one of the reasons many places
| are desirable is precisely because there isn't so much
| density and that everyone owns their properties. It stops
| becoming nice when you change that too much.
|
| And there's infrastructure. Places that weren't designed for
| the density don't have the water/sewer, electrical, etc
| capacity. Traffic too - now there's more traffic making a
| place not as nice. So that needs to be sorted out too.
| resolutebat wrote:
| https://archive.li/2023.10.07-221402/https://www.thestar.com...
|
| Original title, which does not imply that young people are
| fleeing from economists: "Thousands of young people are fleeing
| Toronto -- economists say the city will suffer because of it"
| dang wrote:
| Ok, we've changed to that (minus a 'the') above. Thanks!
|
| Submitted title was "Thousands of young people are fleeing
| Toronto, economists: city will suffer"
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| Can we _really_ be sure that economists weren 't involved
| though ?
| robswc wrote:
| Idk, I find economists pretty scary with their big words.
| motohagiography wrote:
| Given they were policy problems, fleeing economists was pretty
| accurate. I left the city and am looking at leaving the
| province over the chaos of what are all government caused
| problems with no path to getting out of the way for people to
| solve them. Not a lot of Austrians or Chicago School economists
| working in policy these days.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Which policy problems and what was the result? It sounds like
| lots of people and wealth and investment is moving in,
| driving up prices.
| motohagiography wrote:
| The change is unmanaged. The question is whether they are
| starting businesses that provide some semblance of the
| quality of life and opportunity people from here had
| planned to make for themselves or not, and whether the
| government has just sold the locals out for foreign
| political donations. We don't solve inequality by importing
| more of it.
| jncfhnb wrote:
| Toronto is interesting. The scale of construction is immense.
| Visibly unlike anything you see in the states. Presumably
| drowning in immigration though.
| Qwertious wrote:
| >Presumably drowning in immigration though.
|
| Do you have numbers that presumption is based on?
| 3vidence wrote:
| I have to go source my numbers but I think toronto is up to
| 50% 1st generation immigrants. That's a very high percentage
| for a small city.
|
| Sorry on mobile best source right now is Wikipedia
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Toronto
| voisin wrote:
| You can Google the specifics but Canada has the highest per
| capita immigration of the G20 according to our newspapers
| (I've never checked the underlying data), and the vast
| majority go to Toronto and Vancouver as our biggest and most
| multicultural cities. I don't think OP's presumption is
| misplaced.
| s0rce wrote:
| Apparently the scale of visible construction doesn't correlate
| well with actual new units
|
| https://twitter.com/evboyce/status/1678573678181728261
| meowtimemania wrote:
| it'd be nice to have that kind of construction in a lot of US
| cities
| huytersd wrote:
| I would use the term "swimming in immigration".
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Indeed. Also, I wonder how it's affordable to immigrants but
| not college graduates (from U. Toronto, no less).
| huytersd wrote:
| Because immigrants (Indians specifically) at least in the
| US are highly educated/entrepreneurial and have no problems
| finding a job as a result of which are very wealthy.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| There may be a lot of wealthy Indian immigrants in SV,
| but you can also find many in different circumstances all
| over the US.
|
| (Which is not a criticism - I'd rather admit the poorer
| immigrants, who need the change of scenery more.)
| nemo44x wrote:
| Because they're willing to stuff many people in a single
| residence. Like 3 or 4 to a bedroom. I worked at a place
| with many migrants and one group had like 10 guys staying
| in the apartment and they more or less hot bunked the beds
| as they worked across different shifts.
| sanswork wrote:
| Canadian college graduates are going to feel less happy
| living with a bunch of other people to share the rent with
| than immigrants who frequently are ok with
| multigenerational households.
|
| I left Toronto for an even more expensive area(Bondi) and i
| see this here too with backpackers willing to live 6 people
| to a 3 bed apartment while locals feel priced out at the 1
| bed or studio level.
| adaml_623 wrote:
| I think Doctorow was correct with Walkaway.
|
| I think young people will start building communities away from
| the big cities. And their lives will be so much better
| crooked-v wrote:
| This is more like cities driving people out than it is people
| intentionally deciding to leave. Most of the affordability
| crisis here comes down to bad local zoning causing an extreme
| lack of housing.
| criddell wrote:
| I'm not sure I agree with you. Toronto is already pretty
| dense and there's a crazy amount of construction. I have a
| hard time believing the problem is zoning.
| sanswork wrote:
| The core South of bloor is dense but outside of that with
| exception to a few spots along Yonge and the 401 Toronto is
| almost entirely single family housing.
| WirelessGigabit wrote:
| https://archive.ph/mdUQf
| robswc wrote:
| Escaping the city is one of the best things I ever did. So much
| cheaper and the quality of life got so much better, for so many
| reasons.
|
| If I ever want to go do stuff, its only 30-40 minutes away too.
|
| WFH has been liberating for so many people.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| What do you like better about your quality of life? Also,
| personally, how do you feel about the level of activity?
|
| I guess people who prefer city life are those who like the
| faster pace, dynamics of more and more variety of people, art,
| food, services, parks, festivals, etc. etc. Not that one
| preference is better than the other.
|
| > If I ever want to go do stuff, its only 30-40 minutes away
| too.
|
| Lol. Spoken like a suburbanite! :D Depending on where exactly
| you live, everything in Manhattan would be within 30-40
| minutes.
|
| > WFH has been liberating for so many people.
|
| Also, many cities see an increase in residents (but a decrease
| in office workers). People like to work from homes in the city.
|
| But I don't mean to be disagreeing. Glad you found what you
| liked, and many have followed your path.
| tmpX7dMeXU wrote:
| Yes, different people have different desires when it comes to
| their living situation. Your comment does however come across
| as dismissive of living outside of a city. "Parks" for
| instance...from my experience, a city would not be where I'd
| first look for this.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Sorry, I'm not trying to dismiss anyone. I do love cities,
| but that's my thing.
|
| > "Parks" for instance...from my experience, a city would
| not be where I'd first look for this.
|
| Cities often have all sorts of interesting and varied
| parks, often beautifully designed, with public art,
| museums, etc. Look at Central Park, Golden Gate Park, the
| parks along the lake in Chicago, etc. Look up all the parks
| in Manhattan alone. LA has wild valleys near the Hollywood
| Hills. And if you look around, you can find lots of
| wonderful, unknown, small parks. The economy of scale -
| resources to design, build, etc. - can lead to some
| wonderful spaces.
|
| Obviously, out where there's more space, there are larger
| undeveloped areas; those differ from urban parks.
| sanswork wrote:
| Toronto is such that you can go from the financial district
| to farmland in less than 40 minutes.
|
| It's a bit annoying living outside the core when you are
| young since cabs are expensive and regional pubic transit
| unavailable late but outside of that everything else is
| pretty close to just as accessible you just have to plan more
| in advance where when i lived downtown I could just be bored
| one afternoon and go find a cool event
| robswc wrote:
| >I could just be bored one afternoon and go find a cool
| event
|
| Yea, I'd say this is probably the worst part about living
| outside of a city. Just not as many events to go to easily.
| At the end of the day though, the 30-40 minute drive isn't
| too bad when its something you really want to go to and
| plan for.
| sanswork wrote:
| Yeah and having a decent backyard can fill a lot of those
| days too.
|
| Also lots to do outside the city of you like nature.
| robswc wrote:
| >What do you like better about your quality of life?
|
| Mainly, how the actions of others (good or bad) don't have as
| much of an effect on me. Believe it or not, one of the main
| things was people smoking weed. People would smoke it
| endlessly. I attempted pretty much every solution before
| moving. It smelled awful and got into my sinuses and would
| make me get an instant sore throat. Similar to cigarette
| smoke. I guess I'm allergic but basically if it got in my
| respiratory system, my sinuses would be effected and make it
| next to impossible to breath through my nose. This often
| would then lead to sinus infections and always a sore throat
| every night. I literally felt like I had a cold every other
| day.
|
| I moved apartments but the same damn thing happened. Now,
| that could be bad luck or it could just be a new normal, I
| don't care to find out though.
|
| Also now, with an actual area to do "DIY" stuff, I can run
| power tools and play guitar with amp without annoying anyone,
| lol.
|
| >Lol. Spoken like a suburbanite! :D Depending on where
| exactly you live, everything in Manhattan would be within
| 30-40 minutes.
|
| My bad, by "stuff" I meant city stuff like shows,
| entertainment, fancy restaurant, etc. For day to day, I'm
| only a 5-10 minute drive. I've actually been saving a ton of
| time in tons of ways you don't really consider. 1-2 hours of
| groceries a week is better (at least according to my wife)
| than 20-30 minutes every few days.
|
| >Also, many cities see an increase in residents (but a
| decrease in office workers). People like to work from homes
| in the city.
|
| That's good. Seems we all are getting what we want, thanks to
| WFH.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| That sucks. IME, one needs to pay a bit of a premium to
| live someplace where you can be assured of not having such
| headaches (not that wealthy people are better neighbors,
| but that problem-free residence is in higher demand).
|
| It's interesting to see some people seek to be further from
| others. I imagine it like particles in a given volume:
| fewer particles collide less, while I happen to love the
| energy of more (though not things like second hand smoke in
| my home). To me, it's like going to a concert - I want it
| to be wall-to-wall, not mostly empty. (Again YMMV.)
| frank_nitti wrote:
| I have the same experience in LA with the weed/tobacco
| smoke, but also just all of the damn chemicals my neighbors
| use in their daily life.
|
| Before moving to the city, I expected the traffic and
| crowds would be the primary drawback compared to suburbia.
| But I've found that the smells and sounds of my own
| neighbors' activities to be the worst, like running their
| loud AC 24/7 even in winter, and spraying copious Lysol and
| febreeze multiple times a day.
|
| Love living in this city with all of the activities nearby,
| but I'm 100% ready to gtfo and don't think I'll miss it.
| robswc wrote:
| Right!? I swear people know when to do it at the worst
| times too. When I first moved, it was because they
| triggered the building wide alarm system at 2 AM. After
| that, I was sick of it and couldn't take it anymore.
|
| Also, I get that you're going to smell food/odd stuff
| from neighbors from time to time but there's only so much
| you can handle.
| criddell wrote:
| Everybody is different, but what I like has changed a _lot_
| over the past 35 years and I don't expect that to stop. The
| city was the right place for me for part of my life, but
| right now it really isn't. When I get old and need more
| access to healthcare, it might be again.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| That seems like the typical pattern? City when you're
| young, move to the suburbish place when you have a family,
| and back to the city (in a different neighborhood) when
| you're retired.
|
| For retirees, especially when driving is a problem, all the
| service, transportation, etc. can be great. Also, you have
| time again for all the fun and want activity, unlike people
| raising a family who barely have time to sleep.
| xwdv wrote:
| It's insane that Canada doesn't have true 30 year fixed
| mortgages. Every 5 years the rates will update and if the payment
| is too high for you there's nothing you can do about it. How can
| you live?
| granshaw wrote:
| The US is one of the few countries in the world that HAS a
| fixed mortgage longer than 5 years... we're the exception not
| the norm
| xwdv wrote:
| I think Japan has a 100 year.
| xw3098 wrote:
| That was a thing during Japan's real estate bubble in the
| 80s but I doubt any banks still offer that.
| ManuelKiessling wrote:
| Germany: fixed mortgages are the norm (actually never even
| heard of another type), common runtimes are 10, 15, and 20
| years, and no matter what the runtime is, as the borrower you
| can simply exit the contract without even giving a reason
| after 10 years; and that's not something in the contract,
| it's a federal law.
|
| You obviously have to pay back the remaining debt, but this
| makes it super smooth to either pay off all debt in one go or
| refinance.
| voisin wrote:
| It doesn't even seem to make sense from an economic standpoint,
| leaving the population essentially to gamble and having approx
| 20% of mortgages coming due each year, threatening the banking
| sector.
| Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote:
| This system worked great while the rates were declining. But
| now... less so.
| voisin wrote:
| In the US on 30 year fixed rates I understand you can
| refinance down without penalty. Can someone confirm?
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Correct.
|
| You're essentially paying to originate a new mortgage (with
| the same originator as your previous or anyone else).
|
| Proceeds pay off previous mortgage, and no one can really
| tell you no.
|
| I'm not sure if any US mortgage can have prepayment
| penalties and be compliant? (for resale of the mortgage
| debt)
|
| Worst I've seen is "If you pay fully before X date, we'll
| charge you the closing fees we comp'd you originally."
| nemo44x wrote:
| No mortgages don't have early payoff penalties. The bank
| doesn't really care. They've probably sold your mortgage
| off to be packaged in a bond anyways. They're mainly in
| the business of selling loans. There's a big margin on
| that. They're more than happy to payoff your old one and
| write a new one and collect those fees.
| curiousgal wrote:
| Refinancing only works when the value of your house
| increased.
| xwdv wrote:
| Which aside from a few moments in history, is pretty much
| always the case. House values only go up.
| gorjusborg wrote:
| There's nothing about refinancing that requires your
| house value to increase.
|
| The concept is that you are taking out a loan to pay off
| an earlier loan.
|
| If you borrowed at 8% and rates dropped to 2%, you could
| refinance even if your house price dropped, and it would
| still make sense, as you borrowed what you borrowed, and
| still owe it.
|
| Now, if you are trying to refinance and take some money
| out from equity, sure, that relies on having greater
| equity than the loan value.
| ptero wrote:
| Not necessarily. It works if the value of the mortgage is
| less than the value of the house, which is the vast
| majority of cases.
| tmpX7dMeXU wrote:
| I also live in a country without full-term fixed mortgages,
| however we also don't have a secondary market for mortgages.
| AFAIK these two things are at the very least not entirely
| orthogonal, and to be blunt I don't think anyone is looking to
| the US as a source of inspiration for that aspect of your
| mortgage system.
| [deleted]
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-10-08 23:01 UTC)