Canada

The problem is, as I said, this is one of the few times where "letting dead-eyed mobbed up property developers make a goddamned mountain of money" will actually help everyone. I mean, even the abominable and corrupt crap Ford is doing to the greenbelt will help - every house, even million-dollar mcmansions, helps fight the crisis.

It's a game of musical chairs where the chairs are allocated by money instead of by speed. Adding more chairs to the game helps more people win regardless. Even if you're adding more thrones, that means there's more milking-stools left-over for the poor instead of those milking-stools getting flipped and upgraded into artisanal urban kneeling seats to sell to the people who have the money for thrones.

And not only that, but PP's stated plan: kick municipal asses until they start hitting housing targets? That would force municipalities to allow more housing. And assuming greenbelts remain in place (fingers-crossed), that would mean that cities would by necessity have to upzone and implement better, more urbanist, more intesification-friendly planning policies. That's way better than Ford's greenbelt crap, but then Ford didn't campaign on the greenbelt crap.

But yes, assuming PP is being honest about his plan: It's sneaky and yet still far better than not doing it and I'm mostly angry at his opponents for getting us to this point.

He might go through with it, but he specifically targets "cities of over a half-million people". Here in Hamilton, most suburbs have fantasies about de-amalgamation, and with Conservative provincial governments in charge I could see that happening to pander to them. I mean, while it's not directly applicable here, note how Ford is accommodating Mississauga's exit of the Peel region -- not directly comparable because it's above the limit and the members of Peel that are below the limit are already their own cities and towns since it's just a regional government and not a municipality. But still, it shows how the door is open for this conversation.

Basically, PP will pander to his base by making urban intensification something he does to the cities on behalf of his suburban supporters. I mean, his biggist threat against these cities is to cut transit funding... do most crappy stand-alone exurbs even have transit?

And as grotesque and craven as that is, it's somehow still a better plan than anything his opponents have offered.

He will never get my vote. I can hear the transphobic dog-whistles and have people I need to protect. But I won't blame others for choosing differently, and I do blame the entire political centre and left for carving out the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy of needs to decorate the top when it comes to housing, which created the policy vacuum that PP stepped into.