On housing prices

"The pathway to affordable housing is abundantly clear: Remove urban growth boundaries."

Thus says a report by pro-urban sprawl "think tank" Demographia that's getting some press here. According to the report, Vancouver's high housing prices are the exclusive result of "artificial restrictions on the supply of residential land." In Vancouver's case, that would be the Agricultural Land Reserve, land which the province sets aside for farming. In total, the ALR covers approximately 47,000 square kilometres- roughly five per cent of B.C.'s total land mass. I'm not sure how much of Greater Vancouver's land mass is taken up by the ALR and the Province article above is pretty vague on that score. As you can probably guess by the fact I'm writing about it, I have a lot of problems with these people.

The main problem with the Demographia report is this: supply is determined by natural factors (the ocean, mountains and international boundaries) as well as by artificial constraints such as land use regulations and reserves. Demand, on the other hand, is virtually unlimited. Vancouver's market has gone apeshit in recent years and, with the Olympics just around the bend, won't likely cool off for a while. Given these and other realities (the never ending stream of internal migrants like yours truly who follow the lure of the west coast lifestyle; immigrants flocking to regional ethnic enclaves), I don't see much chance of the demand dropping regardless of the increase in supply. Any drop in prices that opening the ALR for development would bring would be temporairy at best (indeed, I would argue that, given the white-hot demand, developers would be crazy to set prices below current market values). It's a stop-gap measure and not a long term solution, akin to solving traffic congestion by building more freeways: an intuitively sound theory, but in the end, one that results only in more congested freeways. In the meantime, the loss of the ALR would be irrevocable.

It could well be that my economic analysis is shite and that paving over all the greenfields in the GVRD would actually mean I could magically afford to buy out here. Colour me skeptical on that score. But what really burns my toast is the bogus-on-its face "we care" stance developers take when their nostrils are flared with the scent of fresh cash.

Let's be blunt: the people pushing these measures don't give a shit about affordability. If they did, they'd be, you know, building affordable housing. I see little to suggest these guys are interested in anything more than making a quick buck: shocking, I know. I just wish these dinks would at least have the courage of their convictions to use slightly less transparent specious arguments to justify their rapacious greed, because when I read shit like this:

The ALR has become a "sacred cow," (Philip Hochstein of the Independent Contractors and Businesses Association said). "Meanwhile, my kids can't afford to buy a house."

or this....

Hochstein said 60,000 hectares set aside for agricultural use isn't being used for agriculture. He said it may be unrealistic to anticipate that the Lower Mainland could be fed by food grown on that land, a goal when ALR was born.*

I want to hit someone with a ball peen hammer.

*because god knows land has to be used. It can't just, like, sit there. It will go bad, don't you know? Anyone else get the feeling this guy used the "blue balls" line a lot in high school?

Live and learn.

A great thing about getting older is realizing how much of what you believed when you were young is bullshit. A crappy thing about getting older is that knowledge always comes too late to make a difference.

/emo post

Tumbling down

Further to yesterday's post, I've decided to start a second blog. I'm going to maintain this one as an archive and repository for future expletive-laced rants. The other, cooler looking one will be for photos (mine and others'), blurbs, links, that sort of shit.

If you care, go here.

Should I stay or should I go?

I'm pondering moving/relaunching this thing to a different blog host thingy. I'm eyeing tumblr because the interface is simpler, it looks a lot cleaner and short form stuff is more fun. Plus blogger can be a real bitch. So, solitary reader, what do you think?

Freaky. I am freaked.

This morning, I was in the kitchen making coffee when my thoughts idly turned to the Oscars. I was thinking about the last few years and if any good movies actually won anything. The only one I could think of was gay cowboy movie Brokeback Mountain. Which led to more idle thoughts about Anne Hathaway's rack and Heath Ledger's excellent performance in that film.

Now, I'm not usually given to musing about hunky Australian actors, which made Ledger's surfacing from my subconscious and today's news that he's fucking dead all the weirder. I mean seriously: I think of an actor for the first time probably ever and six hours later word gets out that he's dead? I'm no believer in psychic phenomenon but what the fuck? Should I be worried about Anne Hathaway's tits? Should I start thinking really hard about David Caruso when I take a crap tomorrow morning? Jesus.

On this day....

On January 22, 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned all state and federal laws outlawing or restricting abortion in the United States, a landmark decision for abortion rights. It took another 15 years for Canada to follow suit. In that time, the pendulum has swung wildly and it seems as though reproductive rights are under siege.

Today's a good time to remember that the right to decide when to reproduce is a fundamental one and not to be taken for granted.

Okay, now tell me how I can combine the two.

Drinking is healthy, exercise is healthy, and doing a little of both is even healthier, Danish researchers reported on Wednesday.

Several major studies have found that light to moderate drinking -- up to two drinks a day on a regular basis -- is associated with a lower risk of heart disease, and some have also found this leads to a lower risk of some cancers.

But the Danish study, one of the largest of its kind to examine the combined effect of drinking and exercise, found there were additional protective effects gained from doing both.

Dear terrorists....

Hey guys! Gosh, has been almost a year already? I know, I know! But I've been real busy, as I'm sure you have been too. There's soooo much I want to talk to you guys about (did you see Top Model? OMG!), but I've got, like, no time. So here's a couple of things I think you guys would get a real bang out of 'cause they show how the decadent west deserves divine retribution or something! Check 'em out:

Associated Press assistant bureau chief: All things Britney now a "big deal"

Assholes who should probably get blown up.

That's all for now. We should totally catch up soon, tho'! Are you on Facebook?

TTYL

New Year, old complaints

Happy 2008. Here's some bile to get things started right.

This old-ish Sun article on privileged middle-class jackasses slumming it at Downtown Eastside bars pisses me off for a number of reasons. First, that there are kids who hope to achieve some cred by rubbing the hems of their $300 jeans against the grit of the underclass is not news. This type of class tourism has existed for as long as there have been privileged middle-class jackasses looking to temporarily escape their cloistered existence for a little bit of local colour. I'm glad to see that some of the people quoted recognize this, but I doubt that level of self-awareness is the norm. To wit:

Anna Zarzynfki, 22, comes regularly to this dance night at the Astoria. She says it's the low incomes of most of her young friends that is shaping the Hastings Street hipster scene.

"We're like the Mods of the year 2007," said Zarzynfki. "The reason we go to these dive bars isn't because it's a fad. It's because it's all we can afford. Economics always influences subcultures."

Mmhmm. I betcha $200 she learned that last bit at university. The real giveaway that it's not economics as much as elitism is the smugness and self-satisfaction that drips from these twats like a cocaine nosebleed:

"People are tired of going downtown where every club is the same," says Musgrave.

"It's just the same meatheads fighting the same guys and the same chicks that look like hookers."

In the DTES, it's all brawling crackheads and the chicks don't just look like hookers. Authenticity!

"I think a lot of people, myself included, are over downtown just because of the thugs-are-us mentality. There's an alternative needed."

Ah, well, how lucky for you to have that option. I have to wonder, though, what the inevitable gentrification that will follow the migration of the Great Neon Hiptard will mean to those DTES denizens who don't have the luxury of picking their spots when a scene is declared "over."

"These are kids who are more intellectual in their musical tastes and are less inclined to mix downtown with the thugs from the suburbs," says Biltmore manager Richard Roloff, aka DJ Dickey Doo, on the phone from the Canary Islands, where he is working as a DJ.

Uh, Dick? Reading Pitchfork and downloading Daft Punk remixes does not an intellectual make. As for the suburbs remark, from whence do you think all the little spandex-clad faggorts who pay money to watch you press keys on your laptop came?

The new-school Biltmore is aimed at Emily Carr School of Art types, says Roloff. "These are people who don't want to hear Beyonce."

Well, they do, but they don't really mean it. Look, dude, let's not pretend that there's some fundamental difference between the budding conceptual artist from West Van looking to get wasted and laid in some East Hastings bar and the frat boy engineering student looking to do the same on Granville. And no, having a photoblog is not a fundamental difference. To paraphrase Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: "You are all equally worthless." (As an aside, I do find it amusing that these hipsters have such disdain for the thug life, given how many of these 90 pound weaklings adopt the trappings thereof: gang signs, bling, shitty hip-hop, etc. Oh, I forgot: it's okay when it's ironic.)

And finally, the swirly tip on this turd sundae:

DJ Turkington lives in a cheap (for Vancouver) apartment in nearby Strathcona. He's done two years of liberal arts courses at Douglas College. He serves food at a restaurant and sells clothes at American Apparel.

Its like the a c.v. of someone applying for the job of "ridiculous asshole."