comment: >
  
  
  you look at gated communities, or large condo developments where they collect fees and invest in infrastructure/amenities for their residences, and other places where there are private roads to housing, you rarely find affordability at the other end of the private road. 
  
  That's places where the government fully pays for lots of roads and rich people want one more.  Hardly representative.
  
  you look at dense cities, or cities with higher density than Toronto, do any of those cities come across as affordable
  
  You are cherrypicking, there are lots of places with cheap and dense housing.  We use terms like slums, favelas, tenements, or shantytowns.
  You add dense affordable housing and you get housing without taking up a lot of space, tenements don't magically turn into suburban sprawl.
context: Well, the alternative is buying existing housing and tearing it down to replace it with higher capacity housing. This form of "build up, not out" doesn't require the use of more land. >
  
  There used to be surface parking lots all over Toronto, and a ton of those are now giant apartment/condo buildings. I absolutely agree that was a "better use of land" but it also drives up the cost of living as the city grows. 
  There are small-medium sized town examples where maybe it's a townhouse development or low-mid rise that goes in where there previously was a factory or mall, and where single family homes used to be there are zoning changes happening. A lot of that is adding people to existing land used for housing in ways that I can get behind, and I agree that form of "build up, not out" does seem like a great housing solution.
  Until you see the giant big-box stores that buy huge chunks of the land outside of the town you just "saved from houses" to service the significantly expanded population in that town because the increased density downtown made large property with big parking lots more expensive, because most towns with 1000 - 20 000 people can't afford to put in underground parking or vertical garages, but they can build a bunch more surface lots outside of town. 
  If towns and cities in the Greenbelt are going to continue to grow because affordability is driving people away from the GTA/other urban centres, they are going to have to build housing, roads, schools, hospitals, nursing homes, grocery stores, and the things people need in their environment to live there. I don't see how they can build all of that "up not out" without impacting the surrounding environment, AKA the Greenbelt. >
  
  Is housing affordable in either of those cities? Aren't they some of the examples we often point to of cities that are more expensive to live in than Toronto, with even more of an affordable housing issue than we have?
  20 years ago people might have been leaving the city to single family homes, but if you drive around the Greenbelt and look at modern housing developments in small towns, the majority of them are semi-detached or townhouse "villages" on undeveloped land close to those communities, and the bigger places are building low and mid-rise housing in their cores. 
  People are leaving Toronto because they can't afford to live here, to move into (arguments to be made about how well executed they are) denser forms of housing than single family homes or single family homes on smaller lots than traditionally available in those communities, because "more house for the same money, or more house for less money" is one of the driving factors pushing people towards purchasing in the Greenbelt. 
  If you have to leave all of your friends and family and social connections and the places you used to go in order to afford a home, I understand why you would want the house to be more desirable to make that trade off hurt a little less.
  I'm not convinced London or New York are good examples of cities that have affordable housing because of their density, I think they're great examples of cities that are even more expensive that Toronto and while increasing density might help accommodate the growing population, it will also continue to drive people away as they look for more affordable housing close enough that they can still visit, and that puts them in the Greenbelt. >
  
  Housing is a free market. How expensive a city is, is all about supply/demand.
  It's not about the size of the city and it's not about the density of the city. There are dense cities that are cheap and there are dense cities that are expensive. There are low density cities that are cheap and there are low density cities that are expensive.
  London and NY have huge demand, sure! But they also have much better supply. Toronto has much lower demand, but also terrible supply. Chicago for example is huge, but has fairly low demand for its supply, so housing is almost half the cost of say, Boston, which is far smaller but has huge demand.
  Toronto needs to expand its supply. NY, London and others have shown how to do this: build up. There is no need to build into the Greenbelt, and even worse, that will cause environmental and traffic nightmares.
  If Toronto also expands demand, nothing will help. The Greenbelt, building up, both, etc. nothing will ever make housing cheaper if the number of people who want housing is always high compared to the amount of housing. The Greenbelt even from its most optimistic proponents can only add 1.5M homes. Extra demand can easily soak that up and more. >
  
  So, why not use examples of dense yet cheap cities, instead of picking two of the cities with the highest cost of living in the world to compare Toronto to, while trying to make a point about housing affordability? 
  If London and New York have better housing supply than Toronto and are still more expensive, how is that proof that increased supply increases affordability? You compare Chicago to Boston where Chicago has a reputation for crime, violence, and other reasons making it less desirable to live in than Boston. Detroit was paying people to buy houses there during their collapse so maybe that was affordable, but not at all desirable. 
  You are pointing out that if people want to live in a city, that city becomes more expensive because of the demand/desirability. I agree with you. That's why people are building and expanding into less desirable areas, which are more affordable. 
  People need a place to live. If they can't afford to live in Toronto, then they are going to find a smaller community they can live in, which is outside of Toronto. If they want to commute or maintain connection to Toronto, or find affordability, that's not another city, but a small-medium sized town in the Greenbelt, which is fueling the expansion of those communities. Why should people who cannot afford to live in Toronto not have access to roads and highways and schools and hospitals close to where they live? And if they should have those things, where should they build those things if everywhere they look they are surrounded by land that should be protected? >
  
  You're confusing supply with demand.
  It does not matter if the Greenbelt is further away. If people want to live in the GTA, developing the Greenbelt will lead to expensive housing. All that matters is the total amount of housing. Unless you mean, the Greenbelt development produces such subpar housing compared to a denser Toronto that no one would ever want to live there? In which case it doesn't help with Toronto house prices.
  More houses than demand, prices go down. That's it. That's Econ 101. We need more houses. London and NY show we can build those houses in Toronto just fine and end up with an awesome city.
  You want examples of cheaper cities that are as dense as NY and London? Ok! Lisbon in Portugal is beautiful, far cheaper, and extremely dense (2x the density of Toronto, like NY and London). Athens in Greece is far cheaper and similarly dense.
  Density is not why Lisbon and Athens are cheap compared to NY and London. It is supply and demand. Far more people want to live in NY and London. Right now, given the number of people who want to live in Toronto, if we had the density of NY and London, we would have low prices, because our demand is lower, like Lisbon and Athens.
  There are only two options: raise supply or lower demand. NY, London, Lisbon, Athens all show how you raise supply: you create density. All of these are world class cities that people love. >
  
  
  You're confusing supply with demand.
  
  How? There is high demand in Toronto/GTA/Golden Horseshoe. That could be because they are large cities, that could be because of employment opportunities or proximity to people/family/friends, or any number of reasons. Because there is limited supply (which could be blamed on single family housing zoning, not in my backyard, and other protectionist/exclusionary policies, or because there hasn't been enough supply built in order to match demand) people cannot afford to live in the city. Because there is supply in more affordable places and that affordability makes those places desirable for different reasons than the cities, you get people leaving cities to live in the previously Greeenbelt communities because they can afford to live there. 
  If you want to prevent people from moving to more affordable places, you either need to make the places you do want them to live more affordable, or the more affordable places less desirable to live in. If it would cost the same for me to live in Caledon as it would for me to live in downtown Toronto I'd likely pick downtown Toronto. If I can buy a house on a few acres in the Greenbelt for the same price as an 800 square foot Condo in the city, why would I pick city? Especially if that house is within a reasonable drive to the things I want to do in the city?
  
  More houses than demand, prices go down.
  
  We have been building more housing in Toronto since it was founded. As urban areas grow, the demand for housing in that urban area increases. As the demand and price increases in the city center, more supply is built, and while part of that supply is denser housing in the city center, part of it is also suburban sprawl, as people balance the "longer commute, better living" equation, until those suburbs become unaffordable cities of their own. Look at pre-amalgamation Toronto, or post amalgamation Toronto, or the GTA, or the Golden Horseshoe. It doesn't matter how far you zoom out, housing supply has not been meeting or exceeding demand, so prices have been going up. In order to find supply at affordable prices, people are buying in the Greenbelt, because that is where land is cheap enough to develop and put affordable housing. 
  
  We need more houses. 
  
  I agree, I'm just pointing out that more houses/housing in Toronto hasn't proven to be more affordable housing in Toronto.
  
  London and NY show we can build those houses in Toronto just fine and end up with an awesome city.
  
  London and New York might be larger, more dense cities than Toronto, and you might even see them as more desirable places to live than Toronto/awesome cities. I am not contesting your "NEW YORK IS AWESOME!" I am just pointing out that it is an awesomely bad example of an affordable city, as is London. They are proof that cities can be "good" or something, but they are not proof that they are affordable. 
  
  You want examples of cheaper cities that are as dense as NY and London? 
  
  No, I want more affordable cities that are desirable places to live. I said saying Chicago is cheaper than Boston doesn't prove your point because we likely both agree Boston would be considered the more desirable city which is a part of it's higher cost.
  
  Lisbon in Portugal is beautiful, far cheaper, and extremely dense
  
  Portugal's GDP is also 45-50th in the world compared to Canada (Toronto) , America (New York) and the UK (London) all being in the top 10. 
  
  Athens in Greece is far cheaper and similarly dense.
  
  And the Greek economy is doing fantastically.
  Setting aside your apples to oranges comparison, are those cities considered affordable places to live in those countries, or more affordable than suburban/rural communities surrounding them, or are they just more affordable than Toronto, New York, and London, if we make-believe they also happen to be in Canada, USA or the UK?
  
  Density is not why Lisbon and Athens are cheap compared to NY and London.
  
  No, a pretty convincing argument could be made they are more affordable because they are less desirable places to live... oh wait, you just said they have lower demand. So, why should we be punishing/limiting people in Ontario who want to move out of the higher demand cities that are not affordable into the lower demand smaller communities in the Greenbelt? Aren't you just making a case for "this city is unaffordable, so move out of it" by pointing out that less desirable cities like Lisbon and Athens are cheaper?
  
  There are only two options: raise supply or lower demand.
  
  People moving from the city, or new people to Canada deciding not to live in Toronto but to live outside of it in the Greenbelt are lowering demand in the city. The Greenbelt is being developed because there is a demand for affordable housing, and people cannot afford housing where they want to live, so they are being forced to develop wild/natural/environmentally significant/agricultural land, because they are priced out of the city. Then the city (that they don't live in) and provincial politics are getting all upset people have to live there and what roads and houses, because they can't afford to live in cities. They are lowering demand, voting with their feet/dollars, and that is why people are complaining about trying to stop Greenbelt development, because the cities are not creating enough supply so people have to look elsewhere.
  New York and London show you that just like Toronto, as big desirable cities grow bigger they often grow more desirable, and that doesn't make housing affordable. I don't know enough about Portugal or Greece to make grand statements about their housing markets, but even if comparatively less expensive than cities in countries with higher GDP when comparing dollars to Euros, I am also assuming that it is more expensive to live in Lisbon than "small town Portugal" and Athens than "small town Greece". 
  You might be talking about "world class cities that people love." but just because people like to take tourist photos there doesn't make them affordable places to live. Most people chose to live in cities because they believe the lack of affordability is countered out by the desirability of the city, making it "worth it" to live in unaffordable housing because of the amenities. I want to live in Toronto but can't afford to, and the arguments I'm seeing against moving to the Greenbelt are "we want it to stay green" which does nothing to solve the "I can't afford to live here, so I have to live somewhere" problem. 
  We can also lower demand by restricting investment properties, making owning multiple residences tax prohibitive, decreasing foreign investment or lowering immigration which may bring down prices, but I am not seeing how increased supply in any of the urban areas you have mentioned or I am considering in my initial post has made any of them more affordable. >
  
  
  I want to live in Toronto but can't afford to, and the arguments I'm seeing against moving to the Greenbelt are "we want it to stay green" which does nothing to solve the "I can't afford to live here, so I have to live somewhere" problem.
  
  Housing in the Greenbelt is just housing. Like housing in a denser Toronto. Units. Literally boxes for people to live in.
  Your whole argument is that somehow, inexplicably, new housing in the Greenbelt will be cheap, while new housing in Toronto will be expensive. That can only happen as I said for one and only one reason: the housing in the Greenbelt sucks and no one wants it, which will just make housing in Toronto more attractive and more expensive. Otherwise, it's the same as housing in Toronto. New boxes.
  It's stupid to add new boxes for people to live in on green land far away with no infrastructure and no transportation, which not only destroys the environment but causes massive traffic problems. We should follow what other cities do and add them in the city by making it denser. That has a chance of lowering housing costs. If we outbuild demand.
  
  And the Greek economy is doing fantastically.
  
  So you don't like Athens and Lisbon because their economies aren't strong?
  I have no idea what to say to that comment! Housing cost is a function of the ratio of supply and demand. That's it. There is literally nothing else to it.
  You cannot have cheap housing in a city with high demand and low supply. Athens and Lisbon have demand issues because their economies suck. If suddenly the tech sector in Athens took off, then it would become unafforadable. That's true of every city. 
  I have no idea what example you want? You want me to find a perfect city with massive demand that builds no new housing yet is cheap? That violates supply and demand. It literally cannot exist.
  You want a city that has massive demand builds massive new housing so it's cheap? Ok, Huston. You will then say you don't want to live there because the quality of life sucks. Huston does exactly the same stupid thing about developing the equivalent of the Greenbelt, they sprawl endlessly. The city is cheap. It's horrible on every front. Environmentally it's a disaster. Commute times are out of control even post pandemic. Huston often makes lists of worst cities in the US.
  TLDR: In Toronto the economy is good, we have demand, we need supply. We have two options for supply: build up or build out. We know that building up leads to cities that people love. We know that building out leads to cities with huge problems, low quality of life, destroys the environment, and causes massive traffic issues. Don't develop the Greenbelt. >
  
  
  Your whole argument is that somehow, inexplicably, new housing in the Greenbelt will be cheap, while new housing in Toronto will be expensive.
  
  It hinges on the current reality that housing in the Greenbelt/in smaller towns outside of Toronto is less expensive than Toronto, and that people are currently moving there anyway, because the magical affordable housing hasn't appeared/been built in Toronto yet. 
  
  That can only happen as I said for one and only one reason: the housing in the Greenbelt sucks and no one wants it, which will just make housing in Toronto more attractive and more expensive.
  
  Or, it could be happening because more people want to live in Toronto than Caledon, more people want to live in Caledon than Belfountain, making the less desirable places AKA not Toronto cheaper than Toronto. These places happen to be, outside of Toronto. Maybe small towns have cheaper houses and more available land for development because there are fewer people interested in buying there, and more land that has not been developed already available?
  If everyone just wanted a box and didn't care where they lived, then why would Toronto be so expensive/desirable to live in? Why wouldn't everyone move to somewhere cheaper because location doesn't matter if location is what is driving cost and oh wait, now we've got people moving out of the city and into the Greenbelt again...
  
  It's stupid to add new boxes for people to live in on green land far away with no infrastructure and no transportation, which not only destroys the environment but causes massive traffic problems. 
  
  I would agree with you, if there were affordable urban options available NOW for people to buy/live in, which there are not. Until that solution happens, and we somehow outbuild demand even though the population of Toronto has doubled since the 80's and there is very little indication that growth in the GTA is slowing or demand is weakening, people are going to buy housing where they can afford it. If that isn't Toronto but their work, family, and social connections are here, then where else are they going to go other than out?
  
  We should follow what other cities do and add them in the city by making it denser. 
  
  While this adds population, it doesn't really increase affordability. There are plenty of dense condo towers being built in Toronto aimed at a luxury market the average Ontario income owner cannot afford, and even the Greenbelt developments are trending towards semi-detached, townhouses, and low-mid rise density as the smaller cities urbanize. 
  
  That has a chance of lowering housing costs. If we outbuild demand.
  
  It has a chance, but are we anywhere close to that hypothetical, or on a path that sees meaningful change happening within the next 10 years? People experiencing the housing scarcity don't need hypothetical housing after we fix the affordability problem with abundance, they need housing now. 
  
  You cannot have cheap housing in a city with high demand and low supply. 
  
  Then why are you pretending that this is a solvable problem in Toronto, a city with extremely high demand and low supply? Why am I the one with the crazy idea for suggesting that it's too expensive to live here so we should build outside of Toronto, AKA the Greenbelt? If desirable places to live are expensive, doesn't that mean that the best places to achieve affordable housing are in smaller communities where housing already is more affordable?
  
  I have no idea what example you want? You want me to find a perfect city with massive demand that builds no new housing yet is cheap? That violates supply and demand. It literally cannot exist.
  
  You suggested that by creating an excess of supply, we could reduce demand, and therefore increase affordability. I am not suggesting we don't build houses, I am suggesting we build housing. I am suggesting that as much as we want to increase demand and density in Toronto, if we want to increase affordability close to Toronto, geographically speaking the Greenbelt is kind of the only place it can go unless you build a lot of houseboats.
  
  You want a city that has massive demand builds massive new housing so it's cheap? Ok, Huston. You will then say you don't want to live there because the quality of life sucks.
  
  I don't know much about Huston, but if it sucks I'll take your word for it.  You might be able to convince me that Nobleton which is under an hour outside of the city is urban sprawl, but if someone wants to live in Port Perry, (which is still in the Greenbelt and therefore bad to build in?) is that still Toronto sprawl, or just population growth in southern Ontario?
  Some of the Greenbelt development could be considered Toronto sprawl, but a lot of it is growing small towns in rural Ontario. When you grow a small town, that growth happens into the farms and wild land that surround them, and if those small towns are in the Greenbelt, then they're "a problem" because that's bad for the environment. 
  
  We know that building up leads to cities that people love. 
  
  I don't know why you keep coming back to this point. I am not contesting people like unaffordable cities, the fact that they are unaffordable proves that. I have yet to see an example where supply increasing has solved the demand problem or made things more affordable, you're just saying "lots of people want to live in expensive cities" when I'm saying "I agree with you, how do we make them more affordable to live in?" 
  
  We know that building out leads to cities with huge problems, low quality of life, destroys the environment, and causes massive traffic issues. 
  
  We also know that these are the places that are currently (somewhat) affordable to live in. So we can either keep blaming people for seeking out affordable housing when the cities that are promising more density continue to build luxury housing they can't afford, or we can actually build affordable density, which has been advocated for for decades unsuccessfully in Toronto, to the point where we are talking about housing crisis issues. 
  TL;DR: Toronto, and all other desirable cities continue to grow as our population grows. We have not come close to creating supply that meets that demand, and it is driving people out of the city to find supply that they can afford. That supply is in the Greenbelt, because it encircles the more expensive and desirable parts of the province. If we prevent development in the Greenbelt reducing supply there, doesn't that drive up the demand in the cities adding to the affordability problem? Develop the Greenbelt, we can't house people in the lake. >
  
  Around 60% of Toronto is still zoned exclusively for single family homes. I live in an area quite close to downtown, between multiple streetcar lines, and when I go for a walk I go by entire streets of huge detached homes mostly occupied by empty nest seniors. That's not even getting into North York/Etobicoke/Scarborough, never mind Oshawa, Brampton and Mississauga which I'd guess are well over 80% SFH. So yes, there is lots of land within the GTA to develop into denser and more efficient uses. With better transit infrastructure that can also apply to Milton or even Guelph and KW.
  But speaking specifically of the Greenbelt, the issue there is that the style of development that would take place there is what got us where we are now. The long term infrastructure cost associated with these car dependent suburbs drains away resources that could be used to improve transit or other services that have more long term benefits. The 413 is going to cost at least $6 billion just to make (never mind maintain) and there's going to be a lot more of that required if there is significant development in the Greenbelt. That's not a way to address the cost of living looking into the future. If it was specific exceptions for sustainable developments with density and transit requirements, that would be one thing. But the blanket opening Ford is doing is just going to kick the affordability can down the road slightly if at all, and at significant cost.
  I'm sympathetic to the desire to just build wherever you can feasibly build. But sprawl is just going to cause these issues to come back even worse- and that's not getting into the corruption elements at play here. >
  
  I agree there are places inside Toronto and in the GTA that could be used for denser housing, re-zoned, and that walkable neighbourhoods, reliable and affordable public transit reducing car dependency, and investments into things like not only making the TTC functional, but expanding the GO network and VIA rail, or other "better than just cars and highways everywhere" options are all good ideas. I also agree that there are a ton of "empty nest boomers" living in significantly more house than they need, while they bought their kids significantly more house than they need and see that as an investment in their future, and some of those purchases are in the new developments popping up in the communities and cities surrounding them. It's almost like mom and dad want their kids to be close enough to them that they can visit.
  I agree that a lot of what is being built is not a type of housing that I would find desirable, and the sprawl that comes with it because it is cheaper for big box stores to buy and clear-cut a giant property on the edge of nowhere-ville and build a surface parking lot than build a multi-level store and parking downtown is also an issue, but the alternative is to not allow those communities to expand, driving up the cost of existing housing there and lowering affordability. 
  Aggressively adding density does increase the amount of housing that is available, but much of the housing being built in the GTA is not affordable, regardless to what type of housing it is or where it is. That's why people are leaving/trying to buy outside of the GTA, and "outside of the GTA" is the Greenbelt, unless you leave the area. Many of the small towns and cities are growing and have the same issues that housing downtown is becoming more expensive so people are living and developing farther out, which again, is the Greenbelt. If the Golden Horseshoe is too expensive, people have to live outside of it. 
  Better urban planning and vision for growth would help in some of the small towns that are sprawling uncontrollably and could help with the terrible developments, but if your town has a population of 1 000 - 20 000 people, public transit's viability has limits within the community, and there are very rarely viable links to neighbouring communities, increasing car dependency if you want to visit your family/friends in the next town over but there isn't a train/bus to get you there even if your town has some version of public transit. That just uses public transit as an example, but the "does it cost more to use downtown land for dense/high value things, or buy a bigger lot on the edge of town?" equation could be tipped with environmental/zoning changes, but building a department store/shopping complex downtown Caledon with below ground parking/parking towers to prevent sprawl is not going be cheaper than "build a giant walmart/costco/whatever 10 minutes away" unless it's just not an option at all.
  I don't really know/care about what Ford's on about, because even if it's extremely poorly implemented, I think you are still going to have people who want to move/live in affordable places close to Toronto, so that means they are going to live/build in the Greenbelt. If it's not affordable to live in Toronto, where else are they going to go? >
  
  
  Aggressively adding density does increase the amount of housing that is available, but much of the housing being built in the GTA is not affordable, regardless to what type of housing it is or where it is.
  
  That logic is a bit circular. The reason it is not affordable is because supply and demand are so out of whack. If supply was increased enough that would not longer be the case.
  Also what you are saying largely applies to most new suburban developments as well. Most of them are over sized and over priced. >
  
  I agree that supply and demand are out of whack. Too many people want to live in Toronto for the available housing that is here, so if they want to find affordable housing, they have to look elsewhere. That "elsewhere" is outside of the city, and outside of the city is in the green areas that we are trying to protect from development. 
  More housing has been added to Toronto, it has doubled in population since the 80's. A lot of that has been building up not out, but a lot of that has been sprawl as well. The towns in the areas that we are trying to protect have had significant population expansions as well, and those people have to go somewhere too. 
  Has housing in Toronto become more affordable since the 80's? I agree we need to add more in order to drive down cost, but when the population of Toronto grew by 300 000 people in the last 5 years, where are they all supposed to go when the same 300 000 people realize the city hasn't built enough housing for them driving up housing costs? 
  Much of the housing being built is not being built as affordable housing. If land cost and zoning were changed such that more housing could be built within the city and that drives down the average home from something like $1.2 million to $700 000, there are still plenty of people who cannot afford to that house and will need to live outside of the city. 
  "Make housing in urban areas more affordable" is absolutely something I can get behind, but a lot of people who can't fight that fight with their current pay cheque are moving to more affordable areas now to survive hoping that problem can be solved later, leading more people to leave the city and move into new developments in the Greenbelt. 
  I agree a ton of the suburban developments are way over sized and over priced, and that style of housing is not something I want to live in. Driving past a bunch of "semi-detached homes in a vista" for the holidays where I had childhood memories of fields and forests and things was what inspired this post because I think it's terrible housing. If your options are something like that or a tiny condo in the city you can't afford, I can see why people are making that choice given the lack of viable alternatives. >
  
  
  More housing has been added to Toronto, it has doubled in population since the 80's ....... Has housing in Toronto become more affordable since the 80's? 
  
  Of course not, because it is the two number relative to each other that matter not just adding more units in absolute terms. The amount has been highly restricted due to the overwhelming percentage of land the is restricted to single family houses. 
  ​
  
  Much of the housing being built is not being built as affordable housing. 
  
  This is mostly due to the fact that it is so hard to build new supply, making that the only part of the market that can be met. Also the market can only be trusted to provide so much. There needs to be much more public investment in housing. 
  
  .......there are still plenty of people who cannot afford to that house and will need to live outside of the city. 
  
  There is nothing about being outside the city that makes it inherently less expensive (Much of that is because of the way we subsidize suburban style developments), it is entirely possible to make the city (not necessarily right downtown) just as affordable as the periphery. 
  ​
  
  "Make housing in urban areas more affordable" is absolutely something I can get behind, but a lot of people who can't fight that fight with their current pay cheque are moving to more affordable areas now to survive hoping that problem can be solved later, leading more people to leave the city and move into new developments in the Greenbelt.
  
  You are accurately describing the problem, however the current state of affairs does not imply what the best strategy to solve the problem is. 
  ​
  
  If your options are something like that or a tiny condo in the city you can't afford, I can see why people are making that choice given the lack of viable alternatives.
  
  The tiny condos are not an inherent aspect of infill development but a symptom of our current policies.  
  ​
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  I am actually ambivalent about green belts as a policy tool to prevent sprawl myself, however preventing urban sprawl is extremely important as there are a lot of issues beyond affordability at stake. And regardless, while more sprawl will help with supply it is not the only option and we should focus on the solutions that have the least harmful side effects. >
  
  
  The amount has been highly restricted due to the overwhelming percentage of land the is restricted to single family houses.
  
  I agree, and I agree that zoning changes and reduced regulations/red tape could change that, but then you have to essentially increase zoning restrictions/red tape in less populated areas to prevent them from growing (like the Greenbelt) if your intention is to push people into denser urban housing than cheaper, less dense, suburban or rural housing developments.
  This might be a sound environmental goal, but I do not know how you make an area more dense, more desirable, and more affordable while restricting growth in surrounding communities. 
  
  There is nothing about being outside the city that makes it inherently less expensive 
  
  I encourage you to find housing in the Golden Horseshoe that is cheaper than comparable housing in the Greenbelt. I'll wait. Housing is absolutely cheaper in Bolton than it is in Toronto/GTA, and it's even more affordable in town you have never heard of than biggest city in the country. There might be higher costs to the government that supplies the services needed by those houses when you look at things like providing roads and drinking water, but if you look at the taxes paid in those communities for those services, they are lower than in most cities too. 
  It might be more expensive to the government when people are more spread out, but it is cheaper for individual people to move out of the city. you have to be significantly farther away from the city before the personal costs associated with your distance start to be felt on an individual level, which is what makes the proximity to the city also desirable, making people want to live in the Greenbelt surrounding the major population centers. 
  
  it is entirely possible to make the city (not necessarily right downtown) just as affordable as the periphery.
  
  It might be, or it might be possible to make the periphery desirable enough that people from the city center don't want to leave the city entirely, but we aren't talking about suburbs in a traditional sense because most of the Golden Horseshoe also faces affordability issues, we're talking about small-medium sized towns of 1 000 - 20 000 people growing as people look for affordable housing outside of cities. Those communities happen to be in the Greenbelt. 
  
  You are accurately describing the problem, however the current state of affairs does not imply what the best strategy to solve the problem is.
  
  I am not suggesting a solution to not building in the Greenbelt, because I don't see one. I am saying we have to build there if we want affordable housing, because the housing that isn't built there and is in the cities in the Golden Horseshoe is too expensive and the population of Southern Ontario as a whole is growing, and those people need somewhere to live. If they can't afford to live in Toronto, and the people living in Toronto are being priced out and forced to seek more affordable housing, how can we blame them for moving to places where it is available?
  I agree that "combatting sprawl" is important and there are more issues beyond affordability, I just don't see how opposing Greenbelt development and no one has shown an example of a place where density increases with affordability. 
  I would love to solve environmental issues and social issues and make more desirable cities. I would also like to be able to afford to live there, and I don't see mutually agreeable solutions to those concerns. How do people save the environment, when they can't afford to live in their own environment? >
  
  
  I encourage you to find housing in the Golden Horseshoe that is cheaper than comparable housing in the Greenbelt. I'll wait. Housing is absolutely cheaper in Bolton than it is in Toronto/GTA, and it's even more affordable in town you have never heard of than biggest city in the country.
  
  This is a fairly recent development! I'm reading a book about Canadian indie music from the early 2000's and a running theme is that there were in fact lots of cheap places to rent in Toronto, Vancouver and especially Montreal that allowed artists to make a living before making it big. Having briefly lived here at the time I can confirm it. I had a nice place for $650 a month, which is the equivalent of $920 now. Maybe it was even cheaper out in Bolton but either way as a percentage of income it was far more reasonable and not that long ago. It's not an inherent element of a big city that it's incredibly expensive. >
  
  I rented a one bedroom in Toronto in 2012, for less than $1000/month. I moved back around 10 years later, and rent in Toronto is currently averaging around $2500/month for a 1 bedroom apartment. The average house price in Toronto in the 90's was in the $200 000's. It's now something like $1.2 million. I absolutely agree that Toronto used to be more affordable and it absolutely isn't now. 
  I don't think that proves "cities can be cheap because Toronto used to be cheaper" because when I was renting for $1000/month in Toronto, my friends were renting for $500/month in KW and similar sized Ontario cities, and house prices in the Greenbelt were under $100 000. 
  Toronto is more expensive now than it ever has been, forcing people to look for cheaper alternatives. Those cheaper alternatives are more expensive than they have ever been as well, as housing prices in many of those small communities have increased significantly as well, just not to the numbers that we see in the city. 
  
  It's not an inherent element of a big city that it's incredibly expensive.
  
  I wouldn't say that they have to be inherently incredibly expensive, but they tend to inherently be more expensive than smaller cities and towns surrounding them, which is fueling the Greenbelt debate. And that "debate" feels a whole lot like "you can't afford to live in the cities because we made them too expensive, but you can't live outside of the cities because we have to protect the Greenbelt" so what options are left? >
  
  You have three options to housing:
  
  Build out 
  Build up
  Have less people
  
  Canada would be in population decline without immigration, so simply taking in fewer immigrants is one obvious answer to a housing crunch.
  Building up is more sustainable than building out, so I really do not understand why that is not preferable. >
  
  
  ban Air BnB
  ban/limit private firms investing is residential real estate.
  increase property taxes on 4th+ owned residence >
  
  A lot of these small towns have lost factories local production of agricultural goods like processing businesses too, and a lot of small town Greenbelt towns are basing a significant amount of their economy on tourists who want to come and visit to get away from the city and experience nature type stuff. While I agree that airbnb often feels like a predatory part of this, without tourism and aggressive real estate expansion, there isn't a lot of economy keeping them afloat. Plenty are essentially commuter towns where people don't even work there. I agree that airbnb is a problem in most places, but I don't know what the viable alternative is to keep those communities alive. 
  Real estate as an investment vehicle instead of a place to live is a complicated thing I don't know as much as I would like to about, but I largely agree it's a net negative. I understand that you need more money than one individual has to build and maintain a condo building or mid-rise and people should have the option to rent if they want to, but I agree you shouldn't be able to make money off on an empty house when I need one to live in and can't afford it. 
  There will be people deterred by higher taxes on multiple properties, but unless viable alternatives are also available for housing, that cost will likely be continued to be passed on to renters who have been priced out of the market. >
  
  Great points! I mean small town hospitality oriented folk could always open regular BnBs if they're so inclined, but I get not everybody is into those. 
  You're absolutely right about the tax cost being passed on, it always is. Donno what better solution there would be.
  Keeping hedge funds and asset managers out of residential real estate could be the first priority. Even that has many complications >
  
  
  I mean small town hospitality oriented folk could always open regular BnBs if they're so inclined, but I get not everybody is into those.
  
  While we like to point the finger at airbnb as bad because it made it easier for more people to access these communities resulting in increased demand for short term-rentals pricing out long term rentals and potential home buyers, it is just the facilitator to the problem. "The problem" is if you want your economy to be built on tourists coming to your community, you need (temporary) housing and amenities for those tourists. If you are going away to a vacation town for a vacation, many people also want that vacation to include nice/expensive dining, cultural events or attractions for entertainment, and the amenities they are used to to make them feel at home, all of which price out the locals from their quiet community that didn't have all those fancy things before all the tourists started coming there. 
  Too many people want to go to desirable places, making those places more expensive is the tourism/cottage community tale as old as time, to the point where places like Muskoka that were once "places to get away from expensive living" have become extremely expensive places to live.
  While creating a tax disincentive towards owning multiple homes, real estate funds, etc. would likely help, there would also need to be amendments made to prevent that from impacting affordable rental housing, which I don't have a good answer to either. More affordable housing could mean that more people are incentivized to buy than rent?
  I agree that residential real estate being considered an investment opportunity/option has done more harm than good and "getting big business out of housing" is likely a good idea, but I'm also not sure how we get that horse back in the barn from where we are now. 
  I am not suggesting I have a solution to affordable housing in Ontario, just that the current option of moving away from expensive cities to more affordable rural communities shouldn't be vilified for it's environmental impact, if there are not viable and affordable alternatives. >
  
  - >
  
  I am saying that "poor people" as well as "people who didn't think of themselves as poor but can't afford to live in urban parts of Ontario anymore because of the cost of living" need somewhere to live, and that need for housing is driving them out of the more expensive cities into the Greenbelt, creating the problem we are facing. 
  Toronto is expensive, so you look at "the GTA" and find that North York, Etobicoke, Scarborough, Mississauga, Brampton, Vaughan, Markham, Richmond Hill, Oakville, Hamilton, etc. are all getting expensive too, and you want to be closer to your friends and family than Guelph or K-W, so where do you go? 
  You go somewhere like the cities/small/medium sized towns I mentioned that are in the Greenbelt, because of their geographic proximity to Toronto.
  Denser housing traditionally drives up housing prices whether or not that is the goal, which means that even if you put that denser housing in smaller towns that grow, that growth happens into the Greenbelt surrounding them.
  There are plenty of people who can't afford to live in towns that have become resort/vacation/airbnb towns or work at the ski resorts and golf courses surrounding them to the point where many have shuttle services from the surrounding (sprawling because land is cheap) smaller communities, compounding the problem. 
  People need places to live. Rich people might buy bigger places to live, or buy up all the smaller places to live and rent them to poor people, or be a part of the economic/political part of this I was trying to avoid, but if you want poor people and rough sleepers housed, whatever that housing looks like, it needs to go somewhere. >
  
  No we just have to raise interest rates, heavy tax housing as an investment and cut immigration, supply and demand will do the rest. >
  
  
  We just have to raise interest rates
  
  So people who already bought/rent housing that is over-priced are forced out of their homes, having to sell/move in a market that's hopefully cooling off/prices are dropping so they loose money on their current home and then have to buy/rent a cheaper home they can afford the interest rates on? Wouldn't that just drive people to seek out housing in more affordable areas, causing small towns surrounded by Greenbelt to expand and contribute to this problem?
  
  heavy tax housing as an investment
  
  Wouldn't this drive up the cost of rentals and/or be a disincentive to own rentals creating a limited supply, increasing rents, and making it more challenging for people who already can't afford housing to buy a house even if prices come down?
  
  cut immigration
  
  This isn't a popular one to talk about because while Canadians, and many other places have below replacement rate birthrates and population decline should lead to more housing availability, it also leads to a ton of other economic issues if you look at places like Japan who have not tried the "solve the problem with immigration" approach. Lowering immigration targets to try to solve housing impacts the economy that's built on selling more housing which lowers demand by tanking the economy. We definitely need to transition our economy in Canada away from essentially "just keep building more houses and we'll keep bringing in more people" but until we do that, we can't just close the door and expect the problem to be solved. 
  
  Supply and demand will do the rest
  
  I think that's kind of the attitude that got us here. There are a ton of people who are renting increasingly unaffordable places who are priced out of buying unaffordable places who have no other options, and while there is both rental and real estate income potential, there will be companies and people to take advantage of it. There are plenty of predatory landlords and property management and condo associations and things, but if we want denser housing, individual people/families/home buyers aren't building condo buildings and low rises, so either a company or the government has to, and "government housing" has a whole bunch of other issues.
  It would be great if there was enough supply of housing that it came down to being actually affordable, but it seems to be a more complicated issue than it "will do the rest."
  This is part of why I'm trying to focus on the you can't have your cake and eat it too part of the "you can't drive people out of unaffordable cities to smaller communities, and not expect those smaller communities to expand to accommodate their growing population" issue at hand, not the real estate/tax/interest rates/immigration/investment/supply and demand/plethora of other issues because to focus the discussion in a bit. >
  
  
  So people who already bought/rent housing that is over-priced are forced out of their homes, having to sell/move in a market that's hopefully cooling off/prices are dropping so they loose money on their current home and then have to buy/rent a cheaper home they can afford the interest rates on? Wouldn't that just drive people to seek out housing in more affordable areas, causing small towns surrounded by Greenbelt to expand and contribute to this problem?
  
  Why would properties that aren't developed on the green belt yet be more "affordable areas"? 
  
  Wouldn't this drive up the cost of rentals and/or be a disincentive to own rentals creating a limited supply, increasing rents, and making it more challenging for people who already can't afford housing to buy a house even if prices come down?
  
  Alone yes but not in combination of the other measures. 
  
  This isn't a popular one to talk about because while Canadians, and many other places have below replacement rate birthrates and population decline should lead to more housing availability, it also leads to a ton of other economic issues if you look at places like Japan who have not tried the "solve the problem with immigration" approach. Lowering immigration targets to try to solve housing impacts the economy that's built on selling more housing which lowers demand by tanking the economy. We definitely need to transition our economy in Canada away from essentially "just keep building more houses and we'll keep bringing in more people" but until we do that, we can't just close the door and expect the problem to be solved.
  
  Housing being affordable will "tank the economy" our economy is a house of cards built on inflated housing prices. There is no solution to affordable housing that doesn't "tank the economy" the question is what exactly does tanking the economy mean for the average person in this case and from what I can tell it means cheaper housing and higher wages. There really is no downside to cutting immigration unless your in the top 20%. 
  
  I think that's kind of the attitude that got us here. 
  
  How? We've had massive amounts of government intervention to keep housing going up. Literally every one of our policies which is related even tangentially has been used to increase housing prices for DECADES. 
  
  There are a ton of people who are renting increasingly unaffordable places who are priced out of buying unaffordable places who have no other options, and while there is both rental and real estate income potential, there will be companies and people to take advantage of it. There are plenty of predatory landlords and property management and condo associations and things, but if we want denser housing, individual people/families/home buyers aren't building condo buildings and low rises, so either a company or the government has to, and "government housing" has a whole bunch of other issues.
  
  If supply of people needing a house goes down (instead of the government forcing it up) housing will go down... I don't understand what you think your point is.
  
  It would be great if there was enough supply of housing that it came down to being actually affordable, but it seems to be a more complicated issue than it "will do the rest."
  
  Oh I get the confusion now, you're ignoring the demand side entirely. I'm talking about massively cutting the demand for housing by fucking over the investor class while cutting immigration leading to a massive decrease in demand causing prices to plummet. You are just absolutely blind to the demand side. 
  
  This is part of why I'm trying to focus on the you can't have your cake and eat it too part of the "you can't drive people out of unaffordable cities to smaller communities, and not expect those smaller communities to expand to accommodate their growing population" issue at hand, not the real estate/tax/interest rates/immigration/investment/supply and demand/plethora of other issues because to focus the discussion in a bit.
  
  They won't be driven out though because prices will plummet. >
  
  
  Why would properties that aren't developed on the green belt yet be more "affordable areas"?
  
  Have you looked at housing prices in Toronto, the Golden Horseshoe, or any other highly urbanized metropolitan area in North America? Have you looked at housing prices in places farther away from those dense cities? 
  I'm not coming up with some completely untested theory that no one has ever heard of. Land and housing is cheaper in places farther away from cities. There are a lot of reasons for that, but "no one wants to live here because it's far away from other places, so it's less expensive than places people want to leave closer to" isn't a disputed part of housing costs, unless you are looking at desirable and exclusive locations like vacation/tourist locations.
  I also do not have a good economic solution to "making housing affordable" that doesn't involve some form of "collapsing the housing market" or at least significant depreciation in housing "value" to more affordable pricing, which is just another way of saying housing collapse. If we combine that with a failing health care system, an aging population, and significantly reducing the immigrants we keep bringing in to take care of the boomers and buy their inflated houses, then we compound that issue. 
  Affordable housing comes at the collapse of the housing market, and to prevent the collapse of the housing market from collapsing our economy we need to find other areas to grow our economy into instead of housing. Traditionally that has been natural resource extraction in Canada, which has an even worse environmental image than building housing and highways in the Greenbelt. 
  So, if we collapse the economy, is that going to make it more affordable for people to buy houses, or just mean more people lose their jobs and can't afford housing? What do we build our economy on instead of housing, if we hope to come out of this on the other side of a collapse with a healthy economy and affordable housing? >
  
  
  Have you looked at housing prices in Toronto, the Golden Horseshoe, or any other highly urbanized metropolitan area in North America? Have you looked at housing prices in places farther away from those dense cities?
  
  Why exactly do you think the greenbelt would be cheaper then other places equally far away?
  
  I'm not coming up with some completely untested theory that no one has ever heard of. Land and housing is cheaper in places farther away from cities. There are a lot of reasons for that, but "no one wants to live here because it's far away from other places, so it's less expensive than places people want to leave closer to" isn't a disputed part of housing costs, unless you are looking at desirable and exclusive locations like vacation/tourist locations.
  
  Neither am I, less people buying housing = cheaper housing. 
  
  I also do not have a good economic solution to "making housing affordable" that doesn't involve some form of "collapsing the housing market" or at least significant depreciation in housing "value" to more affordable pricing, which is just another way of saying housing collapse. If we combine that with a failing health care system, an aging population, and significantly reducing the immigrants we keep bringing in to take care of the boomers and buy their inflated houses, then we compound that issue.
  
  Um what are you talking about? This is just nonsense buzz words. 
  
  Affordable housing comes at the collapse of the housing market, and to prevent the collapse of the housing market from collapsing our economy we need to find other areas to grow our economy into instead of housing. Traditionally that has been natural resource extraction in Canada, which has an even worse environmental image than building housing and highways in the Greenbelt.
  
  Again I don't buy "collapsing the economy" is bad for anyone other than the investor class. 
  
  So, if we collapse the economy, is that going to make it more affordable for people to buy houses, or just mean more people lose their jobs and can't afford housing? What do we build our economy on instead of housing, if we hope to come out of this on the other side of a collapse with a healthy economy and affordable housing?
  
  Why would anyone lose their jobs? We are cutting immigration and we have a "workers shortage" so if we have less workers and already have a worker shortage how is the "economy collapsing" (housing) going to cause mass job loss? Especially considering the amount of disposable income people have will skyrocket due to cheaper housing. >
  
  
  Why exactly do you think the greenbelt would be cheaper then them though? 
  
  Because they actually are. I don't need to think/guess about whether or not it's more affordable to buy a house in Toronto than it is to buy a house in Bloomington, I can look at housing prices right now and see that they are in fact more expensive in Toronto, and the other larger cities in the Golden Horseshoe than they are in places in the Greenbelt outside of Toronto. 
  Is a house in Orangeville cheaper than Toronto? Yes. Is a house in Grand Valley cheaper than Orangeville? Yes. Are the housing developments that have been build all across south-central Ontario in the Greenbelt for the last 10 years more affordable than living in Toronto? Yes. 
  There are definitely situations where non-affordable housing is being built in the Greenbelt, and there are plenty of developments that are over priced and should not be as expensive as they are, partially owing to the fact that they are next to Glen Major, and no one knows where that is. You still can't convince me a house, townhouse, mid-rise, or whatever form of housing you would put there is going to be less expensive than downtown Toronto in our current housing market.
  
  Um what are you talking about? This is just nonsense buzz words.
  
  I am suggesting that a significant amount of our Canadian economy is based on extracting natural resources and clearing land to build houses which we expect to continually grow in value by creating continually increasing demand for housing, fueling the need to build more housing, keeping the cycle going and the economy afloat. If we want housing to "become affordable" then that means that housing has to cost less, which means that current homes and future homes need to be cheaper than they are now, or they need to at the very least increase in value at a slower pace than our current inflation. 
  If we do not transition that portion of our economy to something else, then we face economic downturn/recession. 
  
  Again I don't buy "collapsing the economy" is bad for anyone other than the investor class.
  
  We are seeing inflation and slow economic growth right now, as our economy is not full on collapsing but struggling. We are seeing record profits for big corporations and "the investor class" while "normal people" can't afford food, energy, and housing. Those things are not investments/luxuries, they are necessities, and while some investors stocks might be going down and their fortunes might be getting smaller, we are here because I can't afford housing, not because my investment returns are not looking favourable this quarter. 
  If the pandemic showed us anything, we saw that economic stress was felt by people outside of the investor class, while the investor class gained wealth instead of loosing it. The "winners" of the pandemic were the Amazons and Walmarts and "too big to close down necessary businesses" not "the little guys who can't afford government lobbying".
  
  Why would anyone lose their jobs?  
  
  Because the economy collapsed. 
  
  We are cutting immigration and we have a "workers shortage" so if we have less workers and already have a worker shortage how is the "economy collapsing" (housing) going to cause mass job loss?
  
  A significant factor in the "worker shortage" is because the jobs experiencing a shortage are not desirable enough to be filled by people living close enough to those jobs to fill them. We can pretend that a minimum wage job in Toronto is experiencing a "worker shortage" or we can acknowledge that you cannot live on minimum wage in Toronto, so no one can afford to take that job. 
  "Worker shortage" means "people won't work for what my business is offering to pay them" because the jobs with enough compensation incentive are filled. Those "worker shortage" jobs aren't paying more, they are automating and reducing staff. Fast food and retail workers aren't going to suddenly get paid "I can afford housing in Toronto" money if limit immigration, those business are going to continue to close and people are going to continue to loose their jobs if there is less population to buy the food and retail goods they are selling. 
  
  Especially considering the amount of disposable income people have will skyrocket due to cheaper housing.
  
  That is the dream, where housing is affordable so you can also afford to spend what you have left on other things, but if we have to collapse the economy to get there, I don't see that necessarily leading to increased disposable income for the average person. >
  
  
  Because they actually are. I don't need to think/guess about whether or not it's more affordable to buy a house in Toronto than it is to buy a house in Bloomington, I can look at housing prices right now and see that they are in fact more expensive in Toronto, and the other larger cities in the Golden Horseshoe than they are in places in the Greenbelt outside of Toronto. Is a house in Orangeville cheaper than Toronto? Yes. Is a house in Grand Valley cheaper than Orangeville? Yes. Are the housing developments that have been build all across south-central Ontario in the Greenbelt for the last 10 years more affordable than living in Toronto? Yes. There are definitely situations where non-affordable housing is being built in the Greenbelt, and there are plenty of developments that are over priced and should not be as expensive as they are, partially owing to the fact that they are next to Glen Major, and no one knows where that is. You still can't convince me a house, townhouse, mid-rise, or whatever form of housing you would put there is going to be less expensive than downtown Toronto in our current housing market.
  
  I never said downtown Toronto I asked why do you think it would be cheaper than some random house in a small town? Why would they go to the green belt and not anywhere else?
  
  I am suggesting that a significant amount of our Canadian economy is based on extracting natural resources and clearing land to build houses which we expect to continually grow in value by creating continually increasing demand for housing, fueling the need to build more housing, keeping the cycle going and the economy afloat. If we want housing to "become affordable" then that means that housing has to cost less, which means that current homes and future homes need to be cheaper than they are now, or they need to at the very least increase in value at a slower pace than our current inflation. If we do not transition that portion of our economy to something else, then we face economic downturn/recession.
  
  I understand that, what I don't understand is why you think that economic downturn/recession by the numbers would be bad for everyday people in any meaningful way. Since our economy is basically an illusion so would be the damage from it collapsing. 
  
  We are seeing inflation and slow economic growth right now, as our economy is not full on collapsing but struggling. We are seeing record profits for big corporations and "the investor class" while "normal people" can't afford food, energy, and housing. Those things are not investments/luxuries, they are necessities, and while some investors stocks might be going down and their fortunes might be getting smaller, we are here because I can't afford housing, not because my investment returns are not looking favourable this quarter.
  
  "The economy" is doing great though, the growth is outpaced by inflation but that's only because inflation is insane by the numbers and compared to previous years "the economy" is doing great. People are struggling not the economy which again brings me back to my point, why do you think a housing collapse would be bad for people in general? 
  
  If the pandemic showed us anything, we saw that economic stress was felt by people outside of the investor class, while the investor class gained wealth instead of loosing it. The "winners" of the pandemic were the Amazons and Walmarts and "too big to close down necessary businesses" not "the little guys who can't afford government lobbying".
  
  That wasn't economic stress, that was government putting their finger on the scale. 
  
  Because the economy collapsed.
  
  So? Our economy isn't based on jobs.
  
  A significant factor in the "worker shortage" is because the jobs experiencing a shortage are not desirable enough to be filled by people living close enough to those jobs to fill them. 
  
  You mean people literally can't afford to live within a reasonable commute of what the jobs pays. 
  
  We can pretend that a minimum wage job in Toronto is experiencing a "worker shortage" or we can acknowledge that you cannot live on minimum wage in Toronto, so no one can afford to take that job.
  
  Right but if housing collapsed suddenly that job would be come viable. 
  "Worker shortage" means "people won't work for what my business is offering to pay them" because the jobs with enough compensation incentive are filled. Those "worker shortage" jobs aren't paying more, they are automating and reducing staff. Fast food and retail workers aren't going to suddenly get paid "I can afford housing in Toronto" money if limit immigration, those business are going to continue to close and people are going to continue to loose their jobs if there is less population to buy the food and retail goods they are selling.
  Again if housing collapses and becomes affordable that calculation is changed.
  
  That is the dream, where housing is affordable so you can also afford to spend what you have left on other things, but if we have to collapse the economy to get there, I don't see that necessarily leading to increased disposable income for the average person.
  
  You keep acting like "the economy" is some important thing that if it collapse things will become horrible for everyday people but you consistently fail to draw that line in any meaningful way. Our economy isn't built on anything real, therefore it collapsing won't do any real damage. >
  
  
  If you build houses for people, then you need to build things like roads and the highways 
  
  That's a choice not a necessity.  You can do suburb density and build roads and seas of parking lots.  That's a choice.  You can do higher density, refuse to subsidize roads or permit parking lots, and you'll get subways or light rail.  There's no rule that says we have to build for cars. >
  
  You can build smaller cities that have medium density with increased walkability and public transit in order to help combat sprawl, and if I was talking about Scarborough having a better bus/light rail/subway or something, there is an infrastructure conversation to be had there about planning and building for cars.
  If we are actually looking at the Greenbelt, most of the communities there have tiny populations. Orangeville has 34 000, but Nobleton is 6 500. A light rail system with that kind of population is not viable. We are talking about towns under 20 000 people. Not only do they not have viable transit options within their own community because of such small populations and low density, they also do not have links to neighbouring/larger communities to seek more specialized services, to get to their job if they commute there, to visit friends and family who don't live in their small community, or to visit the city they were forced out of because it was too expensive. 
  The Golden Horseshoe could absolutely benefit from many of these things because of the density and the relative proximity involved, but "car dependence" is kind of part of "living in the middle of nowhere" AKA the Greenbelt, because you can't afford to live in the city. >
  
  You are selecting "let these towns grow 'organically but with tax funded roads appropriate to their growth'".  That's a fine choice.  It's not the only choice.  You could pick "growth should be truly organic and anyone who wants roads can build on their property and charge a roads fee". 
   You could pick "put all the extra housing in one high density spot and build light rail there and connect to Toronto."  That's a different choice.  There are a whole lot of choices and not all involve the government building roads. >
  
  
  "growth should be truly organic and anyone who wants roads can build on their property and charge a roads fee"
  
  Much of the development involve collaboration with local and provincial governments, because while we could call it "tax funded roads appropriate to their growth" we tax-fund the majority of roads not only in this country, but most of the world. I don't particularly want to live in a Canada with a privatized road network, and "build your own road if you want to live outside of the city" doesn't seem like a way to make the cost of living in the city or outside of it come down. It sounds like that would trap people who can't afford private infrastructure investments in the cities they already cannot afford which is why they are looking to find housing outside of them, AKA moving from the Golden Horseshoe to the Greenbelt. 
  
  "put all the extra housing in one high density spot and build light rail there and connect to Toronto."
  
  We are doing this with the Gotrain to many of the Golden Horseshoe cities/communities with large enough populations to connect commuters. That network, via rail, and inter-community public transit options are sorely missing in Ontario for existing places with the population to support it. Where would this high density spot with rail connection to Toronto go? It can't go south of it, and if you go west, north, or east, you run into established GTA like Hamilton, Brampton, Vaughan, Markham and continue to increase their density while pretending they are affordable places to live, or your new "green city" has to go in the Greenbelt. 
  There are a lot of options that do not involve the government building roads. I am not seeing many of them that make housing more affordable in the cities, which is why I don't see how we can get upset with people building in more affordable areas outside of them. Where else are they going to live? >
  
  
  don't particularly want to live in a Canada with a privatized road network, and "build your own road if you want to live outside of the city" doesn't seem like a way to make the cost of living in the city or outside of it come down. 
  
  Well we haven't tried it, my point is really that building all these roads is government intervention and if you are intervening on the side of promoting sprawl you should be aware that's a choice.
  My suspicion is you wouldn't get a privatized road network under those circumstances but rather find that rail becomes way more feasible.  As it hasn't been tried I don't know for sure.
  At any rate it seems like you think high density means expensive.  I don't think that's true, I think it's the other way round: high desirability areas are expensive due to their desirability and are built up more densely also because of their desirability.  I think if you just build densely enough housing prices will be affordable in many of the areas. >
  
  We do have private roads, and communities that have been built with (limited) government support. If you look at gated communities, or large condo developments where they collect fees and invest in infrastructure/amenities for their residences, and other places where there are private roads to housing, you rarely find affordability at the other end of the private road. You also rarely find density, making this housing exclusive/expensive. The only exceptions I have seen to this would be things like trailer park communities, which often lack or have limited access to services.
  I am not aware of "private road leads to affordable housing" examples in North America, although I am also not convinced "we just haven't tried it, so we don't know if it'll work or not". I am pretty convinced we would see more examples of gated communities if anything from them.
  While you see this as government intervention, the alternative of high density urban development with transit links to high density suburban developments is not a more affordable solution for the government, and while there is housing being built in and adjacent to cities, I see very little of it as affordable. While rail links to places like Orangeville might make sense and they might be able to support a local transit system to make car-free living viable, smaller communities with populations of 20 000 or less do not have the capital for infrastructure investments like that, and putting a subway in a town of 10 000 so the people there don't have to own cars does not seem like an economically sound idea.
  If you look at dense cities, or cities with higher density than Toronto, do any of those cities come across as affordable? Has "add a bunch more people" made Tokyo, New York, London, more affordable? At what point does too much density make a place less desirable to live? At what cost do you start to look for more affordable places?
  If housing is expensive because of the desirability of the area driving more people to that place increasing density, if we make an already desirable city more affordable to live in, would that not increase it's desirability? Are you suggesting we increase the density to the point where we make it undesirable to live there in an attempt to drive down the price, and that is somehow a preferable alternative to moving to a less dense and less expensive place? 
  I feel like I'm following those trains of logic right to the open fields of the Greenbelt, where it's more affordable to build/buy/live, because the city grew too big and expensive.