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In 2004 American/Canadian Jane Jacobs in her last book Dark Age Ahead identified unaffordable housing as a part of a Dark Age. Jane's pioneering work made both American and Canadian cities more livable. She did not have a degree but is considered pretty much unequaled in urban planning.

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In 2004 American/Canadian Jane Jacobs in her last book Dark Age Ahead back identified unaffordable housing as a part of a Dark Age. Jane's pioneering work made both American and Canadian cities more livable. She did not have a degree but is considered pretty much unequaled in urban planning.

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Yes, Leilani Farha is a star change maker. She demonstrates the citizen activism that Raph Nader has applied to just about every segment of our consumer society since the 1960s. Soon we are to hear from Astra Taylor as she delivers this year's Massey lectures. The 43-year-old Canadian/American activist has insights- especially on debt and what we really owe to each other. Some of her books are:

Solidarity: The Past, Present, and Future of a World-Changing Idea

Democracy May Not Exist, but We'll Miss It When It's Gone

Can't Pay, Won't Pay: The Case for Economic Disobedience and Debt Abolition

The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart

The People's Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age

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See-Steve Lafleur: A reason to be optimistic on housing — no, really. I'm serious.

We might just be able to avoid screwing over an entire generation after all

One Federal minister with sharp focus can go a long, long way.

I say build up and build up green-like Singapore. I say rezone and screw all the NIMBYs.

Urban sprawl will squeeze the oxygen out of generations supply of air.

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You are right Glen. That Steve Lafleur's piece is worth a read. Thanks for flagging it. Indeed, I appreciate all Substackers drawing our attention to other important work that can shape and improve Gen Squeeze thinking. Keep it coming.

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Oct 6, 2023Liked by Generation Squeeze

Tonight, TVO airs PUSH: Housing prices are skyrocketing in cities around the world. Incomes are not. Push sheds light on a new kind of faceless landlord, increasingly unlivable cities, and an escalating housing crisis. The film follows Leilani Farha, the UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing, as she's travelling the globe, trying to understand who's being pushed out of the city and why.

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I join Glen in recommending this film if you haven't already seen it. Leilani Farha is a star change maker. She tends to focus on a key issue of housing commodification that is the flip-side of the same coin on which Gen Squeeze focuses as well. PUSH will highlight the way that large companies and investors seek wealth windfalls from housing. Gen Squeeze complements this focus on large investors by emphasizing how many everyday homeowners are entangled in the addiction to high and rising home prices, because they provide easy wealth windfalls that are largely tax sheltered. At Gen Squeeze, we focus on the latter, because we see this cultural addiction in which many voters are entangled as a root cause for why policy makers have tolerated home prices leaving home prices behind -- from which large investors then take advantage, worsening the problem, especially for vulnerable renters.

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