I assure you that I'm making no attempts to colour my arguments as such.
By saying that developers would act responsibly out of the response they'd get from their customers if they didn't, you are. Real life has proven time and time again that if you reduce quality regulations a larger percentage of whatever is being produced will end up being sub-par. The falling glass issue is far from a typical example, for falling glass is clearly visible. Most businesses cheapen out in areas where consumers won't notice any irregularities in the short term.
I don't want to dismiss this statement out of hand. So I'll attempt to reply to it. And I'll only reply to this topic exactly once for the purposes of this discussion.
Your comment strikes me as nothing more than populist class warfare notions. It is, in fact, a broad based ad hominem attack on those who invest in, well, anything. It paints with the widest of brushes, a group of people with allusions of mal-intent, and reduces these people to profit-sucking monsters who are detached from their actions and have no pride in their work.
There are, in our world, many people like this. Some of them are CEOs, and some of them are unionized workers. But it is such a gross oversimplification of the nature of economic incentives to believe these things.
For instance: many people along this line of reasoning attest that without laws around building codes, buildings would all be put up on the cheap and they'd be collapsing left and right. But this assumes that construction companies and architects would risk their entire future reputation on such a calamity. Look at the negative reaction Lanterra has attracted from the falling glass problem. Do you think they're scrambling to fix it because of building codes? Or because of fear people won't buy condos they build in the future?
Thus, this comment is petty in the truest sense of the world. It demonizes people who are not demons. And generalizes people who are not all the same.
And with that, this is the last time I'll respond to this class warfare nonsense.
It has nothing to do with class warfare - that's your own trauma right there and I'm not too interested in that discussion for the purposes of heritage conservation. The point is that if 'the market' decides that a heritage building should be razed for development or a surface parking lot it has nothing to do at all with what's best for the city and neighbourhood, and everything to do with what's best for the pockets of a few. If government was not in charge of education and healthcare (and according to the views you have so far expressed it shouldn't be), there would be lower income neighbourhoods that would be severely deprived of these two. We don't (and shouldn't) let that happen, even though we'd all be wealthier in the short term for it.
We as a society have the responsibility to do everything in our power to ensure that money-making schemes are based around improving the quality of life of people. Private property is universally embraced not because there's something inherently truthful or logical about it, but because it tends to lead to much higher levels of well-being when it's respected.
So far your arguments are a dogmatic collection of assessments made on the premise that private property and the freedom to do whatever the hell we want is a tangible and sacred thing - when in reality it's just a tool that we use to streamline progress.
This is a statement which is almost impossible to reply to because it states the desirability of an area and the affordability of an area as an immutable relationship. I could spend the next week proving this assumption wrong. But I won't, because you have really even given an argument. You've stated this as a fact. It's not a fact. You cannot defend it as such. It is supposition and premise on which you build a spurious argument.
Go on please, I'd love to see anything at all that points to an area's affordability not being directly linked to its desirability. I do make the statement that "the price to live in X building relative to the rest of the housing market is usually a representation of the desirability of that building."
If you want to make the argument that increased density is usually beneficial because it creates supply where it is required and thus contributes to a short term amelioration of rental prices but most importantly enables people to live in a more convenient location, then I need no convincing, we are in full agreement.
But when we are talking about adding a few hundred units at the cost of an irreplaceable building that is an asset to the community, I think the common good wouldn't be served by allowing this development. Being realistic, the same number of units will eventually go up very nearby to accommodate the demand.
Nothing you say here is truly defensible. Governments work towards broad and lofty goals even if means destroying peoples lives -- the war on drugs, foreign interventions, etc. Your one-sided attack on free markets as the source of all evil, filled with men with top hats and monocles, laughing as their wage slaves sick children die from some imminently curable disease that they could afford to treat -- if ONLY they weren't so greedy -- is a caricature of markets that I've grown far to tired of debating with people who find it all too comfortable to frog march out the boogey-man of "market speculators", "profit-driven businesses" and the "upper one percent".
The free market is not the root of all evil. Human nature is the root of (what we perceive as) evil (anyway). But not all humans grow up the same, and the environment they inhabit has a lot to do with this.
People who grow up in places were gun ownership is frowned upon and highly regulated, for example, tend to own less guns and shoot less people. Those who can't see this are statistically blind. Therefore, regardless of whether I personally would want to own a gun or not, it is my duty to support the option that ends up taking less people's lives.
Likewise, a single-party system run by an enlightened few who'll guide us to prosperity through the abolition of the market sounds dandy, but in practice it does nothing of the sort and often ends up creating much larger troubles than the market ever could - so I must support a pluralist democracy that works to regulate a market.
You talk about the 1% and make references to the OCCUPY movement as if I was being dogmatic, but it is you whose views are shaped by philosophical constructs (I for one had nothing to do with that movement or those world-views).
Then again, you have places like 401 Richmond, fully run by privates, which is a much much much greater asset to the community than a condo would be on that corner. I do think it's unfair that current laws are structured so that destroying that building is more profitable than maintaining it as a centre for people, the environment, and the arts. We should be relying on more than the owner's good will to keep these resources with us - much like we prevent developers from building over parks and such. If the city must buy all heritage properties to accomplish this (and then lease them for competitive prices to people who won't demolish them) I'm all up for it, personally, but just putting regulations in place is more cost effective.
I work with goals and not with methods - whatever leads to a population of healthier, happier, more intelligent, and more sensitive individuals, that gets my support. I'd rather not pay an extra tax on alcohol, for I'm a responsible drinker and have great health, but I support the measure for it seems to empirically benefit society. Same goes for a million other things, but hey... it comes down to where you want your children to grow up.
P.S. I asked you what you would do to generate a happier society. What I should have said is, do you even care? Or do you honestly think that by just allowing people to do whatever they want we'll be happier despite all the evidence pointing to the contrary?
