about gentrification and the 2010 Olympics

[gusl]

Olympic dwelling

<< "Nobody wants to admit it," he said, "but Vancouver has become a resort city where rich foreigners live a few months per year."It's a trend, whether you like it or not, the Olympics is likely to accelerate. With NBC and other broadcasters set to beam images of Vancouver around the world, the city will be promoted as never before."It's a $6-billion ad buy," says Rennie. >>

Comments

[rdore.livejournal.com]

So here in California, housing prices aren't high because of people building fancy apartment buildings. It's because we aren't building apartment buildings. We have a lot of red tape as well as other disincetivizing like rent control and Prop 13. As a result, there is always a housing shortage and prices are high for anyone who isn't grandfathered in in some way. It wouldn't surprise me if Vancouver is similar, but I'm not familiar enough to say.

There's also the attitude in the US, which may extend northward, that "normal" people live in single family homes in modest density areas, and that anyone who doesn't is either a rich snob or a poor nobody. I get some hints of this attitude from the article. Needless to say, I'm not a big fan of this attitude -- IMO it's unrealistic, entitled, and has serious costs to both society and the environment.

At least if it's free, I see attracting the affluent as a boost to the economy. (Admittedly, there's probably some inflation that comes with that.) I guess there is evidence that people gain more happiness from relative rather than absolute wealth. But relative wealth is zero sum game, so it's a waste of time to try to optimize.

If one had to pay $6 billion to advertise to rich people, that probably isn't the best ROI though. But that seems like a silly oversimplification -- clearly the Olympics has a lot of other effects, and advertising to the rich is at most a small piece. I'm guessing this is more the kind of thing people already opposed to the Olympics use to try and bolster there case.

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

yeah, the people who own houses in "hotspots" have vested interests in preventing new housing from competing with theirs...


I like this bit:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/11/a-tale-of-two-town-houses/6334/

<< Land is indeed more expensive in superstar cities. But getting permission to build is way, way more expensive. These cities, says Gyourko, “just control the heck out of land use.” >>

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

I definitely think that the city of Vancouver has a shortage of apartment buildings. In fact, I have never seen an apartment building outside of downtown... and I've only been to 3 residential buildings that were actually tall.

OTOH, Burnaby has lots of apartments, and I think the same is true of Richmond and newer suburbs like Port Moody, which could soon be in some ways more urban than Vancouver itself!

[bluebear2.livejournal.com]

Um.. there apartment buildings all over the city. Not just downtown. They're not as tall as the ones downtown though.

Maybe we should do like Paris does (I was told) and have a seperate "downtown" for the tourists to go to and a real one for those that live here.

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

ok, come to think of it, I've been to one on Granville + 10th too. But there are surprisingly few apartment buildings from UBC to Commercial Drive.

[easwaran.livejournal.com]

I thought that whatever bit of land you see across the water from downtown is basically lined with high rise apartment buildings.

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

looking North or South?

[easwaran.livejournal.com]

North, I believe.

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

Like most people I know, I hardly ever make it North of downtown...

[easwaran.livejournal.com]

Didn't the Olympics also provide some sort of public transit boost? I've heard that ridership is substantially up even a few months later, now that a lot of people got used to riding it during the games.

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

well, the Canada line opened a few months before the Olympics.

But I haven't heard anything about ridership patterns. I guess I can imagine some people who work downtown quitting driving for good.