The average house prices in Canada has skyrocketed over the last ten years, fueled with high demand in hot spots like Vancouver and Toronto. Is there a way to bring prices to a little more affordable level for Canadians?
Wendell Cox
Auckland: “A Vancouver of the South Pacific; Beautiful, but Utterly Unaffordable”
New Zealand’s Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Phil Twyford reasserted the coalition government’s intention to abolish Auckland’s urban growth boundary at a recent environmental summit. Environmental Defense Society (EDS) CEO Gary Taylor expressed concern...
High-Speed Rail Cost Blowout in England?
The Sunday Times (London) reports that it has obtained a secret Cabinet report indicating that “The HS2 high-speed rail project is “highly likely” to go as much as 60% over budget and cost “more than £80 billion.” HS2 refers to the high speed rail project intended to...
Lessons From The Oakland/San Francisco Dismissal
Federal District Court Judge William Alsup dismissed the "global warming" lawsuits of the cities of Oakland and San Francisco against large oil and gas companies, In so doing, the Judge provided important lessons in history, logic and public policy. The cities had...
Featured News
Coal – Not Wind – is Keeping Saskatchewan’s Lights On
While it’s not the same minute-by-minute data provided by the Alberta Electric System Operator for their grid, SaskPower has begun breaking down where its power is coming from on a daily basis. And the data from Oct. 3 and 4 showed wind generated an average of just...
57 Policy Proposals for Future Leaders to Help Make the Canadian Economy Soar
Executive Summary The various federal political parties are all promoting the policy agendas they believe will foster a sustainably high quality of life for all Canadians. It remains to be seen whether they will attain the success that they aim to achieve. In some...
On Infrastructure, Time to Dump the Ideology
“President Obama has proposed a new $50 billion infrastructure program that would expand and repair highways and transit systems, while refurbishing airport runways and implementing long-overdue air-traffic-control reforms to improve the reliability of air travel.”
What’s Behind China’s Big Traffic Jam
“The world press has been fixated on the “Beijing” traffic jam that lasted for nearly two weeks. There is a potential lesson here for the United States, which is that if traffic is allowed to far exceed roadway capacity, unprecedented traffic jams can occur.”
The Housing Bubble: The Economists Should Have Known
“It is truly astonishing to watch how determined the economics orthodoxy is to defend its inexcusable, economy-wrecking performance in the run up to the financial crisis. Most people who preside over disasters, say from a boating accident or the failure of a venture, spend considerable amounts of time in review of what happened and self-recrimination. Yet policy-making economists have not only seemed constitutionally unable to recognize that their programs resulted in widespread damage, but to add insult to injury, they insist that they really didn’t do anything wrong.”
Vancouver: Moving to the Suburbs
“Canadians are not listening to “their betters” any more than Americans. US Census data indicates a continuing strong migration of people from the central cities and strong migration to the suburbs, despite heroic efforts on the part of the media and others to mask the reality.”
The Need to Expand Personal Mobility
“Reinventing the Automobile conveys a strong message that improved personal mobility is necessary and desirable.”
Toward Creating Sustainable Transit
“Introducing competition and competitive contracting into a system now dominated by union and operating monopolies, combined with a shift in reliance from rail to buses, would go a long way toward curbing costs and increasing productivity.”
Wendell Cox – Housing Affordability in Vancouver
Watch Wendell Cox discuss housing affordability in Vancouver here. (3 minutes)
Atlanta: Ground Zero for the American Dream
“Our 6th Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey found Atlanta to be the second most affordable metropolitan area with more than 1,000,000 residents and the 17th most affordable metropolitan area out of 272 markets in six nations. Portland ranked 180th.”
6th Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey
The 6th Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey covers 265 markets in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.