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From: "Architexturez." <interface.services@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2006 09:13:03 +0530
ref:
http://mail.architexturez.net/+/In-Enaction/archive/msg02422.shtml
Harnessing the power of shame
TREVOR BODDY
From Friday's Globe and Mail
Vancouver's city-building over the past year has been dominated by two
intertwined issues: housing the homeless, and affordability for the rest
of us. These are dual manifestations of the same problem: the inability,
to date, of our political, bureaucratic and development leaders to
deliver more housing at lower prices to the Lower Mainland.
While house, and especially condo, prices are expected to recede here
somewhat next year, Vancouver is stuck with a problem that could be its
undoing as a metropolis: we pay Canada's highest housing prices on
significantly less than Canada's highest salaries.
Paying our nation's highest ratio of incomes for housing is no more a
minor bother — some inevitable West Coast eccentricity — than is this
city's worsening drug problem. Last July saw Statistics Canada's
publication of Head Office Employment in Canada, 1999-2005, a deeply
sobering analysis of this city's track record in creating good jobs
compared with our urban competitors.
cont'd....
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20061214.vanboddy15/BNStory/RealEstate/