2y ago

People love living in co-ops — so why did Canada kill the program? | Ricochet

ricochet.media

7 comments

Because there’s a profit to be made.
Every penny of yours isn’t theirs yet, so their work isn’t done.
- This is the problem. Source
It feels like solving the housing crisis is as simple as universally allowing 4-plexes in existing single-family zoning (and, ideally, relaxing zoning height limits to allow these to actually be built on smaller lots), and funding the development of cooperatives.
How many single-family homes do we need? I get that it's nice to not worry about making noise for neighbours, but it's more important that people aren't forced into homelessness.
Maybe I'm just naive and it's more complicated than this, but at least this would be a start.
- It feels like solving the housing crisis is as simple as universally allowing 4-plexes in existing single-family zoning
  If you simply increase population density without addressing car dependence then traffic will get much worse than it is now. It is thus imperative that we allow for everyday necessities to be doable within a walking distance of where people live, so that people have the choice to avoid using their car for every single daily activity if they don't want to. This entails at the very least having grocery shopping, schools, retail commercial spaces and pharmacies/clinics within a walkable distance.
  Around the world this is typically achieved by allowing commercial activity on the street-facing ground floors of buildings.
  
  Absolutely. We need those changes, too. 15 minute cities need to be our future.
  I mentally partition that as a bigger societal change separate from the housing crisis, but of course they're tightly interrelated.

7 comments