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Well for the record, since I got married a couple of years ago I've been living in the burbs where my wife is from, and it's been a real eye opener on how wasteful suburban living is. I grew up in a small city that maybe doesn't technically qualify as a suburb, not having an adjacent major urban area, but where most people live a suburban-type lifestyle in cookie-cutter housing subdivisions that sprout up on the outer edges of the city. Until I moved to downtown Toronto I never realized how much waste was in our everyday lives.

To answer your question directly, I find that people find a way to spend what they make regardless of their circumstances. The Hamster cage costs virtually nothing to heat and cool do your utility bills are minimal. Of course there are savings on gas, and many cage-dwellers don't own a car at all so there's potential saving on insurance and car payments. Another savings is on groceries; when you live downtown and the grocery store is nearby you tend to shop differently. Instead of the weekly giant grocery dump where you fill your car with a couple hundred dollars worth, you just pop over every couple of days or on your way home from work and pick up just what you need for the next few days. These smaller, more frequent grocery runs result in a lot less "over shopping" and you don't have food spoiling in the back of the fridge.

As for needing a car or truck well you can just rent one when you need it, these micro-rentals like Autoshare and Zipcar are everywhere. Yes you pay more on the spot when you need it, but it's less than what it costs to own the vehicle year-round.

Finally not all entertainment costs money. There is always something going on or worth seeing or doing that's free. Toronto has a lot of parks and interesting places to go for a stroll and take in the sights and sounds. In a big city, you never walk down the same street twice because it's different every time; there's always something new and interesting to see.

   

It's a PITA purifying my own water and running my own septic system. But I can have a meadow instead of lawn!

   

And some solitude, peace and quiet, potentially great views. Until I want to do some skeet shooting.

   

Ugh. N/M

   

To each his own. We'd certainly have a far worse housing crisis if everybody wanted to live in the country.

I don't know what individualist is on about. The crisis is in Toronto and Vancouver, because that's where everybody wants to live. Take them out of the mix and things seem OK in the rest of the country.

   

They won't be held more accountable because the trail of accountability will inevitably lead to the government inspectors who signed off on the the buildings saying that they met standards.

No doubt there's a web of corruption surrounding the whole thing with politicians wanting housing and leaning on bureaucrats to get the thing done, to contractors being made to cut corners to save money, and then corrupt building inspectors taking bribes so they can turn a blind eye to shoddy materials and crappy construction techniques.

If one head rolls then you can count on that person to protect his ass by ratting out the rest of the mob involved...so the net result is they all cover each other's asses and no one gets held to account and the homeowners - who are not politically connected - get fucked.

   

I imagine an urbanist's ideal city as being a Borg cube, except with a green roof and a bunch of shops on the main level.

   

Complete with a shared mindset to the collective.

   

I live rural. The nearest centre with more than 100.000 people is Kelowna. 4 hours away. Shopping other than groceries sucks. We have choice of Walmart. Kids clothes, men's clothes, not to mention shoes... we don't have it.

   

But you're free of all the mind-blowing idiocy. Take a look at what I've had to go through for example. My middle fingers are half the length they used to be after being worn down from all the Calgary drivers I've had to flip off over the last thirty years.

   

You're as bad as ShockedCanadian. What is it with you and these random "urbanist" obsessed insult posts? What did your wife leave you for a guy who lives downtown?

Also it's the urbanists who are trying to PREVENT cities from being turned into Borg cubes. It's the suburbanites who make large downtown centres go the way of Hamilton by trying to starve them of funding and fighting any kind of planning.

   

Seems I have my own personal heckler. Well, ain't that sweet.

But if you're genuinely curious about my attitude towards urbanists, let me put it into context. As my handle clearly states, I am an individualist. Urbanism is an ideology that is, in my opinion, a purer form of collectivism than even Marxism. The old left/right conflict was at best a rough approximation of the individualist/collectivist battle. After all, what's more collectivist than a corporation? Urbanism is about minimizing (or even eliminating) personal space, personal possessions and personal mobility.

Urbanists are obsessed with subordinating the individual to the community. Personal yards are bad, parks are good. Single-family houses are bad, multi-family dwelllings are good. Cars are bad, public transit is good. Economic trade and competition are bad, captive markets and local monopolies are good. Looking at individuals as distinct decision-makers is bad, looking at broad statistical trends of behaviour is better. To urbanists like Charles Montgomery, individuals aren't even qualified to determine what makes them happy or not.

Traditional leftists saw the big problems as inequality of incomes and opportunities. What does the urbanist left see as the big problems? People driving cars and "bowling alone".

So why do I harp on urbanists so much? Because I'm Individualist, and they're more collectivist than Marxists. Clear now, heckler?

   

Nope that's just a bunch of made up nonsensical batshit drivel. I'm not even going to debate it because it's gibberish.

But that's not my question.

My question is what obsession triggers you to just come out of the blue, necro one of your old threads with some random drive-by insult? I mean what is it that makes you go "hmmm think I need to log on to CKA and write a random insult sentence about people who live downtown"? If downtown living isn't for you then fine, different strokes for different folks. You're happy in the burbs,they're happy downtown,seems win-win to me. Other people don't have to like the same lifestyle as you ans vice versa. What's your obsession? Is it some kind of stress response? I'm guessing it's stress triggered.

I'm complaining because you're just polluting the forum with these random posts, it's not like you're looking for people to reply and have a discussion with them and it's not like you participate on this forum in any other way. It's just fucking annoying.

   

Seems like win win to me. He doesn't want to live in the city, and people in the city don't want him. Not really much there to discuss, is there?

   

Sorry officer, I didn't realize necroing was illegal. Are you going to take away my license to post?

My posts do elicit responses, and I engage with those who do. I respond in threads started by others, but admittedly haven't for a while. And you lecturing anyone about drive-by insults is pretty rich.

You are free to not read my posts if you don't want to. You're also free to keep reading my stuff and commenting. Unlike you apparently, I have no interest in controlling what other people do on here. If I seem to be "polluting" this space, you are free to dilute my contribution with some meaningful content of your own.

And as for my seeming fixation on urbanism, I explained it is my previous post. You seem to confuse urbanite (someone happily living in a dense city core) with an urbanist (an urbanite who has elevated his/her personal lifestyle preferences into moral imperatives). It is only the latter I have an issue with. An urbanite chooses to live a more collectivistic lifestyle, and I am happy when people get to live as they choose. But urbanism is an authoritarian ideology that targets those living less collectivist lifestyles, and seeks to use city planning as an instrument of social engineering.

Perhaps you should start some threads on political topics you feel passionate about. I just may reply, and I promise I won't talk about urbanists.

   

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