• cheery_coffee@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    I’m not saying a fine will work, I’m saying that building houses for just the richest with the idea it will lift up the poor won’t work, the assumptions behind it are unrealistic.

    As houses trickle down the market many get rented out instead of sold, or just owned as a secondary property. I know a guy with a house in NYC and SF and he flies between them, I know other people who have their house and their pad for when they’re working in Toronto.

    If you only increase supply for the rich, it only marginally increases supply at the bottom, and by less than you’ve built.

    If you only built houses for the poor you’d help more people, because the classes aren’t evenly split, they’re exponentially divided. But building only for one market is foolish.

    • Rocket@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      If you only increase supply for the rich

      Affordable housing only increases the supply for the rich. After all, if they are affordable, they are especially affordable for those who are rich. The only way to break out of that is to construct so many homes that the rich no longer want any more. Policies to scare developers away from building homes does not get you there.