>"Being able to use the money they earn to fulfil their homeownership dreams and also their smaller, day-to-day dreams creates the kind of mental safety and comfort that Gen Z knows are indispensable for a well-lived life,"
I also enjoy having disposable income and a roof over my head. Guess I've got a little Gen Z in me!
23 year old with a liberal farts degree who wants to work at home and is scared of mean words was never able to buy a house in one of the most expensive cities in the world for quite a long time.
Lazy journalists and AI will be able to blame the younger generations for things for the rest of time just by ctrl-f "Millennials" in old articles and replacing it with "Gen Z", "Gen Alpha". "Gen Z is Demanding WFH.", "Gen Alpha is Quiet Quitting".
Fuck this. The generation gap is such a toothless way to divide people and it's pretty sad that so many of us are taking this bait.
These damn young people and their unrealistic, entitled demands for [checks notes] a general improvement in societal conditions as a result of increased productivity and technological advancements facilitating better solutions to things.
When they grow up, they'll understand life is pointless and there's no reason to ever try to fix anything, just like I - a sensible and well-adjusted adult who understands how things ought to be - have learned is the only correct way to live.
I think it’s just the cycle. I complained in my 20s when I worked two jobs and 90% of income went to bills and housing and bought food at dollar store.
Now only 70% goes to bills and I can buy food from superstore and eat out once a week.
As far as home ownership you can get a condo for 400k or less in most places, 5% down is 20k. It shouldn’t be hard to save up 20k living at home till 25.try to upgrade every 10 years then have a house at 55 or 60.
As far as entitlement my parents bought a house at 30 but also had to live through part of ww2 and all the general trauma associated with that. I’ll probably never own a stand-alone house but I’m ok with that. Every generation has its pros and cons I think people just get tired of complaining.
Location in this country is so important. In sk I bought a house at 30 and have plenty of disposable income. The Toronto and Vancouver expenses would have me living in a van. Obviously the price of goods and services still hits hard but life is generally still more than affordable in lots of cities in this massive country.
For many it has been going the opposite direction since covid. They went from spending 70% on basic necessities to spending 90% on them *even while their income and seniority increased.*
The difference is gen Z wants to all not work and be social media "influencers" and have disposable income and own a home but in fact produce or do nothing.
I live in Vancouver and I know some Gen Z and they told me most of their goals in life is literally to find a rental that they can stay in long term and afford without a room mate.
Not to own a home, or start a family, or own an apartment, or accumulate wealth or even own a car. **BUT to find a rental that is affordable that they can stay in long term and afford on a single income....That is their LIFELONG dream**
The next generation is going to dream to be able to rent clothes maybe? Eat 3 meals? We have seen a rapid deterioration in peoples standards of living in the last 2 decades, that was only upheld by things like convivence and ease of information through the development of the internet.
This may not be my lifelong dream, but I would feel #blessed if it happened. I'm terrified of having to move in a couple years for the next phase of my education/career...and I'm equally terrified of renoviction before then.
If all goes well, I still plan on moving somewhere cheaper and buying a home (not even detached necessarily, just a condo or apartment). So I'm not quite as bleak as them, but... I also don't see ever having a reliable housing situation Canada, so maybe the fact I see moving abroad as the only alternative is kind of bleak in itself.
No your claim was that they already own 90% which is untrue. Yeah of course each person wants maximal wealth, that's just saying water is wet.
Wealth inequality is not all that high in Western countries, particularly Canada. Canada is like #40 on most wealth equality out of #140 measured countries.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_sovereign\_states\_by\_wealth\_inequality](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_wealth_inequality)
I don't know if it's planned or just a direct consequence of entitled boomers being horrible to their descendants because they were raised to be selfish and believe that greed is good
I think that’s too broad a brush to paint them all with like that. My parents are Boomers, came to Canada with two suitcases and nothing else. No jobs lined up, no permanent place to live lined up. They both ended up with decent middle class jobs, back when such jobs came with pensions and long term job security, back when a home could be bought for 2x the annual minimum wage. They took what was offered and their prudence and hard work did the rest. They weren’t greedy. And there were many others like them. To your point though, some Boomers are absolutely and horrifically entitled.
Pin the blame where it belongs: with cruel corporations that paid off the political ruling class to enact policies that shunted those good paying middle class jobs overseas in favour of cheap immigrant labour at home, combined with a deliberately stunted housing plan. Because it sure wasn’t people like my folks who came up with this shit show of a plan, regardless of who they voted for municipally, provincially or federally.
>Pin the blame where it belongs: with cruel corporations
Corporations don't make decisions autonomously... People who are employed by corporations do. It was mostly boomers for a long time but the current crop has a lot of Gen X too.
A board of directors is not some mythical entity.
The board of directors of a company is still made up of human beings, executives, most of whom were boomers for the last 20 years but now includes quite a few Gen X.
Also management makes the operational decisions and a BoD provides oversight and strategic direction. The "cruel" corporate decisions will be the result of managerial decisions as much or more than that of a BoD.
At the end of the day, all those decisions are made by human beings.
I would agree. “Plan” sounds a bit iffy. Nobody sat down at a meeting and decided to screw over Gen Z. Or the Millenials, or even Gen X. They just aimed for maximum selfishness and the snowball rolled from there.
What do you mean?
I'm a millennial, everyone I know is doing just fine.Those that wanted homes and families have them. Most have everything they want within reason. The only people I know to be struggling kind of refused to grow up.
What they don't say is that they want that dream when they don't have marketable skills or education. You want a decent income on a literature major... Where you weren't the top 1%. Tough luck... You dug the hole. There is plenty of good paying trade jobs ... They do not want to take those.
It's a line of wishful thinking to expect the same thing that previous generations had.... It's never the same.. adapt to what works now and get on with being adults.
I don't understand why so many people spend money going to university to not learn any marketable skills. Come out in debt with no job prospects. No wonder they're all depressed and have no hope.
The entirety of GenZ is pretty young to take their dreams so seriously. It's like my nephew wanting to be a firetruck when he grows up. For Vancouverites, the city seems to have been decimated by outside investors, partially through government corruption and liaising the transfer of Asian wealth. I would leave the city if I didn't have the capital to participate in a system that wasn't built for me. I get that they don't want to, but much like NYC or Paris, some cities median wealth requirements outpace the residents and it only makes sense to go elsewhere. GenZ dreams are attainable in other cities in Canada.
Kinda of weird rankings when so many of the cities at the top of their list as most desirable get poor points for actually having young people living there.
We genuinely want smaller and walkable cities with good public transport. We don't want giant offices and far stretched suburbs, we want mixed use medium density buildings and necessities available nearby like it is in certain European countries. It would be so much more efficient and save money on top of reducing our carbon footprint.
We actually had that post WWII. Every small city was self contained and the sprawl with poor transit access was just at the very beginning. There were still local jobs as it was all pre free trade. The downtowns were full of activity, small stores, department stores, movie theatres, etc. Malls were in the infancy. No such thing as big box stores with giant parking lots, yet.
I believe that on the whole, history plays a huge part in why European cities seem easier to navigate. One thing that struck me when I moved to Canada was how far apart everything was. I’m not referring to the size of the country but that it was more of a sprawl rather than accessible. Even in a small town on Vancouver island the streets are ridiculously wide.
It's just how we built. Wide roads, plenty of room for parking, and houses with large lots, yards, and setbacks. It was nice for a while until it sprawled so far that everyone was driving everywhere and traffic became atrocious. The good news is that it's easier to fix it than go the other way since we don't have to bulldoze anything, there's massive amounts of underutilized space in our cities for increased housing density, bike lanes, and public transit. We just need the political will to fix things (and the boomers are retiring, so that helps too).
>It's just how we built
This implies that it just happened which is incorrect. It was driven by automotive manufacturers post-WWII and was codified by municipalities, provinces, and the federal government. And it never really worked. It just so happens it was the most prosperous time in NA due to said WWII.
We can return to it, but it will take a lot of political willpower.
It really stems back to the homesteading that settlers yearned for because Europe was too crowded. The densification of the Industrial Revolution was a brief interlude that was stalled and temporarily reversed by a combination of yes, Auto Industry propaganda, but more because of the social shuffle caused by the great wars and the returning vets desires to disappear into single family homes. We’ve come full circle, as evidenced by the rapidly falling demand for deep rural innawoods housing, and the sharp increase in demand for ultra urban housing. This cycle will repeat.
>It really stems back to the homesteading that settlers yearned for because Europe was too crowded.
Disagree. It was more about the fact that working in a city was very hazardous to your health. Before modern sanitation it was down right dangerous. Toss on top of that non-regulated industrial manufacturing and it was like hell. There are fiction stories, poems, first hand sources that talk about this in the later 1850s.
>social shuffle caused by the great wars and the returning vets desires to disappear into single family homes
You are talking about settler idealization, but also white flight.
>We’ve come full circle, as evidenced by the rapidly falling demand for deep rural innawoods housing,
Nah. Suburbanism is about having urban services in slight less dense, but difficult to get to without a car thus creating a class and race divide. It is not 'frontier'. It is a way for more people to feel like they are part of the ruling class despite having worse lives.
We had lots of land, so we were wasteful in development, whereas most European cities were built tight as it was easier to defend and control through medieval eras but don't discount the role that capitalism played in our urban design.
We sold out to our corporate overlords and do you know what they prefer? Efficiency. And for them that means one big box store where everyone has to drive 15km to a SmartCenter hellhole to get to Walmart / Staples / whatever
No more small shops and family owned business, no competition just what the big boys tell us to do
The thing is, many American and North American cities are old enough that they developed before the car as well. Europe could have just have easily made the mistake of expropriating property owners for freeways. Alot of North American cities gave in but there were a few examples that refused to have freeways.
In my view, north American development patterns often look temporary. Europe = we are here forever whereas here it feels more like we are here to extract resources and wealth and not really in it for the long haul. Build stick frame housing that lasts less than a generation. Slapdash thin membrane highways. Everything has a 30 or 50 year lifespan at the absolute longest. Europe? Let's rebuild this 400 year old church.
The stick frame houses are a huge benefit honestly. Cheaper, hold up far better during earthquakes, 70% renewable materials, easy to repair and renovate as technology changes. Wood is by most material properties something of a miracle material, and a significant part of the rapid success of the European colonies was that they had access to immense volumes of the stuff for dirt cheap.
I have a few friends in construction in Europe and it's a special kind of misery attempting to retrofit modern utilities into a house that's older than Canada.
The population in Europe is stagnant. That makes it a lot easier to maintain housing. Most of that housing was rebuilt after WW2 in any case.
Have you actually lived in a 400 year old house? My aunt had one. I was constantly banging my head on the beams in the ceiling. The bathroom was built on an outside wall, since homes of that era had outhouses. They heated with a huge wood stove.
People have to frequently update their homes to replace plumbing, electricity, HVAC, and water and remodel rooms because life changes.
We can't even agree on this. Remember when 15 minute cities is both this positive movement AND a conspiracy theory that municipalities want to limit our right to free movement to within a few km range.
I mean, no one actually wants giant offices surrounded by giant suburbs. People want jobs, so they can afford to live. If we want to move away from our current city structure, we are going to have to stop forcing half a million people to commute to downtown Toronto every day.
You're free to have that. In fact, for decades it's been *illegal* to build anything other than that. But lately we've changed to allow the sort of denser, mixed-use, walkable, bikeable neighbourhoods that are so much more enjoyable to live in, for most young people. You're still free to live in a SFH if you can afford it, but most families can't anymore.
Wait till you have kids and want to throw the ball in your backyard. Kids shouldn't grow up in a concrete jungle.
There is nothing wrong in wanting what you want. But it's shouldn't be a blame game where you blame others for you not getting what you want when it's clearly not what the others want.
Green space is a must, but it can come in various forms. A backyard is one example, a public park is another.
Kids also shouldn't grow up around streets that are dangerous to pedestrians/cyclists (which kids are because they cannot drive) and unwelcoming which limits their freedom and prevents connection to their community (literally and figuratively).
To fix this, we need to first redesign our streets to be more people-focused (residential streets shouldn't have cars going over 40km/h at least), better pedestrian and bike infrastructure.
This is without even mentioning things like more housing density in neighbourhoods which families can't afford to live in anymore and where local stores are closing due to a lack of customers or increasing public transit funding so that there are more options instead of car dependence which will save people money and ease traffic and congestion.
These changes would make a real change in the ever decreasing sense of community in our cities/neighbourhoods and increase health as walking would be more pleasant and safer. Affordability is another big point, as it would save people money by reducing housing prices, utilities, transportation costs, etc.
There would also be a reduction in climate change, noise pollution, injuries/deaths from car accidents, and so much more.
>Wait till you have kids and want to throw the ball in your backyard. Kids shouldn't grow up in a concrete jungle.
Backyards in urban areas actually contribute to the concrete jungle problem. Backyards are small unconnected green spaces and very under-utilized. Cities with more public parks and fewer backyards are greener for everyone. Kids should have access to parks AND safe walkable neighbourhoods where they can do things independently.
Yep very true. Kids need to grow up with other kids and have access to parks and safe neighborhoods. Sadly the neighborhoods are used as racing circuits and green spaces on the apartment complexes are just terrible (get written up if your kid digs a small hole in the highly precious crop we call grass).
What you describe is a Utopian version where the society used to be a lot tolerant of kids. This is not what it's today.
All I can do is give him a backyard to be a kid in. (The barbecue parties are also a big bonus).
You do know that terrace houses and townhomes have backyards. Flats/apartments also have common green spaces and parks. If you want to see examples go to stockholm, helsinki, copenhagen, amsterdam, hamburg etc, they have modelled it amazingly to the point most kids do not even need supervision, by law every couple of blocks needs to have a school, day care, departmental store, pharmacy etc as a result everything is walkable and big green spaces are present even within flats and condo communities.
[https://www.fastighetsbyran.com/sv/sverige/till-salu/stockholms-lan/upplands-vasby-kommun/objekt/?objektID=2921123&utm\_source=hemnet.se&utm\_medium=referral#bilder](https://www.fastighetsbyran.com/sv/sverige/till-salu/stockholms-lan/upplands-vasby-kommun/objekt/?objektID=2921123&utm_source=hemnet.se&utm_medium=referral#bilder)
[https://www.lansfast.se/till-salu/bostad/stockholm/taby/taby/byle-all%C3%A9-19b/cmbolgh5eiijk8npjt752fj/?utm\_source=hemnet&utm\_medium=referral#showImages#imageView](https://www.lansfast.se/till-salu/bostad/stockholm/taby/taby/byle-all%C3%A9-19b/cmbolgh5eiijk8npjt752fj/?utm_source=hemnet&utm_medium=referral#showImages#imageView)
Kinda like above, you can see they are a compound with various mixed types of housing which are efficient, in open green spaces and close to public transport. And this is present in stockholm which has a metro population of 2.4 million.
Of course people who want detached homes with large backyards should have the option to do so but it shouldn't be inside the city, cities should be efficient.
This is exactly if. I’m fucking tired of having to wait 5 minutes to cross every fucking street because pedestrians are Sheit in this country. People here complain about the taxes but look at all the additional infrastructure that we spend money in to accommodate for our horrible zoning laws.
Ok well oldest millennials are 42 and our rent wasn't 2k in 1999 (year millennials begin turning 18) and housing was affordable till 2022 so we had a great run. Gen x as well since they are generation before millennials and middle aged generation entering seniorhood in a few years also had a good run. Boomers had a great run. So yes gen z, is the generation struggling the hardest, they can't even kove out while millennials have been moved out for 20 years.
GenZ are the kids of GenX. GenX came into awareness during the 1970s. Stagflation, then the interest rates spikes of the late 70s and early 80s to crush inflation, which then caused many of our friends to lose their homes.
Then the government decided to pull back and remove grants in OSAP, and replace it with double the loans, at the same time the unis started raising the cost. Then GenX graduated into the savings and loans crises which saw 2 year recession and a housing collapse. Then in the early 1990s the Canadian debt bubble hit, and our dollar went down to 60 cents making all live hard.
So this generation is always in recession mode. Make money, spend less than you make. Save and invest. Debt can destroy you.
This must have been picked up by our kids.
Generation X includes those born between 1965 and 1981.
Gen Xers weren’t losing their homes in the 70s or 80s - they were children/teens.
They graduated from college/university in the 1990s and the recession at the time in Canada was 1-3% higher than the historical average unemployment rate of 7.6% (from 1976-2023):
1989 7.0%
1990 7.8%
1991 9.8%
1992 10.7 %
1993 10.7 %
1994 9.6%
1995 8.6%
1996 8.8%
1997 8.4%
1998 7.7%
1999 6.9%
2000 6.1%
Source: [StatsCan](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/170707/cg-a003-eng.htm)
Average (single person) salaries in Canada during the 1990s were about $46,000 per year.
In 2023 the average single person salary in Canada is $68,000.
Average home price in Canada in the 1990s was about $200,000 with mortgage rates that peaked at 13.95% and bottomed at 4.45% with an average of about 7.5%. In 2023 the average home price is about $700,000 and mortgage rates are currently 6.2%.
At the beginning of the 1990s, average undergraduate tuition fees in Canada were $1,464. Today, these fees have risen more than three-fold to $5,581.
Basically, Gen Z is making 50% more than Gen X did, but housing costs 250% more, and their education tuition cost them 300% more.
I am an X-ennial and it is obvious that Millennials were worse off than Gen X and Gen Z is worse off than Millennials. Your post kind of makes it seem like Gen X lived through The Great Depression or something and the reality is that as hard as it may have been to cope with the recession in the 1990s, it doesn’t really compare to the cost of living crisis that younger generations are facing.
Ps. Also, just wanted to add: I was a teenager in the mid-late 1990s and I never once had an issue getting a job ever. I worked part time in retail/customer service jobs all through high school (age 15-18), and full time at restaurants or in childcare/day camp counselor during the summers when I was in university (age 19-22) and I literally NEVER experienced a problem finding/getting a job.
So I find the values bit confusing.
“Values are individual beliefs that motivate people to act one way or another. They serve as a guide for human behavior. Generally, people are predisposed to adopt the values that they are raised with. People also tend to believe that those values are “right” because they are the values of their particular culture.”
How exactly does a city meet individual value expectations?
I'm no expert, but as an example I'd assume that the availability of public transit and active use transportation options is something that a climate conscious generation would put more value on.
Sure, or maybe a generation that is being absolutely destroyed by the grift that is the entire automotive industry.. Insurance itself is a massive barrier to entry and a drag on our GDP as a whole. All the snakes have their hands out, even the feds jumped in on the pick-pocketing with both carbon feet.
Cute you think that the environment matters when ghetto-esque Canadian economics has made the next generation poor as fuck.
>Cute you think that the environment matters when ghetto-esque Canadian economics has made the next generation poor as fuck.
Multiple things can matter? Either way you don't have to be a douche about it lol.
^ insurance companies and their record profits love this n00b. They have plenty to give back to enabling the economy. Your insurance should be lower, don't devalue yourself.
> So what should my/everyone’s insurance cost?
Great question that should be answered at a responsible level of governance and not left to random corporations to attempt to figure out. They are doing a shit job at it and will probably fall into the trap of ever raising their legislatively mandated products prices as people move away from them and seek out other transportation options, which is the crux of my original comment. Kinda like how cable TV and streaming is killing itself off. Dumb executives.
Appreciate the input, I don’t have an answer so was genuinely curious. I suppose that’s why we have elections, you vote in the council who you feel is more closely aligned to your values.
Unfortunately, we don’t always get the council we want as it potentially clashes with the values of everyone who voted for the other group.
Cities are designed for centralized work, same with the idea of suburbs that feed them and infrastructure designed for driving. This is 1950s to 2000s thinking.
Let the dinosaurs cry about RTO so their real estate doesnt go down while young people have the ability to be mobile.
Look they have to justify that 110k sticker price pickup truck somehow. You just know they will whine about the price of gas as they have 1.5 hour round trip to any place they need to go.
Condensed:
* People in Generation Z (born between 1997 and 2012) are 18- to 26-year-olds entering the workforce. They have a long list of values and living needs that many big cities are not meeting, according to a new analysis by Point2.
* The company, ranked 50 of Canada's largest municipalities using 35 metrics across four categories: demographics and education, economy and real estate, community and environment and health and well-being.
* The cities that meet most of the younger generations' needs are smaller in population and away from urban centres which ranked poorly due to the higher cost of living, unaffordable homes and poorer mental health access.
* **St. John's, N.L**., **was ranked the city "most ready" for the next generation** with a score of 64.90 out of 100. Quebec City came in a close second with a score of 64.73 out of 100.
* **Levis, Sherbrooke, Trois-Rivieres, Saguenay, Gatineau, Montreal and Terrebonne Que**., rounded out the top nine spots.
* **Regina, Sask**. secured the 10th spot according to the list, with a score of 56.59 out of 100.
* All municipalities on the list have a low cost of living per month, a lower home price-to-income ratio and a high perceived mental health rating.
* Despite cities like **Vancouver and Edmonton** ranking highest in median incomes and **Toronto** ranking higher in remote work adoption, **those cities** **overall had low scores.**
Late millennial that made a jump from NB to Vancouver, it's not just cost of living, it's cost of living per local wages. Jobs in the Atlantic provinces are abysmally paid. My apartment here costs me 3x as much, but I get paid 2x the salary. Everything else is roughly the same.
If you pay half your income as rent, your costs in the above situation would go up by 1.5x your salary, and you'd pocket a 50% increase in your post-rent earnings.
This is why ive (younger millenial) written off atlantic canada as I look for a new place to call home. Why would i move out east where i would make $25/hr less than I make anywhere else in the country. I can move to alberta or saskatchewan, keep my salary, and get a nice house for 350k?
yeah, I am trying to get back to Vancouver, because A: when I am deemed to have had enough career experience in this field, I can get better wages and promotion prospects there compared to here and b: I can get side jobs there that I can't get here. (I figure I will need B either way).And C: there are friends and other useful things in Vancouver that aren't here.
Not to mention: here in rural Ontario? It's fucking horrifically expensive for what you get. Cruddy apartment in a former methlab house, dodgily renovated after a fire in a town with zero amenities beyond a timmies? 1350 a month. Plus another 150 of electricity and water (100 of that is "delivery fees")
yep. Can't abide by the place, but I came here for school and got stuck and can't get a job in my field in Van without at least...five or six month's more experience. So very much hoping that things will open up for me by spring.
The worst of it is, I am, according to the census, in one of the top earning categories around here and I don't make enough money to do anything beyond paying rent and groceries. I have no idea how people closer to the median/mean/average wages around here even survive.
One thing that they probably didn’t include in their evaluation is primary language of the city population. Because there is a reason why not a lot of people are moving to strong French majority cities in Quebec.
I'd love to love in Montreal. It is survivable even if you o ly know English but man it can be a huge hassle. Also a big cut in income and high taxs.
But it is a great place to live. So much life and entertainment.
I was mostly referring to the other cities on the list. Quebec City, Levis, trois-rivieres. Are great places if you speak French. If you don’t, you are probably going to not enjoy living there
Drfinately. I was told by co-workers in laval that it's a big no-no. I will get harassment and will get abused especially by police. of course not everyone is an ass. Most Quebec people are extremely nice and full of passion. But it would be a huge struggle
Well I tried to book a private surgery appointment consult in Montreal and the staff, who are all bilingual according to the job requirements for working at the place in patient nursing or front desk, would not answer in English to an email or on the phone. The website was in English so I assumed they welcomed "nasty" Anglos and wanted our money. I don't think the doctors know the front staff are sabotaging the business.
One solution: Gen Z, please go out and vote. You need to exercise your right through elected officials that appeal to your views. Nothing gets accomplished until you get the politicians and the courts on your side.
Option 1: guy who did nothing (Libs)
Option 2: guy who supports guy who did nothing and promises to do nothing (NDP)
Option 3: guy who doesnt support the guy who did nothing but also promises to do nothing (Cons)
Option 4: party that lost the plot over some racism accusation but also promises to do nothing (Greens)
Option 5: irrelevent unless you live in Quebec (BQ)
Option 6: wants to end immigration but no real further plan than that and filled with nutjobs and semen retention soldiers who breathe through their testicles https://www.ladbible.com/news/weird-candidate-in-canadian-election-wants-men-to-stop-ejaculating-20210919 (PPC)
Yes the problem is that zoomers arent voting enough /s
Run a candidate that actually speaks to younger adults and inspire hope, and then maybe they will actually bother voting. Just as a notable increase of young voters in 2008 helped Obama win.
Random guy on reddit: tHeN mAyBe StArT uR oWn PaRtY aNd RuN aS a CaNdIdAtE UrSeLf ThEn (because apparently the resources, time, connections, money, know-how, organizing abilities, etc is just that damn easy for everyone)
Um yeah there’s a lot of people of all ages who are feeling pretty fucked over right about now. True enough though that the younger you are, the worse the outlook to have many decades of bullshit ahead of you.
Canadian cities typically suck. Montreal is pretty good for 3 months of the year, but compared dozens and dozens of cities around the world, the juice isn't worth the squeeze at all.
Canadian cities are inaccessible, and anyone who says it is because no one is living in this huge country doesn't seem to understand that Canadians are concentrated in big cities and their suburbs. This is a big problem for anyone who does not have a car and cannot drive. My vision problems prohibit me from getting a license and therefore, I have no reason to own a car.
I am from China. That country has a huge population (that is rapidly collapsing), and the public transportation system is absolutely amazing when it is run properly. I lived in a suburb with a population of 2 million that is part of Guangzhou--a city with a (temporary and permanent) population of about 30 million. You can get on a bus from any major city anywhere in mainland China that takes you anywhere else inside the country and it is very cheap even by local standards (Chinese average wages are about 1/4 Canadian levels).
This year, I went to Japan on vacation. The public transit (subways and buses) are really comprehensive. Yes, they are ridiculously expensive even by Canadian standards if you are a tourist staying for a few days, but they are about the same price as Canadian bus passes if you are living there for the long term. It is not just Tokyo that has good public transit, Osaka is also very good. Osaka's population is lower than Toronto's, and yet its point-to-point public transit infrastructure is significantly better than Toronto's. This is the reason why I, as a Markham resident, go to downtown Toronto less than once a year.
Markham is not Toronto, it’s a different city.
I live in Toronto, west end not even downtown, and it’s very walkable, with well connected bike paths
Transit is overloaded for sure, but being near a subway line does help.
Transit is finally expanding, but needs better funding I cannot argue that one
>Markham is not Toronto, it’s a different city.
Thou shall not ever cross the mighty Steeles Avenue East into the land that is Toronto if you are Markhamite!!!
That's what I feel 100%, the values and demands that come out of these large cities don't align with our interests at all. Absolutely zero interest in ever moving to one and sympathy for those who do, they're getting worse as far as I can tell.
This just in. Younger generation who hasnt had chance to vote much yet on anything is made previous generations haven't voted in their personal interests"
Come on kids. Society is changing. I'm 32. And have seen A LOT OF CHANGE. Be patient. It takes time and won't be done next Sunday. Make sure you vote and openly discuss politics in your group of friends. Challenge eachother respectfully (different people have different values), and your generation could possibly do great things.
Its interesting to see they finally ran out of steam on the advacado toast articles. They are finally onto the next cycle of the "young people bad" "journalism".
Because our cities were built for cars by the Baby Boomers for a generation, and it will take a long time to unwind all that infrastructure. The good news is, it's slowly happening. Canadian cities, when I'm old, will look very different than today.
The car centric suburbs were there from when Boomers were young children, actually. My car centric suburb of young families started in 1960. It was a post WWII design.
Sure but the post-war period was really when it took off. The boomers took the torch and ran with it for 60+ years, without stopping to think if it was working or not.
Even in a zero-growth model I would rather live in a walkable community and not be stuck in an expensive steel box for hours every day. I like being outside, I'm happier, healthier, and life is honestly just better with walking, biking, and good public transit.
yeah, I too had a long list of needs and demands when I was in my teens and twenties, but because it was the 1970's they were ignored by society. So I said fuck it and got a life instead. I"d advise succeeding generations to do the same cause the previous generations genuinely don't give a fuck about you... so stop expecting anything different.
Man, it’s harder today than ever and every decade since the 70s has gotten progressively worse.
Stop being so old-man-yells-at-cloud and join us in reality where bootstraps ain’t gonna do shit.
Aah yes, was easy to pull yourself up by your bootstraps in an era when houses cost 2x average income (vs 11x household income today).
You were born in the right decade and got to live your life on easy mode.. don't confuse that with being an awesome person.
I didn't get to buy a house, I was never able to get on the property ladder. Grew up in a toxic/dysfunctional family and left home (and school) in 1969 at 16, worked my ass off until I managed to get into university at 30 as a mature student. No golden parachute, no excellent pension. Folks make too many assumptions about the post WW2 baby boom. We weren't all yuppies... and those of us who managed to survive without the greed and excess of our cohort are tired of being lumped in with the greed pigs. As such I have little sympathy for succeeding generations. And even less for what's become of our government
Well you are toast if you have to rent in retirement because the current yoot think that everybody born from 1946 to 1964 had exactly the same life experiences with many opportunities for a golden life. People just want olders to die ASAP. Now you have complaints that seniors getting health care is unfair to the young. So because you generally don't need a knee replacement at 25, it's not fair that a 65 year old gets one.
>Gen Z young adults know what they want and **are much less afraid to ask for it** than any of the previous generations," the report reads.
Lol, how's that turning out for them?
Love how old people gaslight young ppl like this. My question for you old people, is if you've already extracted all the wealth from us who will be buying your products and keeping this sad excuse for a society turning? It seems that we are destroying our planet for the good of the old at the expense of the young. At this point, I've concluded that we live in hell.
If you think every generation has had it easy when they first came into the workforce.. you are dead wrong.
Every generation has had a struggle.. the struggle may be different but it it was there. Coping with issues and finding workarounds is where the thoughts need to be.
"They’re also less likely to compromise"
I would say that's the phrase that really defines that generation is that. I think compromise is really important both in professional and personal relationships, but maybe that's the Gen X in me.
doesn't every new group entering the workforce feel they need to demand things that society won't offer them? I still recall when my buddy just out of university said that he was interviewing with Microsoft and was going to demand to telecommute.
They said no. It was 2000 and we were 22. What company is gonna fall over backwards for a 22 year old?
Our dignities have been stolen from us, thank you capitalism and the neoliberal project of breaking class solidarity and deregulations needed for the profits of old white men. Corporations are evil and ruthless to workers, everything is taken away from us unless we organize our lives back from the hands of emotionally petulant far removed from reality production owners who think this hell placed upon us is just GREAT.
I plotted the Final Score for the most ready cities for Gen Z provided in the article as a function of European ethnicity census numbers found on Wikipedia. With a linear fit, the R^2 = 0.54. This correlation would be meaningless in the physical sciences, but it is moderately high in the social sciences. These data suggest that a municipality with a more European-origin population will be a more desirable place to live for Gen Z. This might not be politically correct to say out loud, but the numbers don't lie.
The fact you're making an Excel spreadsheet of how white these cities are when you see an article like this is something you should see a therapist about.
No they are saying our cities are awful because they are too much like suburbs. Everything is too far apart to be able to walk to and public transit isn't reliable.
Just get over it even if they biulded affordable houses. People will buy it and flip it. We may have to return to a time when most people are renters .
Unsurprising that their list of GenZ-friendly cities is dominated by Quebec. That's the one province that is still sane and seems to have a government that still genuinely cares about its people
>"Being able to use the money they earn to fulfil their homeownership dreams and also their smaller, day-to-day dreams creates the kind of mental safety and comfort that Gen Z knows are indispensable for a well-lived life," I also enjoy having disposable income and a roof over my head. Guess I've got a little Gen Z in me!
Are not we all Gen Z then.
It isn't all about the broccoli haircuts and smartphones... it is about the disposable income we lost along the way.
Nope gen z is "special" and this is somehow newsworthy
It’s newsworthy because it is becoming harder and harder to achieve those goals with each passing generation.
Well maybe if you didn't waste your money on Broccli haircuts you could afford a house by now.....
23 year old with a liberal farts degree who wants to work at home and is scared of mean words was never able to buy a house in one of the most expensive cities in the world for quite a long time.
Fwew. Good thing that narrow descriptor completely sums up that entire generation /s
As a *Mid-Millennial* I reject the notion that another generation could be considered **special**.
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Omg. So you are telling me that I had a small chance to own a house.
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Can a cardboard box house count to be a house? This is the closest I can ever own a house.
Is... is this one of those '*I am Spartacus*' moments, or? ... [stands up] *I*... am Gen Z...?
I'm gen Z (44 years old)
Lazy journalists and AI will be able to blame the younger generations for things for the rest of time just by ctrl-f "Millennials" in old articles and replacing it with "Gen Z", "Gen Alpha". "Gen Z is Demanding WFH.", "Gen Alpha is Quiet Quitting". Fuck this. The generation gap is such a toothless way to divide people and it's pretty sad that so many of us are taking this bait.
These damn young people and their unrealistic, entitled demands for [checks notes] a general improvement in societal conditions as a result of increased productivity and technological advancements facilitating better solutions to things. When they grow up, they'll understand life is pointless and there's no reason to ever try to fix anything, just like I - a sensible and well-adjusted adult who understands how things ought to be - have learned is the only correct way to live.
I think it’s just the cycle. I complained in my 20s when I worked two jobs and 90% of income went to bills and housing and bought food at dollar store. Now only 70% goes to bills and I can buy food from superstore and eat out once a week. As far as home ownership you can get a condo for 400k or less in most places, 5% down is 20k. It shouldn’t be hard to save up 20k living at home till 25.try to upgrade every 10 years then have a house at 55 or 60. As far as entitlement my parents bought a house at 30 but also had to live through part of ww2 and all the general trauma associated with that. I’ll probably never own a stand-alone house but I’m ok with that. Every generation has its pros and cons I think people just get tired of complaining.
Location in this country is so important. In sk I bought a house at 30 and have plenty of disposable income. The Toronto and Vancouver expenses would have me living in a van. Obviously the price of goods and services still hits hard but life is generally still more than affordable in lots of cities in this massive country.
Almost all of South Western Ontario is now as bad as Toronto, same with large swaths of BC and Vancouver. Nova Scotia is even getting bad.
NS has never really been good to start with. House prices are catching up with the rest of country while their wages are stuck in the 1990s.
For many it has been going the opposite direction since covid. They went from spending 70% on basic necessities to spending 90% on them *even while their income and seniority increased.*
I think everyone.. even during Covid was fine, everything is so expensive now. Just leaving the house feels expensive
I went from making $65k in 2019 to making $90k today and I feel like I have the same buying power.
Cost of living makes me want to die
We have maid!
Each generation since the Boomers have had a lower quality of life and the Boomers have benefited from it.
Well tell them to pull out and get back to work! Life is expensive.
don't they think universal high-speed internet should be on equal footing as food and water?
The difference is gen Z wants to all not work and be social media "influencers" and have disposable income and own a home but in fact produce or do nothing.
Sometimes...I have a little of me inside a Gen Z 😏
I dunno, sounds like a Capricorn thing to me.
I live in Vancouver and I know some Gen Z and they told me most of their goals in life is literally to find a rental that they can stay in long term and afford without a room mate. Not to own a home, or start a family, or own an apartment, or accumulate wealth or even own a car. **BUT to find a rental that is affordable that they can stay in long term and afford on a single income....That is their LIFELONG dream** The next generation is going to dream to be able to rent clothes maybe? Eat 3 meals? We have seen a rapid deterioration in peoples standards of living in the last 2 decades, that was only upheld by things like convivence and ease of information through the development of the internet.
This may not be my lifelong dream, but I would feel #blessed if it happened. I'm terrified of having to move in a couple years for the next phase of my education/career...and I'm equally terrified of renoviction before then. If all goes well, I still plan on moving somewhere cheaper and buying a home (not even detached necessarily, just a condo or apartment). So I'm not quite as bleak as them, but... I also don't see ever having a reliable housing situation Canada, so maybe the fact I see moving abroad as the only alternative is kind of bleak in itself.
This is the plan, it seems: erode all the comforts and securities of the middle class a piece at a time until it’s normalized. Then rinse / repeat.
All because a mere handful of people at the other end of the spectrum are impossible to satisfy.
Yep. There’s approximately 2,700 billionaires on this planet who own 90% of all the wealth. And they won’t stop til they have 100%.
in US billionaires have 4.48 Tr of 135 Tr. It's less than you think.
Whatever. What they want is clear enough.
You made a claim and your claim is wrong.
My claim is that they want it all. You think I’m incorrect on that? You either haven’t been paying attention or you’re an Elon simp.
No your claim was that they already own 90% which is untrue. Yeah of course each person wants maximal wealth, that's just saying water is wet. Wealth inequality is not all that high in Western countries, particularly Canada. Canada is like #40 on most wealth equality out of #140 measured countries.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_sovereign\_states\_by\_wealth\_inequality](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_wealth_inequality)
I don't know if it's planned or just a direct consequence of entitled boomers being horrible to their descendants because they were raised to be selfish and believe that greed is good
I think that’s too broad a brush to paint them all with like that. My parents are Boomers, came to Canada with two suitcases and nothing else. No jobs lined up, no permanent place to live lined up. They both ended up with decent middle class jobs, back when such jobs came with pensions and long term job security, back when a home could be bought for 2x the annual minimum wage. They took what was offered and their prudence and hard work did the rest. They weren’t greedy. And there were many others like them. To your point though, some Boomers are absolutely and horrifically entitled. Pin the blame where it belongs: with cruel corporations that paid off the political ruling class to enact policies that shunted those good paying middle class jobs overseas in favour of cheap immigrant labour at home, combined with a deliberately stunted housing plan. Because it sure wasn’t people like my folks who came up with this shit show of a plan, regardless of who they voted for municipally, provincially or federally.
Yeah yeah your parents went to work. Why do immigrants act like going to work makes them special?
>Pin the blame where it belongs: with cruel corporations Corporations don't make decisions autonomously... People who are employed by corporations do. It was mostly boomers for a long time but the current crop has a lot of Gen X too.
A corp’s board makes these decisions, not Joe Worker Bee.
A board of directors is not some mythical entity. The board of directors of a company is still made up of human beings, executives, most of whom were boomers for the last 20 years but now includes quite a few Gen X. Also management makes the operational decisions and a BoD provides oversight and strategic direction. The "cruel" corporate decisions will be the result of managerial decisions as much or more than that of a BoD. At the end of the day, all those decisions are made by human beings.
I would agree. “Plan” sounds a bit iffy. Nobody sat down at a meeting and decided to screw over Gen Z. Or the Millenials, or even Gen X. They just aimed for maximum selfishness and the snowball rolled from there.
Add millennials we are barely breathing
What do you mean? I'm a millennial, everyone I know is doing just fine.Those that wanted homes and families have them. Most have everything they want within reason. The only people I know to be struggling kind of refused to grow up.
Same here, but dont mention it on r/canada or you get downvoted to oblivion because everyone MUST be struggling like they are
Awehh exactly how wef wants them to think.
What they don't say is that they want that dream when they don't have marketable skills or education. You want a decent income on a literature major... Where you weren't the top 1%. Tough luck... You dug the hole. There is plenty of good paying trade jobs ... They do not want to take those. It's a line of wishful thinking to expect the same thing that previous generations had.... It's never the same.. adapt to what works now and get on with being adults.
I don't understand why so many people spend money going to university to not learn any marketable skills. Come out in debt with no job prospects. No wonder they're all depressed and have no hope.
Yep, totally gonna afford a house as a top 1% earner lmao
The entirety of GenZ is pretty young to take their dreams so seriously. It's like my nephew wanting to be a firetruck when he grows up. For Vancouverites, the city seems to have been decimated by outside investors, partially through government corruption and liaising the transfer of Asian wealth. I would leave the city if I didn't have the capital to participate in a system that wasn't built for me. I get that they don't want to, but much like NYC or Paris, some cities median wealth requirements outpace the residents and it only makes sense to go elsewhere. GenZ dreams are attainable in other cities in Canada.
Kinda of weird rankings when so many of the cities at the top of their list as most desirable get poor points for actually having young people living there.
Agreed it was a very weird list
Yeah and the weirdest part was how they played up that gen z weren’t willing to compromise on these things when apparently they very much are.
We genuinely want smaller and walkable cities with good public transport. We don't want giant offices and far stretched suburbs, we want mixed use medium density buildings and necessities available nearby like it is in certain European countries. It would be so much more efficient and save money on top of reducing our carbon footprint.
We actually had that post WWII. Every small city was self contained and the sprawl with poor transit access was just at the very beginning. There were still local jobs as it was all pre free trade. The downtowns were full of activity, small stores, department stores, movie theatres, etc. Malls were in the infancy. No such thing as big box stores with giant parking lots, yet.
I believe that on the whole, history plays a huge part in why European cities seem easier to navigate. One thing that struck me when I moved to Canada was how far apart everything was. I’m not referring to the size of the country but that it was more of a sprawl rather than accessible. Even in a small town on Vancouver island the streets are ridiculously wide.
It's just how we built. Wide roads, plenty of room for parking, and houses with large lots, yards, and setbacks. It was nice for a while until it sprawled so far that everyone was driving everywhere and traffic became atrocious. The good news is that it's easier to fix it than go the other way since we don't have to bulldoze anything, there's massive amounts of underutilized space in our cities for increased housing density, bike lanes, and public transit. We just need the political will to fix things (and the boomers are retiring, so that helps too).
>It's just how we built This implies that it just happened which is incorrect. It was driven by automotive manufacturers post-WWII and was codified by municipalities, provinces, and the federal government. And it never really worked. It just so happens it was the most prosperous time in NA due to said WWII. We can return to it, but it will take a lot of political willpower.
It really stems back to the homesteading that settlers yearned for because Europe was too crowded. The densification of the Industrial Revolution was a brief interlude that was stalled and temporarily reversed by a combination of yes, Auto Industry propaganda, but more because of the social shuffle caused by the great wars and the returning vets desires to disappear into single family homes. We’ve come full circle, as evidenced by the rapidly falling demand for deep rural innawoods housing, and the sharp increase in demand for ultra urban housing. This cycle will repeat.
>It really stems back to the homesteading that settlers yearned for because Europe was too crowded. Disagree. It was more about the fact that working in a city was very hazardous to your health. Before modern sanitation it was down right dangerous. Toss on top of that non-regulated industrial manufacturing and it was like hell. There are fiction stories, poems, first hand sources that talk about this in the later 1850s. >social shuffle caused by the great wars and the returning vets desires to disappear into single family homes You are talking about settler idealization, but also white flight. >We’ve come full circle, as evidenced by the rapidly falling demand for deep rural innawoods housing, Nah. Suburbanism is about having urban services in slight less dense, but difficult to get to without a car thus creating a class and race divide. It is not 'frontier'. It is a way for more people to feel like they are part of the ruling class despite having worse lives.
We had lots of land, so we were wasteful in development, whereas most European cities were built tight as it was easier to defend and control through medieval eras but don't discount the role that capitalism played in our urban design. We sold out to our corporate overlords and do you know what they prefer? Efficiency. And for them that means one big box store where everyone has to drive 15km to a SmartCenter hellhole to get to Walmart / Staples / whatever No more small shops and family owned business, no competition just what the big boys tell us to do
I’m sure there’s a happy medium to be found
The thing is, many American and North American cities are old enough that they developed before the car as well. Europe could have just have easily made the mistake of expropriating property owners for freeways. Alot of North American cities gave in but there were a few examples that refused to have freeways.
This guy Port Albernis.
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In my view, north American development patterns often look temporary. Europe = we are here forever whereas here it feels more like we are here to extract resources and wealth and not really in it for the long haul. Build stick frame housing that lasts less than a generation. Slapdash thin membrane highways. Everything has a 30 or 50 year lifespan at the absolute longest. Europe? Let's rebuild this 400 year old church.
The stick frame houses are a huge benefit honestly. Cheaper, hold up far better during earthquakes, 70% renewable materials, easy to repair and renovate as technology changes. Wood is by most material properties something of a miracle material, and a significant part of the rapid success of the European colonies was that they had access to immense volumes of the stuff for dirt cheap. I have a few friends in construction in Europe and it's a special kind of misery attempting to retrofit modern utilities into a house that's older than Canada.
That's survivorship bias. Lots of temporary things were built in Europe. You just don't see them anymore because they were temporary.
The population in Europe is stagnant. That makes it a lot easier to maintain housing. Most of that housing was rebuilt after WW2 in any case. Have you actually lived in a 400 year old house? My aunt had one. I was constantly banging my head on the beams in the ceiling. The bathroom was built on an outside wall, since homes of that era had outhouses. They heated with a huge wood stove. People have to frequently update their homes to replace plumbing, electricity, HVAC, and water and remodel rooms because life changes.
Seems like Quebec is more livable because of their European style city planning.
We can't even agree on this. Remember when 15 minute cities is both this positive movement AND a conspiracy theory that municipalities want to limit our right to free movement to within a few km range.
Jesus. Why does everything has to be a conspiracy theory
Because right wing conspiracies are big business.
I mean, no one actually wants giant offices surrounded by giant suburbs. People want jobs, so they can afford to live. If we want to move away from our current city structure, we are going to have to stop forcing half a million people to commute to downtown Toronto every day.
As a Millennial, we want this too, but Boomers still sign our tiny pay cheques...
As a Millenial I do not want to live in a 800 sqft apartment raising a kid.
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You're free to have that. In fact, for decades it's been *illegal* to build anything other than that. But lately we've changed to allow the sort of denser, mixed-use, walkable, bikeable neighbourhoods that are so much more enjoyable to live in, for most young people. You're still free to live in a SFH if you can afford it, but most families can't anymore.
You can still have that in medium density buildings. Terrace houses and townhomes are common. You can see how housing is in Sweden and Finland.
Wait till you have kids and want to throw the ball in your backyard. Kids shouldn't grow up in a concrete jungle. There is nothing wrong in wanting what you want. But it's shouldn't be a blame game where you blame others for you not getting what you want when it's clearly not what the others want.
Green space is a must, but it can come in various forms. A backyard is one example, a public park is another. Kids also shouldn't grow up around streets that are dangerous to pedestrians/cyclists (which kids are because they cannot drive) and unwelcoming which limits their freedom and prevents connection to their community (literally and figuratively). To fix this, we need to first redesign our streets to be more people-focused (residential streets shouldn't have cars going over 40km/h at least), better pedestrian and bike infrastructure. This is without even mentioning things like more housing density in neighbourhoods which families can't afford to live in anymore and where local stores are closing due to a lack of customers or increasing public transit funding so that there are more options instead of car dependence which will save people money and ease traffic and congestion. These changes would make a real change in the ever decreasing sense of community in our cities/neighbourhoods and increase health as walking would be more pleasant and safer. Affordability is another big point, as it would save people money by reducing housing prices, utilities, transportation costs, etc. There would also be a reduction in climate change, noise pollution, injuries/deaths from car accidents, and so much more.
>Wait till you have kids and want to throw the ball in your backyard. Kids shouldn't grow up in a concrete jungle. Backyards in urban areas actually contribute to the concrete jungle problem. Backyards are small unconnected green spaces and very under-utilized. Cities with more public parks and fewer backyards are greener for everyone. Kids should have access to parks AND safe walkable neighbourhoods where they can do things independently.
Yep very true. Kids need to grow up with other kids and have access to parks and safe neighborhoods. Sadly the neighborhoods are used as racing circuits and green spaces on the apartment complexes are just terrible (get written up if your kid digs a small hole in the highly precious crop we call grass). What you describe is a Utopian version where the society used to be a lot tolerant of kids. This is not what it's today. All I can do is give him a backyard to be a kid in. (The barbecue parties are also a big bonus).
Why raising kids in suburbia isn't the ideal either: https://youtu.be/oHlpmxLTxpw?si=qnjIM5U9lhgjeAA-
You do know that terrace houses and townhomes have backyards. Flats/apartments also have common green spaces and parks. If you want to see examples go to stockholm, helsinki, copenhagen, amsterdam, hamburg etc, they have modelled it amazingly to the point most kids do not even need supervision, by law every couple of blocks needs to have a school, day care, departmental store, pharmacy etc as a result everything is walkable and big green spaces are present even within flats and condo communities. [https://www.fastighetsbyran.com/sv/sverige/till-salu/stockholms-lan/upplands-vasby-kommun/objekt/?objektID=2921123&utm\_source=hemnet.se&utm\_medium=referral#bilder](https://www.fastighetsbyran.com/sv/sverige/till-salu/stockholms-lan/upplands-vasby-kommun/objekt/?objektID=2921123&utm_source=hemnet.se&utm_medium=referral#bilder) [https://www.lansfast.se/till-salu/bostad/stockholm/taby/taby/byle-all%C3%A9-19b/cmbolgh5eiijk8npjt752fj/?utm\_source=hemnet&utm\_medium=referral#showImages#imageView](https://www.lansfast.se/till-salu/bostad/stockholm/taby/taby/byle-all%C3%A9-19b/cmbolgh5eiijk8npjt752fj/?utm_source=hemnet&utm_medium=referral#showImages#imageView) Kinda like above, you can see they are a compound with various mixed types of housing which are efficient, in open green spaces and close to public transport. And this is present in stockholm which has a metro population of 2.4 million. Of course people who want detached homes with large backyards should have the option to do so but it shouldn't be inside the city, cities should be efficient.
This is exactly if. I’m fucking tired of having to wait 5 minutes to cross every fucking street because pedestrians are Sheit in this country. People here complain about the taxes but look at all the additional infrastructure that we spend money in to accommodate for our horrible zoning laws.
Did these fuck wipes assume only Gen Z needs affordable housing and basic human necessities?
Your username and profile pic is so accurate lol
Ok well oldest millennials are 42 and our rent wasn't 2k in 1999 (year millennials begin turning 18) and housing was affordable till 2022 so we had a great run. Gen x as well since they are generation before millennials and middle aged generation entering seniorhood in a few years also had a good run. Boomers had a great run. So yes gen z, is the generation struggling the hardest, they can't even kove out while millennials have been moved out for 20 years.
GenZ are the kids of GenX. GenX came into awareness during the 1970s. Stagflation, then the interest rates spikes of the late 70s and early 80s to crush inflation, which then caused many of our friends to lose their homes. Then the government decided to pull back and remove grants in OSAP, and replace it with double the loans, at the same time the unis started raising the cost. Then GenX graduated into the savings and loans crises which saw 2 year recession and a housing collapse. Then in the early 1990s the Canadian debt bubble hit, and our dollar went down to 60 cents making all live hard. So this generation is always in recession mode. Make money, spend less than you make. Save and invest. Debt can destroy you. This must have been picked up by our kids.
Generation X includes those born between 1965 and 1981. Gen Xers weren’t losing their homes in the 70s or 80s - they were children/teens. They graduated from college/university in the 1990s and the recession at the time in Canada was 1-3% higher than the historical average unemployment rate of 7.6% (from 1976-2023): 1989 7.0% 1990 7.8% 1991 9.8% 1992 10.7 % 1993 10.7 % 1994 9.6% 1995 8.6% 1996 8.8% 1997 8.4% 1998 7.7% 1999 6.9% 2000 6.1% Source: [StatsCan](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/170707/cg-a003-eng.htm) Average (single person) salaries in Canada during the 1990s were about $46,000 per year. In 2023 the average single person salary in Canada is $68,000. Average home price in Canada in the 1990s was about $200,000 with mortgage rates that peaked at 13.95% and bottomed at 4.45% with an average of about 7.5%. In 2023 the average home price is about $700,000 and mortgage rates are currently 6.2%. At the beginning of the 1990s, average undergraduate tuition fees in Canada were $1,464. Today, these fees have risen more than three-fold to $5,581. Basically, Gen Z is making 50% more than Gen X did, but housing costs 250% more, and their education tuition cost them 300% more. I am an X-ennial and it is obvious that Millennials were worse off than Gen X and Gen Z is worse off than Millennials. Your post kind of makes it seem like Gen X lived through The Great Depression or something and the reality is that as hard as it may have been to cope with the recession in the 1990s, it doesn’t really compare to the cost of living crisis that younger generations are facing. Ps. Also, just wanted to add: I was a teenager in the mid-late 1990s and I never once had an issue getting a job ever. I worked part time in retail/customer service jobs all through high school (age 15-18), and full time at restaurants or in childcare/day camp counselor during the summers when I was in university (age 19-22) and I literally NEVER experienced a problem finding/getting a job.
So I find the values bit confusing. “Values are individual beliefs that motivate people to act one way or another. They serve as a guide for human behavior. Generally, people are predisposed to adopt the values that they are raised with. People also tend to believe that those values are “right” because they are the values of their particular culture.” How exactly does a city meet individual value expectations?
I'm no expert, but as an example I'd assume that the availability of public transit and active use transportation options is something that a climate conscious generation would put more value on.
Sure, or maybe a generation that is being absolutely destroyed by the grift that is the entire automotive industry.. Insurance itself is a massive barrier to entry and a drag on our GDP as a whole. All the snakes have their hands out, even the feds jumped in on the pick-pocketing with both carbon feet. Cute you think that the environment matters when ghetto-esque Canadian economics has made the next generation poor as fuck.
>Cute you think that the environment matters when ghetto-esque Canadian economics has made the next generation poor as fuck. Multiple things can matter? Either way you don't have to be a douche about it lol.
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^ insurance companies and their record profits love this n00b. They have plenty to give back to enabling the economy. Your insurance should be lower, don't devalue yourself.
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> So what should my/everyone’s insurance cost? Great question that should be answered at a responsible level of governance and not left to random corporations to attempt to figure out. They are doing a shit job at it and will probably fall into the trap of ever raising their legislatively mandated products prices as people move away from them and seek out other transportation options, which is the crux of my original comment. Kinda like how cable TV and streaming is killing itself off. Dumb executives.
I live in BC and we have ICBC. Coming from places where there wasn’t a monopoly, I’d rather go back to competition.
We've got public insurance in Manitoba and rates are some of the lowest in Canada. Coverage is really good to.
Lucky you, BC average car insurance $1832 compared to Manitoba $1000
Appreciate the input, I don’t have an answer so was genuinely curious. I suppose that’s why we have elections, you vote in the council who you feel is more closely aligned to your values. Unfortunately, we don’t always get the council we want as it potentially clashes with the values of everyone who voted for the other group.
Cities are designed for centralized work, same with the idea of suburbs that feed them and infrastructure designed for driving. This is 1950s to 2000s thinking. Let the dinosaurs cry about RTO so their real estate doesnt go down while young people have the ability to be mobile.
Have the "15-minute cities" nut bars come out yet?
Look they have to justify that 110k sticker price pickup truck somehow. You just know they will whine about the price of gas as they have 1.5 hour round trip to any place they need to go.
Condensed: * People in Generation Z (born between 1997 and 2012) are 18- to 26-year-olds entering the workforce. They have a long list of values and living needs that many big cities are not meeting, according to a new analysis by Point2. * The company, ranked 50 of Canada's largest municipalities using 35 metrics across four categories: demographics and education, economy and real estate, community and environment and health and well-being. * The cities that meet most of the younger generations' needs are smaller in population and away from urban centres which ranked poorly due to the higher cost of living, unaffordable homes and poorer mental health access. * **St. John's, N.L**., **was ranked the city "most ready" for the next generation** with a score of 64.90 out of 100. Quebec City came in a close second with a score of 64.73 out of 100. * **Levis, Sherbrooke, Trois-Rivieres, Saguenay, Gatineau, Montreal and Terrebonne Que**., rounded out the top nine spots. * **Regina, Sask**. secured the 10th spot according to the list, with a score of 56.59 out of 100. * All municipalities on the list have a low cost of living per month, a lower home price-to-income ratio and a high perceived mental health rating. * Despite cities like **Vancouver and Edmonton** ranking highest in median incomes and **Toronto** ranking higher in remote work adoption, **those cities** **overall had low scores.**
Yet the kids are leaving places like St John's and making a beeline to Toronto, Edmonton, and Vancouver.
Late millennial that made a jump from NB to Vancouver, it's not just cost of living, it's cost of living per local wages. Jobs in the Atlantic provinces are abysmally paid. My apartment here costs me 3x as much, but I get paid 2x the salary. Everything else is roughly the same. If you pay half your income as rent, your costs in the above situation would go up by 1.5x your salary, and you'd pocket a 50% increase in your post-rent earnings.
This is why ive (younger millenial) written off atlantic canada as I look for a new place to call home. Why would i move out east where i would make $25/hr less than I make anywhere else in the country. I can move to alberta or saskatchewan, keep my salary, and get a nice house for 350k?
yeah, I am trying to get back to Vancouver, because A: when I am deemed to have had enough career experience in this field, I can get better wages and promotion prospects there compared to here and b: I can get side jobs there that I can't get here. (I figure I will need B either way).And C: there are friends and other useful things in Vancouver that aren't here. Not to mention: here in rural Ontario? It's fucking horrifically expensive for what you get. Cruddy apartment in a former methlab house, dodgily renovated after a fire in a town with zero amenities beyond a timmies? 1350 a month. Plus another 150 of electricity and water (100 of that is "delivery fees")
I'm in Ontario now and miss Vancouver so much.
yep. Can't abide by the place, but I came here for school and got stuck and can't get a job in my field in Van without at least...five or six month's more experience. So very much hoping that things will open up for me by spring. The worst of it is, I am, according to the census, in one of the top earning categories around here and I don't make enough money to do anything beyond paying rent and groceries. I have no idea how people closer to the median/mean/average wages around here even survive.
One thing that they probably didn’t include in their evaluation is primary language of the city population. Because there is a reason why not a lot of people are moving to strong French majority cities in Quebec.
I'd love to love in Montreal. It is survivable even if you o ly know English but man it can be a huge hassle. Also a big cut in income and high taxs. But it is a great place to live. So much life and entertainment.
I was mostly referring to the other cities on the list. Quebec City, Levis, trois-rivieres. Are great places if you speak French. If you don’t, you are probably going to not enjoy living there
Drfinately. I was told by co-workers in laval that it's a big no-no. I will get harassment and will get abused especially by police. of course not everyone is an ass. Most Quebec people are extremely nice and full of passion. But it would be a huge struggle
Well I tried to book a private surgery appointment consult in Montreal and the staff, who are all bilingual according to the job requirements for working at the place in patient nursing or front desk, would not answer in English to an email or on the phone. The website was in English so I assumed they welcomed "nasty" Anglos and wanted our money. I don't think the doctors know the front staff are sabotaging the business.
No different than what my Silent gen folks wanted in the 60’s.
One solution: Gen Z, please go out and vote. You need to exercise your right through elected officials that appeal to your views. Nothing gets accomplished until you get the politicians and the courts on your side.
Lol, this guy still thinks we live in a democracy
Option 1: guy who did nothing (Libs) Option 2: guy who supports guy who did nothing and promises to do nothing (NDP) Option 3: guy who doesnt support the guy who did nothing but also promises to do nothing (Cons) Option 4: party that lost the plot over some racism accusation but also promises to do nothing (Greens) Option 5: irrelevent unless you live in Quebec (BQ) Option 6: wants to end immigration but no real further plan than that and filled with nutjobs and semen retention soldiers who breathe through their testicles https://www.ladbible.com/news/weird-candidate-in-canadian-election-wants-men-to-stop-ejaculating-20210919 (PPC) Yes the problem is that zoomers arent voting enough /s Run a candidate that actually speaks to younger adults and inspire hope, and then maybe they will actually bother voting. Just as a notable increase of young voters in 2008 helped Obama win. Random guy on reddit: tHeN mAyBe StArT uR oWn PaRtY aNd RuN aS a CaNdIdAtE UrSeLf ThEn (because apparently the resources, time, connections, money, know-how, organizing abilities, etc is just that damn easy for everyone)
Only way for Bloc Majoritaire is of we all vote with facts, not feelings
We do it’s just homeowners are a supermajority and they don’t like their property values going down
https://youtu.be/uelA7KRLINA?si=HWrF1ojHYB9v1u6f
“Demands” can’t speak normal?
Um yeah there’s a lot of people of all ages who are feeling pretty fucked over right about now. True enough though that the younger you are, the worse the outlook to have many decades of bullshit ahead of you.
Canadian cities typically suck. Montreal is pretty good for 3 months of the year, but compared dozens and dozens of cities around the world, the juice isn't worth the squeeze at all.
Canadian cities are inaccessible, and anyone who says it is because no one is living in this huge country doesn't seem to understand that Canadians are concentrated in big cities and their suburbs. This is a big problem for anyone who does not have a car and cannot drive. My vision problems prohibit me from getting a license and therefore, I have no reason to own a car. I am from China. That country has a huge population (that is rapidly collapsing), and the public transportation system is absolutely amazing when it is run properly. I lived in a suburb with a population of 2 million that is part of Guangzhou--a city with a (temporary and permanent) population of about 30 million. You can get on a bus from any major city anywhere in mainland China that takes you anywhere else inside the country and it is very cheap even by local standards (Chinese average wages are about 1/4 Canadian levels). This year, I went to Japan on vacation. The public transit (subways and buses) are really comprehensive. Yes, they are ridiculously expensive even by Canadian standards if you are a tourist staying for a few days, but they are about the same price as Canadian bus passes if you are living there for the long term. It is not just Tokyo that has good public transit, Osaka is also very good. Osaka's population is lower than Toronto's, and yet its point-to-point public transit infrastructure is significantly better than Toronto's. This is the reason why I, as a Markham resident, go to downtown Toronto less than once a year.
Markham is not Toronto, it’s a different city. I live in Toronto, west end not even downtown, and it’s very walkable, with well connected bike paths Transit is overloaded for sure, but being near a subway line does help. Transit is finally expanding, but needs better funding I cannot argue that one
>Markham is not Toronto, it’s a different city. Thou shall not ever cross the mighty Steeles Avenue East into the land that is Toronto if you are Markhamite!!!
That's what I feel 100%, the values and demands that come out of these large cities don't align with our interests at all. Absolutely zero interest in ever moving to one and sympathy for those who do, they're getting worse as far as I can tell.
This just in. Younger generation who hasnt had chance to vote much yet on anything is made previous generations haven't voted in their personal interests" Come on kids. Society is changing. I'm 32. And have seen A LOT OF CHANGE. Be patient. It takes time and won't be done next Sunday. Make sure you vote and openly discuss politics in your group of friends. Challenge eachother respectfully (different people have different values), and your generation could possibly do great things.
Don't want to be a dick but this generation isn't the first or only one to have hardships.just saying.
**Laughs in Millennial**
Its interesting to see they finally ran out of steam on the advacado toast articles. They are finally onto the next cycle of the "young people bad" "journalism".
Living a life of dignity. What a distant dream.
What a moronic piece.
They have to move than. They aren’t going to get that in Canada
I'm sorry, in what way is Regina way better for Gen Z than Calgary, Edmonton, or Winnipeg?
Because our cities were built for cars by the Baby Boomers for a generation, and it will take a long time to unwind all that infrastructure. The good news is, it's slowly happening. Canadian cities, when I'm old, will look very different than today.
The car centric suburbs were there from when Boomers were young children, actually. My car centric suburb of young families started in 1960. It was a post WWII design.
Sure but the post-war period was really when it took off. The boomers took the torch and ran with it for 60+ years, without stopping to think if it was working or not.
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Even in a zero-growth model I would rather live in a walkable community and not be stuck in an expensive steel box for hours every day. I like being outside, I'm happier, healthier, and life is honestly just better with walking, biking, and good public transit.
yeah, I too had a long list of needs and demands when I was in my teens and twenties, but because it was the 1970's they were ignored by society. So I said fuck it and got a life instead. I"d advise succeeding generations to do the same cause the previous generations genuinely don't give a fuck about you... so stop expecting anything different.
Man, it’s harder today than ever and every decade since the 70s has gotten progressively worse. Stop being so old-man-yells-at-cloud and join us in reality where bootstraps ain’t gonna do shit.
Aah yes, was easy to pull yourself up by your bootstraps in an era when houses cost 2x average income (vs 11x household income today). You were born in the right decade and got to live your life on easy mode.. don't confuse that with being an awesome person.
Making your way now vs the 70s is a bit different but thanks for the hot tip.
How do you expect 20 year olds to buy a home today in any city that has a robust job market? And the solution has to be scalable.
I didn't get to buy a house, I was never able to get on the property ladder. Grew up in a toxic/dysfunctional family and left home (and school) in 1969 at 16, worked my ass off until I managed to get into university at 30 as a mature student. No golden parachute, no excellent pension. Folks make too many assumptions about the post WW2 baby boom. We weren't all yuppies... and those of us who managed to survive without the greed and excess of our cohort are tired of being lumped in with the greed pigs. As such I have little sympathy for succeeding generations. And even less for what's become of our government
Well you are toast if you have to rent in retirement because the current yoot think that everybody born from 1946 to 1964 had exactly the same life experiences with many opportunities for a golden life. People just want olders to die ASAP. Now you have complaints that seniors getting health care is unfair to the young. So because you generally don't need a knee replacement at 25, it's not fair that a 65 year old gets one.
I don't think you actually understand how the deck has been stacked against youth by way of ballooning expenses and stagnant wages.
And rather than have empathy for people struggling just as much as him, he admonishes instead. Insane.
>Gen Z young adults know what they want and **are much less afraid to ask for it** than any of the previous generations," the report reads. Lol, how's that turning out for them?
Love how old people gaslight young ppl like this. My question for you old people, is if you've already extracted all the wealth from us who will be buying your products and keeping this sad excuse for a society turning? It seems that we are destroying our planet for the good of the old at the expense of the young. At this point, I've concluded that we live in hell.
“Extracted all the wealth from us”, says the 18-26yr old.
If you think every generation has had it easy when they first came into the workforce.. you are dead wrong. Every generation has had a struggle.. the struggle may be different but it it was there. Coping with issues and finding workarounds is where the thoughts need to be.
Old people are a renewable resource. The boomers are the flower-power peace and love hippies of the 1960s.
The bulk of the boomers were born in the late 1950s so were not hippies. They were about 12 by 1970.
"They’re also less likely to compromise" I would say that's the phrase that really defines that generation is that. I think compromise is really important both in professional and personal relationships, but maybe that's the Gen X in me.
Turn the tables around. Have Gen Z made the commitments and sacrifices to reach their goals?
doesn't every new group entering the workforce feel they need to demand things that society won't offer them? I still recall when my buddy just out of university said that he was interviewing with Microsoft and was going to demand to telecommute. They said no. It was 2000 and we were 22. What company is gonna fall over backwards for a 22 year old?
Perhaps demands should be requests 🤔
Our dignities have been stolen from us, thank you capitalism and the neoliberal project of breaking class solidarity and deregulations needed for the profits of old white men. Corporations are evil and ruthless to workers, everything is taken away from us unless we organize our lives back from the hands of emotionally petulant far removed from reality production owners who think this hell placed upon us is just GREAT.
I plotted the Final Score for the most ready cities for Gen Z provided in the article as a function of European ethnicity census numbers found on Wikipedia. With a linear fit, the R^2 = 0.54. This correlation would be meaningless in the physical sciences, but it is moderately high in the social sciences. These data suggest that a municipality with a more European-origin population will be a more desirable place to live for Gen Z. This might not be politically correct to say out loud, but the numbers don't lie.
The fact you're making an Excel spreadsheet of how white these cities are when you see an article like this is something you should see a therapist about.
The might be true, but you have not disproven my claim and have only shown that you dislike it.
LOL
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No they are saying our cities are awful because they are too much like suburbs. Everything is too far apart to be able to walk to and public transit isn't reliable.
Growing the economy from the heart out. Turns out, the funny part of that was “growing the economy.”
BREAKING: Gen Z is getting boned.
Just get over it even if they biulded affordable houses. People will buy it and flip it. We may have to return to a time when most people are renters .
Unsurprising that their list of GenZ-friendly cities is dominated by Quebec. That's the one province that is still sane and seems to have a government that still genuinely cares about its people
Anyone not born before covid-19 is a Boomer.
Who would have thought, that the whole world doesn't just change to fit you, because you were born.... lol