I received an ARC from NetGalley and I'm willingly leaving a review
It's not just about Canada and there are plenty of ideas yes, but no concrete solutions in the short-term; there are around-the-world problems and solutions in every other chapters but do they apply to Canada? The book ends at ~80%, the balance are the annexes and bibliography. As I was reading the book, it seems a lot like reading an assignment, something to be shared and get graded on. But it is interesting nonetheless.

I loved all the tidbits about history, such as the store's name that came from a water pump story. I found that odd, like in many other places, that natives don't have a first choice, such as in Paris when the lady came from another country and found a place to live, when there are so many Parisians that couldn't find affordable housing. TIL → I didn't know that renters didn't have credit because it was deemed unstable. I had several "Wow" moments, such as telling people to bring your housing problems elsewhere, QC PM Legault's story, but a good wow with the BC government hiring across BC without having them move to Vancouver (within certain conditions, of course). In order for the municipalities to create registries, there should be an expertise created along that line too. Believing it necessary, I also believe it's going to be a nightmare to set-up and people will always find a loophole to not register. If it takes so long to approve housing proposals - we're talking years here - how is this affected by the change of guard every 4 years? Does the new council rejects anything just because? Can they? I really liked that one of the builders was giving solutions to problems, not just complain and do nothing. I really liked how some thought outside the box with boats, ships, etc. or reading about new products (to me) like Eco-Blocks. I see the problem with building single-family housing; I don't have a problem with going up per se, but going higher than an 8-storey; the fire truck ladders don't go further than the 8th floor. Those ones are also easier to keep clean, with less danger, and they look better too. I'm not too sure I like the fact that the federal government gives tax breaks to the builders; the ones with money problems are the buyers. The book skims a bit on vacancy; I'm wondering if anyone thought about stopping people buying second residences, which are used only during 2-3 seasons, and certainly not 100% of the time. Those residence could be put back into the housing market as primary residences. On another side, I have no pity for people like Elsie who didn't catch on on the red flags starting when the tenants refused access to the property appraiser and didn't do anything about it but continued with her purchase, which brought a slew of problems after that. Or for Poornima who bought an excessively huge house and paid the price, literally, because of poor planning.