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Comment by izend | Hacker News Reader

Canada use to build social housing but stopped around 1995[1] and the housing affordability situation deteriorated over the next 30 years[2].

[1] https://x.com/g_meslin/status/1373689001866067969 [2] https://external-preview.redd.it/UGgkJlBT0dV7DwLgbEnJpgQzj4i...

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Germany - where I live - built Housing like there‘s no tomorrow in the 60s, which lead to the most prosperous phase of the country‘s existence. Then we stopped. And now we‘re where we are. Companies can’t hire because people can‘t move. There‘s sub and 0.1% empty apartments in cities.

I was reading this yesterday and it's wild to me how much changed in Canada in 1995: https://progressingcanada.com/ - Seems like 95 through 97 set in motion some bad things for Canada?

Around the turn of the millennium many countries seem to have decided to underproduce housing, both by ending government programs like you describe and by erecting government barriers to private home construction.

My conspiracy theory is that homeowners vote at higher numbers and more reliably and like free money.

In a local election we had to stop talking about "Housing Afforbabiliy" as homeowners perceived that as "Shitty Apartments Brining Down My Property Value."

Sadly... they're kind of right.

“I’ve got mine, fuck you.”

The thing that drives me insane is that this is endemic in extremely liberal cities. Ask them if they support Trump’s wall and his mass deportations, and when they freak out point out that the housing policies they favor are the same thing on a smaller scale with pretty much the same motives.

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