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Toronto, Capital of North America?

To be honest, I don't... I was sort of taking a leap :)

Maybe it's more so in the arts and professional sports where the income differential can be enormous? I do agree it may be less so in other fields because people may opt for better Canadian lifestyle over larger salaries?

Don't forget about the currency exchange differences. There was a period in the 90's when the media was obsessed with the brain drain topic and that was the couple year period the Canadian Dollar was worth less than 70 US cents. That was an enormous incentive to go work there. Rates have changed quite a bit in the past 5 years and it is easier to attract talent to Toronto from the US now because of that. England too as Sterling is down a lot in the past few years.

It's funny you mention sports as I was just thinking about this in relation to the coming NHL trade deadline and all the talk about player salaries. They are all paid in US Dollars. It was that same time in the 90s several NHL franchises up and left Canada as the player's US dollar salaries were mostly level, but in Canadian Dollars they jumped 40% and the teams couldn't afford them with their Canadian Dollar revenues.
 
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That speaks volumes about desirability. Just sayin'.

When Toronto is more expensive than Chicago, it is because Toronto is more desirable.
When New York City is more expensive than Toronto, most Canadians stop using this same logic and claims quality of life in NYC sucks.
You just can't have it both ways.

To be serious, Chicago is affordable because the restriction on land supply is loose. If you compare the land supply for housing development in Chicago vs. NYC and San Fran during the past few decades, it is significantly higher.
 
Only NYC is more expensive re housing. Both Chicago and Los Angeles are much cheaper.

NYC and San Fran. Boston is a bit pricier as well.
Chicago is at least 30% cheaper. LA is not that expensive as people claim it to be at all. Way more affordable than Toronto. Might be even on par with Ottawa.

I never really understood why Canadians cities are so much more expensive than American ones of the same size. No, I don't buy the "because life quality is better/more desirable" kind of argument many Canadians want to believe. It is by no means that simple. Shanghai is more expensive than Toronto, does that make Shanghai's life quality better?

You can buy a condo in Chicago's best neighbourhood such as Gold Coast for $250-400/sf. The same desirable area in Toronto, such as King West, St Lawrence Market is charging anywhere between $500-700/sf. It just blows my mind...
 
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When Toronto is more expensive than Chicago, it is because Toronto is more desirable.
When New York City is more expensive than Toronto, most Canadians stop using this same logic and claims quality of life in NYC sucks.
You just can't have it both ways.

To be serious, Chicago is affordable because the restriction on land supply is loose. If you compare the land supply for housing development in Chicago vs. NYC and San Fran during the past few decades, it is significantly higher.

Yeah. When Toronto is as expensive as NYC, its Toronto has clean water and diversity!!!! Toronto and Chicago are in the same region so why is Chicago 15 percent cheaper.

NYC and San Fran. Boston is a bit pricier as well.
Chicago is at least 30% cheaper. LA is not that expensive as people claim it to be at all. Way more affordable than Toronto. Might be even on par with Ottawa.

I never really understood why Canadians cities are so much more expensive than American ones of the same size. No, I don't buy the "because life quality is better/more desirable" kind of argument many Canadians want to believe. It is by no means that simple. Shanghai is more expensive than Toronto, does that make Shanghai's life quality better?

You can buy a condo in Chicago's best neighbourhood such as Gold Coast for $250-400/sf. The same desirable area in Toronto, such as King West, St Lawrence Market is charging anywhere between $500-700/sf. It just blows my mind...

Some people will use the density arguement, but the outer boroughs are not that dense at all. I can't give you are answer. Its not just taxes. And for what Toronto gives you at this point it is not worth it.
 
Detroit's cheaper than Toronto as well. Just sayin'. I could do this all week. And we're talking with a similarly-weighted currency here.

The price of housing stock is dictated by the market. This means that it costs whatever the market will bear. This means that people are willing and able to pay whatever cost it is they have to pay to live somewhere. There are reasons for this. Job opportunity. Quality of life. Availability of housing stock. Cost of land purchase. Value of land (which is directly related to the cost of housing, obviously). It's not hocus pocus Jedi mind tricks. People pay what they see as being a fair price. If people didn't want to live in Toronto, the cost of housing would be less as there would be more of it available with less people willing to buy property.
I thought this was basic economics. Supply and demand.
So, at its simplest distillation: housing prices in locale A in relation to housing prices in locale B = desirability of locale A in relation to desirability of locale B.
At its simplest.

That's how I see it. New York City wouldn't be as big (and therefore expensive) if a shitload of people didn't want to live there. I thought this might be obvious. If housing stock becomes abundantly available, the prices go down. Why do you think housing is cheaper in Toronto's suburbs, for example? Because there was a shitload of land to build a shitload of houses on. Where there is less land and people want in, housing costs more. Am I really explaining this?

Anyway, "Toronto is the capital of British North America" makes me smile and I can go to bed happy now...thanks.
 
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Detroit's cheaper than Toronto as well. Just sayin'. I could do this all week. And we're talking with a similarly-weighted currency here.

The price of housing stock is dictated by the market. This means that it costs whatever the market will bear. This means that people are willing and able to pay whatever cost it is they have to pay to live somewhere. There are reasons for this. Job opportunity. Quality of life. Availability of housing stock. Cost of land purchase. Value of land (which is directly related to the cost of housing, obviously). It's not hocus pocus Jedi mind tricks. People pay what they see as being a fair price. If people didn't want to live in Toronto, the cost of housing would be less as there would be more of it available with less people willing to buy property.
I thought this was basic economics. Supply and demand.
So, at its simplest distillation: housing prices in locale A in relation to housing prices in locale B = desirability of locale A in relation to desirability of locale B.
At its simplest.

That's how I see it. New York City wouldn't be as big (and therefore expensive) if a shitload of people didn't want to live there. I thought this might be obvious.

Anyway, "Toronto is the capital of British North America" makes me smile and I can go to bed happy now...thanks.
So then not a lot of people want to live in Los Angeles though? Chicago too? LA is way more important than Toronto. Toronto is too expensive for what it offers. In turn, Vancouver is even more expensive and is not a better city.
 
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So then not a lot of people want to live in Los Angeles though? Chicago too? LA is way more important than Toronto. Toronto is too expensive for what it offers.

Obviously not enough people with enough money to be willing to drive prices up. How many areas of LA are complete low-density shite? Undesirable neighbourhoods, I mean.

Supply and demand theory is based exactly on the desirability of things that can be purchased and their availability. That's all I'm saying. I don't know where all this hocus pocus variable-slinging comes from.
 
Obviously not enough people with enough money to be willing to drive prices up. How many areas of LA are complete low-density shite? Undesirable neighbourhoods, I mean.

Supply and demand theory is based exactly on the desirability of things that can be purchased and their availability. That's all I'm saying. I don't know where all this hocus pocus variable-slinging comes from.

Thats true. South LA is low density. There is more to do in LA then Toronto though.
 
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The strength of Toronto:


[video=youtube;BQv8dhfG4DY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQv8dhfG4DY[/video]
 
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Obviously not enough people with enough money to be willing to drive prices up. How many areas of LA are complete low-density shite? Undesirable neighbourhoods, I mean.

Supply and demand theory is based exactly on the desirability of things that can be purchased and their availability. That's all I'm saying. I don't know where all this hocus pocus variable-slinging comes from.

Toronto is in not shortage of low density, boring, cookie cutter undesirable communities either. Let's not pretend Toronto is vibrant, clean and interesting in most part of the city.

No, desirability argument can be used for one particular country, but you can't apply it across countries. Therefore, Toronto being more expensive than Chicago means nothing for desirability. Why? Americans who don't find Chicago desirable can simply move to LA or NYC, but those who don't like Toronto can't simply move to Chicago, because it is in a different country. There is something called "immigration" not so different from say a Portuguese moving to the US.

You can't say Canadian cities are in general more desirable than American cities. That's just wrong on many levels. Housing price in one city is low maybe due to two reason
1) this place is not desirable and people simply don't want to live there
2) this place is desirable but government has supplied sufficient land

The first applies to Detroit, Buffalo etc, while the second applies to Chicago, Atlanta, Houston etc. Before someone jumps in and laugh at how bad and and uncultured Houston etc is, it provides plenty of high paying jobs, which is a big desirability factor. Tahiti is stunningly beautiful, but is it a desirable place for people to live in (not just travel to), no. You need a job first.

Then let's compare Vancouver with Seattle. Yeah, Vancouver has ocean and mountain all that sort of perks people never get tired of talking about, but so does Seattle to a large extent. Maybe not as impressive, yet that can't justify the 50% housing price difference, can it? And Seattle provides so much more real employment opportunities than Van.

In the end, the price difference between these countries comes from something systematic, in terms of how supply, the law, the tax system, the mortgage policy, banks work. It is in no way just a matter of Canadian cities being "more desirable" than American ones. Canadians want to believe it is true, but it can't be.
 

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