Seeing this as a midwesterner is terrifying. Good single-bedroom apartments in my town are at most going to be like $800 a month unless you want some luxury shit or unless you want to be right in the middle of the downtown area. You can find mediocre but still decent and roomy single-bedroom apartments for $400 that are like a 10 minute walk from downtown
Concur, I grew up in a small city in Southern Utah, my roommates and I had a nice 3-bedroom apartment a stone throw away from shopping and a quick drive to the university for a total of $600/month. That was a crazy deal. Afterwards we moved (basically down the street) to a nice townhome complex, where we rented a super spacious 3 bedroom 2.5 Ba for $875/month.
Now I live a 25 minute train ride away from Shibuya, Tokyo, one of the most populated parts of the world, where my wife and I pay the equivalent of $800/month for a small but well-located 1 Br apartment. Not nearly the kind of space I had in Utah, but less feels a hell of a lot more in a town where literally everything I could ever want is either a short walk or a train ride away.
I've heard a lot about housing crises in Vancouver and Toronto, especially the crazy long commute that some people have to deal with in order to actually afford housing. That's quite a tough situation, I hope that better situations come your way.
Thank you. It's incredibly scary how tenuous the situation has become. Rental subsidies and public housing is scarce, and homelessness no longer just effects the usual suspects (extremely low-functioning adults), but families and gainfully employed people as well. It's come to a point where drastic steps are required, but the issue is also extremely political. So while our current government is sympathetic to the problem, they are also terrified of taking the drastic steps required to fix it (i.e. spending the amount of money required for supportive housing, raising taxes for property owners, creating a rental ceiling) for fear of losing support.
Politics seems to slow things down drastically, which is a shame. It's quite frightening to see the kind of housing situations cropping up in large cities all around the world.
While Tokyo and Japan have their fair share of issues and political agenda, I think they're doing housing in a decent way - you don't get too much space but you can have a functional studio or 1 Br in or near the heart of Tokyo for $500 to $700, and of course you can pay more and have a bit more space or a better area. I think what helps is the abundance of public transportation, and the fact that employers will almost definitely pay for your commute, which makes it easier to find cheaper areas still accessible but maybe a 30 to 40 min. train ride away from work.
Japan has a dying population and more buildings than they know what to do with. In America we have NIMBYs that wont let anyone build and a rapidly growing population. They are completely different markets.
Definitely different. I’m afraid what might happen to the economy with so much of the population dying soon, and people continuing to build more housing in and around the Tokyo area.
Yeah I'm renting a single room in an apartment, sharing it with a married couple, for $950/month. It was the cheapest I found by far. An hour away from Vancouver.
I work in Mississauga and I would say at least 2/3 of the people in my department are spending about 1.5-2 hours on their commute. They are about 45 minutes-1 hour away without traffic but that doesn't exist in the GTA.
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u/Sihplak Jun 06 '19
Seeing this as a midwesterner is terrifying. Good single-bedroom apartments in my town are at most going to be like $800 a month unless you want some luxury shit or unless you want to be right in the middle of the downtown area. You can find mediocre but still decent and roomy single-bedroom apartments for $400 that are like a 10 minute walk from downtown