Statistics Canada has just released the employment access data out of the 2016 Census, based on the main mode of commuting. Generally, there is little change between the modes, as Figure 1 indicates, compared to the 2011 Census results. (See: New Data on Commuting in...
Mortgage Default Insurance (MDI) is mandatory in Canada for residential purchases where the purchaser’s down payment is between 5% and 19.99%.[i] Most MDI premiums fall in the range between 2.4% to 6.6% of the mortgage amount. The idea behind MDI is to increase the...
The past decade has seen a gusher of books arguing for and detailing the supposed ascendency of dense urban cores, like the inimitable Edward Glaeser’s influential Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and...
Day 10 - Advent is the season of preparing for Christmas. Here at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy we want to tell you about some of the things we would like to see under our tree. On Day 10 we wish that governments would replace rent controls (which...
If one was to discuss the state of the world’s democracies in September of 2019, it would look entirely different than it does today in 2022. Three years ago, Canadians generally thought that: our democracy was relatively strong and citizens would defend their...
One of the greatest books that explain how the world works is Propaganda by Edward Bernays. The man dubbed “the father of public relations” applied the psychological ideas of his uncle Sigmund Freud upon the masses, triggering their basic motivations to the benefit of...
PowerPoint slides which accompanied Frontier’s Policy Analyst Joseph Quesnel speech for the release of the 2011 International Property Rights Index in Lethbridge, Alberta on March 23, 2011.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Rent control can be broadly defined as governmental regulations that limit landlords’ ability to freely set and increase rents on residential properties. These controls often coincide with a host of other regulations concerning the landlords’...
The Winnipeg Free Press ran an article about accident statistics involving hazardous cargoes. If you look at the statistics, 99.9% of the accidents involved a cause other than an impaired driver. Within that context, why is the story written as a call for drug and...
Homes in Vancouver have become so expensive you might have to win the lottery to afford one, says a prominent economist — and with prices that sky-high, odds are the city is ripe for a big drop.
Listen to David Seymour discuss housing affordability on CKNW here. (26 minutes)
Young Kiwis share Canadians’ preference for the suburbs.
There is an interesting post at the Grist today about urban development.
the major evidence of the demand for walkable urban places, both center city and in the suburbs, is that the market demands a premium for walkable urban houses, apartments, and office space. These high prices are perversely used by the skeptics to somehow prove this is a small niche market. To the contrary, high prices demonstrate the severe shortage of supply, leading to significant pent-up demand.
I wonder if one could identify examples of affordable and walkable communities that can meet the housing needs of a full spectrum of the population instead of selected demographics? For example, where are there affordable examples of walkable neighborhoods that offer attractive living conditions for young families, young adults, and empty nesters?
New RLP columnist’s very unfortunate choice of analogy…
Toronto Community Housing Corp. is one of the world’s biggest landlords. As the second-largest provider of social housing in North America, it owns more than 350 apartment buildings and another 800 houses and duplexes. Yet, the demand for subsidized housing is always greater than the supply, and wait times are always long.