What's happening in beautiful New Zealand is a tragedy
This small country has the worst housing crisis in the entire Western world.
Many young people are becoming homeless
Hannah, 32, has two degrees and a master’s in economics and finance.
She has also been in transitional housing three times in the past three years.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360780255/out-options-and-desperate-i-had-nowhere-else-go
1 in 1000 citizen is now homeless:
Yet it's not like the country doesn't have money. They have money. For cars.
New Zealand is the most car-dependent country in the world:
https://www.autocar.co.nz/study-suggests-new-zealand-is-the-most-car-dependent-country-in-the-world/
They are spending billions on cars, roads, highways, car insurance, tunnels, giant parking lots:
They are literally using their economy to encourage cars instead of housing.
It's so sad
We waited a long time before changing the zoning to build houses but saying "we're killing our country" is a bit much.
We are about to open a new subway line in our biggest city and have been increasing bike and public transport infrastructure. We've got another trainline in the works as well. The fact is that were a small country with low density and a ton of dumb boomers who fight all change. But public transport is getting way better. But we still need need roads and the investment in new highways and tunnels is needed. I know public transport will be good in nz I can see the shift towards it already happening.
The homeless problem is because our conservative gov made horrible changes to our public suppoty system and basically dumped them from emergency housing onto the streets. Its going to be hugely expensive for the next government to get them all back into housing.
All around the city there is multi story buildings going up to combat housing prices and theyre starting to come down. It sucks because we are a place with a high demand for people to live but we also have weak purchasing power so its harder to source materials for construction and very strong regulations for how buildings should be constructed. We have a fuck ton of land suitable for housing and just need a government that wants to support the conditions for development. We approved more building permits than anytime in the last 50 years and they consist of more medium density than standalone houses.
All this to say things are shit as they are in many places but theres hope. Nz is a great country and once we have our public transport network built out and affordable housing we're going to be one of the best places to raise a family.