Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CLII
Housing ‘Crisis’: Real or Contrived?
Some morning thoughts (prompted by the attached article; and a version of which I posted on my Town’s Facebook ‘Politics’ Group) that focus on my own province’s (Ontario, Canada) context regarding the issue of a housing ‘crisis’ and their attempts to ‘juice’ development/construction — well, really, to create an environment where well-connected developers can flip relatively cheaply-purchased lands. That this has been ‘outed’ and stopped for the moment is perhaps good for the ecologically-sensitive lands that were under consideration for development[1], but does little to impact the ‘growth forever’ fever running rampant amongst Ontario’s populace.
With the recent shenanigans surrounding the Greenbelt (see these previous Contemplations: September 21, January 29, March 19, June 15), I have to wonder how much impact questionable practices and behind-closed-door deal-making/influence-peddling adds to the issue of our housing ‘crisis’, and/or is this all part and parcel of manipulation/leveraging of perceptions and beliefs — narrative management for want of a better term — to help market expanding growth that benefits a few at the expense of the many.
Is this ‘crisis’ truly the result of inadequate supply (as our developers, financiers, real estate industry, politicians, etc. would like us to believe — a very ‘convenient’ narrative for those profiting from a greatly expanding housing market and the fear of missing out that the perception of ‘shortages’ creates) or is currency devaluation via credit expansion, ‘speculation’, and ‘short-term rental investments’ a more significant contributor to skyrocketing prices?
And, of course, the exponential increase in housing prices (and rents) is not simply an Ontario or Canada phenomenon; it is taking placing in many nations, particularly where currency/credit expansion has increased dramatically.
Much of this ‘new money’ seeks a place to exist (and hopefully grow, but not always) and a not non-significant portion has flowed into housing leading to the price increases we have witnessed the past decade+ (one need only look at the gargantuan increase in debt held globally to see this — it is in the hundreds of trillions of US dollars[2] — with a very dramatic increase in the rate of growth in just the last couple of years, growing some 50% in less than a decade; and this has occurred, not coincidentally I would argue, when we have witnessed housing costs jump dramatically). It has also led to an increasing concentration of housing in the hands of the ‘wealthy’ — as they can more easily access credit and/or have funds to ‘shelter’ — leading to the less ‘advantaged’ being shut out of the market.
Not only have we witnessed a huge flow of money into AirBnB and the like (there are literally over a thousand of such dwellings in York Region alone), but the ownership of multiple dwellings by quite a number of people also removes supply from the market (I recently heard a radio interview with a real estate agent who claimed to have 100+ homes in his personal portfolio — homes that he ‘owned’).
None of these contributing factors are considered in the mainstream narratives surrounding housing. All we hear, repeatedly, is that supply is inadequate and demand ‘demands’ that we build hundreds of thousands, no millions, more. Only such an ‘investment’ (and the opening up of ‘locked’ lands as a recent government advertisement asserts) can address the crisis (and don’t even get me started on the resource/energy constraints/limits and/or ecological systems destruction aspects of this growth forever insanity).
The narrative about supply and demand on its surface makes sense, but only in a world where all the other contributing factors are ignored. Few if any of these other variables penetrate the Overton Window that the profit-makers/-takers/-extractors have created: our housing ‘crisis’ and ‘affordability’ can ONLY be addressed by way of rapid and significant expansion of supply!
Complex issues are, well, complex and we have allowed a less-than-complete (I’d argue convenient to the profiteers) narrative to steer the conversation and thus most people’s beliefs. The ‘experts’ keep saying it’s supply and demand that requires ongoing and ramped up construction of homes, so it must be true.
But ‘truth’ is a funny thing. The recent propaganda, er, I mean marketing by the provincial government (at taxpayer expense, no less) in Ontario about housing supply/demand makes the assertion that Ontario has become home to ½ million new residents in the past year so we absolutely have to build a million and a half more homes as quickly as possible. The problem with this ‘truth’ is that this number of immigrants taking up residence in Ontario is actually more than the official immigration number for all of Canada and, of course, not all of these immigrants remain in Ontario. A lot do, but certainly not 115%.
And if this relatively minor ‘mistake’ is being asserted widely in part of the narrative management around the housing ‘crisis’, what else is not being accurately disseminated/reported? (NOTE: while a teacher several decades ago, I uncovered a similar marketing falsehood in a document the provincial government of the time was distributing where they asserted that research demonstrated that student results had been steadily declining. In my attempt to see the research that supported this — I spoke to a dozen+ ‘officials’ in the Ministry of Education and Education Quality and Accountability Office — it became clear that the statement in the document was unsupported: there was no such research and those I spoke to eventually admitted this, stating “there is no supporting documentation, little long-term comparable assessment data, and no systematic study has been carried out by the Ministry.” The assertion in the document was pure fabrication to steer perceptions/beliefs in order to justify/rationalise government policy/actions. In other words, the government was lying and depending upon people’s tendency to defer to authority/experts in order to ‘manage’ beliefs.).
Questions about so many aspects of this issue of a housing ‘crisis’ have been left unanswered or rather conveniently ignored as the whole growth machine carries on and the folks steering things continue to make money hand-over-fist… what could possibly go wrong?
But how typical of government to highlight a societal ‘problem’ and then, conveniently, offer a ‘solution’ that just happens to address the primary motivation of our ruling caste: the control/expansion of the wealth-generation/-extraction systems that provide their revenue streams and thus positions of power and prestige. More for the ‘advantaged’ as the ‘disadvantaged’ pay the price.
Recently released:
It Bears Repeating: Best Of…Volume 1
A compilation of writers focused on the nexus of limits to growth, energy, and ecological overshoot.
With a Foreword and Afterword by Michael Dowd, authors include: Max Wilbert; Tim Watkins; Mike Stasse; Dr. Bill Rees; Dr. Tim Morgan; Rob Mielcarski; Dr. Simon Michaux; Erik Michaels; Just Collapse’s Tristan Sykes & Dr. Kate Booth; Kevin Hester; Alice Friedemann; David Casey; and, Steve Bull.
The document is not a guided narrative towards a singular or overarching message; except, perhaps, that we are in a predicament of our own making with a far more chaotic future ahead of us than most imagine–and most certainly than what mainstream media/politics would have us believe.
Click here to access the document as a PDF file, free to download.
If you’ve made it to the end of this contemplation and have got something out of my writing, please consider ordering the trilogy of my ‘fictional’ novel series, Olduvai (PDF files; only $9.99 Canadian), via my website — the ‘profits’ of which help me to keep my internet presence alive and first book available in print (and is available via various online retailers).
You can also find a variety of resources, particularly my summary notes for a handful of texts, especially Catton’s Overshoot and Tainter’s Collapse: see here.