It’s amazing that rent control is ever implemented any other way. The more traditional way ends up in a situation where young people trying to establish themselves are on the hook to subsidize old people who have had a lifetime to amass their wealth, which is pretty silly.

Not to mention that if you look at what the $15,000 child cost includes, it already factors in things like transportation and shelter costs. Which @ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one includes again when budgeting parental costs.

Based on his numbers, removing the duplication, this single income supporting a family of three comes out comfortably in the black. And that’s with childcare costs included! If you are going to pay for childcare, why not have two incomes supporting the family of three? Now you’re saving money hand over fist.

If not being able to accurately calculate costs is the reason why Canadians aren’t having children… Maybe it’s best to keep that out of the gene pool anyway.

The number one reason young people tell me they do not want kids these days is because they cannot afford it.

So they say. I always wonder what the real reason is.

Kids don’t cost much. Moreover, they are a complete time sink. Anything that you used to spend money on vanishes as you won’t have time for it anymore. It is likely the the average person will come out net ahead. And as the kids get a little bit order, they start to become productive, which becomes an income multiplicative factor.

If the average woman in Niger, where the average income is $50 USD per month, can have seven children, anyone in Canada can afford at least one child with ease.

I expect it is the “16 and Pregnant” movement that has dissuaded people from having children. The whole “Don’t ruin your life having children, go to school and get a good job!” message that keeps getting perpetuated. People don’t want to be seen as the rural hick woman pumping out babies. That stereotype has become the scorn of our society.

since I was old enough to drive.

So, what’s that, like 4-5? Certainly individual development varies.

I can’t help but wonder why they point to office space as such a large concern.

Because it is thought to be the lifeblood of a city.

Commercial real estate is Toronto’s best customer, paying 225% more than the equivalent residential customer. Further, it is the force that binds people to the city. Traditionally, “I can’t leave because it is where my job is” say the workers, and “I can’t leave because it is where the workers are” says the business.

While there is currently only concern – it is not clear what is going to happen – with more time, it is possible that commercial real estate will start to be abandoned. Even if it is converted to residential space, that is a tremendous hit to city revenues. So then the city is fighting a need to be more attractive than before, with “I can’t leave because it is where my job is” being no longer enough to keep people around, all with less tax revenue or a higher tax burden on residents.

That is a difficult situation to be in, and we only have to take a trip down the 401 and across a bridge to see what can happen to a city if it fails to manage the situation.

The Canadian solution to every problem is always “more tax”.

Well, traditionally it is: Establish a monopoly/monopsony.

But with US companies already entrenched, it is a little late for that. “More tax” is our fallback plan.

I noticed you completely glossed over friends and family living in different places.

I’ve addressed that many times already. What new and edgy details have you brought to the table that warrants a new response?

People travel to see other people.

Once every few years, sure. You are an exceptional individual if you are jetting off to China each week to lunch with your friend. That is not the norm at all. People normally only keep regular ties to those who are convenient.

are we all going to be able to live in a 6 block radius?

Well, if you don’t all live nearby, who is going to support the local economy? An economy needs all of those functions.

But it does mean transportation is a requirement.

Why’s that? Given a properly designed city, what would you need it for?

I get you want to vacation once in a while, and while it is a stretch to think that is a requirement, without regular traffic there won’t be the ridership to support transit even granting it as a luxury. You’re back to needing car .

There needs to be services that directly connect farmers with consumers.

There are many.

given that many people use another middleman (Instacart, etc.) to actually get their groceries.

I have done some consulting for a business that is trying to be much like Instacart for farm-to-consumer transactions. They have a strong niche customer base of those with a certain conviction, but I don’t see it ever being something the masses will use. I think you might be underplaying the service a grocery store does provide.

I have no idea how to reach out to farmers

Well, I’m one. You have my ear.

I’m probably not the kind of farmer you need, though. I want to dump all of my product, which could be enough to feed hundreds of thousands of people or more (and my farm is small!), off at harvest and move on. You need mass distribution to be able to absorb that.

The farmers you find at farmers markets would be a better fit, I imagine. If you are serious about this, go there and talk to them. They’re usually friendly and interested in this type of thing. If you can help them better connect with the customer, they will be listening.

The problem with groceries is that the raw product is largely bought on futures contracts, so you’re paying last year’s price. Last year was inflated due to fertilizer issues and general concern around the Ukraine conflict. The raw product price is now down ~50% since last year, but it will take until next year to see that show up in the store.

Poultry is supply managed, much like dairy. That said, tiny scale poultry farmers are exempted from needing quota, so as an individual you can likely find someone to buy direct from.

Pork, like beef, is open season. You may struggle to find a butcher legally available, however. They are booked up years at a time.

I live in an urban part of my city

That may be, but you’re living the rural lifestyle. That is what rural people do – they get into a vehicle and have it move them to where friends are, where restaurants are, where work is, where theatres and festivals are, etc.

Which is fine. There is nothing wrong with rural living. But what set urban areas apart is being able to do all those things only steps away – not needing a vehicle to get you to and fro. The value proposition of urban life is lost if you are back to needing a vehicle to do anything.

If you don’t see any reason to use transportation in a city, you either don’t appreciate the breadth of experiences that come with city life

I see the need for transportation in our poorly designed cities. The question is: Given the discussion about inventing our dream world, why use transit as a bandaid when we can do a better job in city design instead? If you had a well designed city, not the wannabe-rural cities of Canada, what would you need transit for?

You can’t expect people to change their housing to be right next to their work or change their work to be right next to their housing. You’re silly.

You can’t expect people to change at all.

Let’s be real, they aren’t going to magically start supporting transit either. Maybe you’ve forgotten, but we tried that already, building out a huge transit network in the 1800s, with streetcar systems lining the streets of the cities (not just Toronto) and the train connecting even the smallest of towns. We eventually ripped up almost all of it because nobody wanted to use it.

But as we’re discussing an invented dream world, why do you cling to the transit bandaid when we can simply design cities property?

Well, how many birds do they keep?

No doubt, but are they breaking the law, or is the flock small enough to be within the exemption?

at the individual farm level, you can definitely purchase meat.

Yes, unless it is poultry, in which case it controlled much like dairy (with an exemption for hobby-scale farms). Although the abbatoire problem remains, and good luck finding an abbatoire these days.

A university is not defined by a set number of people. Sure, you need some minimum number of people to see a meeting of the minds, but surely there is diminishing returns after a couple of hundred people? What kind of meeting of the minds are you making with the tens of thousands of people that you cannot possibly meet?

The ad homiem is telling.

Do you expect 40000 UQAM students to all live in the Quartier Latin?

Why? They say you will meet 10,000 people in your lifetime. What is to be gained by having the 30,000+ other people there?

What if you have a couple where one works at the Botanical Garden and the other at the National Library that are in different parts of the city?

What if they got jobs locally? You can’t have a local economy without local workers.

Dense, livable cities cannot exist without public transit.

There exists communities in this world with over 150,000 inhabitants in a square kilometre. What is the 150,001st person providing you that the 150,000 other people can’t?

By dense, are you imagining having a few acres of land to call your own? That’s fine, but that’s the rural life, not the city life. If you want to live rurally, why not live rurally?

I’m just surprised that as a former urbanite you are against public transit?

I’m against poorly designed cities. Once you have a well designed city, what would you need transit for?

About all we’ve been able to come up with is that one guy who wants to have lunch with his far away friend. Is that a good reason to build transit? If so, where do you draw the line? People are going to have friends all over the world. Do we need a train straight to Japan so I can connect with my friends who live there? I’d enjoy having lunch with them, sure.

I live in Montréal and can’t imagine the city without the metro.

Live amongst wannabe farmers and you’re going to need wannabe tractors, for sure. That’s outside of the discussion taking place here, though. We’re talking about working towards building cities for people who actually want to live in cities.

I don’t anymore. There is no well designed city in Canada. It would be strange to continue subject myself to that. I live in a well designed small town. Everything I need to carry out life is available within a five minute walk. This is why I can’t figure out why the cities want to pretend to be rural areas. If you want to pretend that you are living on a farm, why not just live on a farm?

Approximately nobody is going to live close enough to the workplace of everyone in the household who works.

Then who is going to be left to support the walkable economy? You need approximately every working person who lives within that community to be active in the walkable economy, else you will quickly find that services are no longer within walking distance.

Are you imagining that you’ll hop on the train to go work on the other side of town, while someone living on that side of town hops on the train to work in your neighbourhood? That is not a good reason for transit at all. That’s just silly.