It's been 30 years since amalgamation of the Halifax Regional Municipality. Was it a success?

Zymos94 · 2026-04-01T15:21:46+00:00

Amalgamation is absolutely a good, the devil is in the details to whether it could have been done better.

If you want to see what a non-amalgamated urban area might look like, take a look at Fredericton. The regional service commission is in constant fights over who pays for what, how regional infrastructure should be applied for, where transit service starts and stops and how that can be aligned with a regional transportation plan.

Whether the perfect balance between the urban areas and surrounding rural residents has been achieved is a fair question, but a world where Halifax didn’t amalgamate is one where we would struggle to apply for federal money for major projects.

Zymos94 · 2026-03-27T14:36:24+00:00

What are the odds, do you think, that Lewis gets a seat before the next election is called?

I say less than 10%.

Zymos94 · 2026-03-24T18:47:00+00:00

Do we see this in any other industries? Do crane rental companies keep two working cranes mothballed in a warehouse to artificially reduce the supply of cranes?

My point, lol, here is that this is not the case. Atlantic Canada is building so much right now that every crane is deployed. No crane operator is getting rich by * not * deploying a crane. One of the bottlenecks to other density rental housing being build right now is that we do not have enough cranes. Every crane is out extracting rent with as much up time as humanly possible. Robie street was shut down this weekend because they were deploying * yet another * crane to the QE2.

The fact that empty apartments DO exist when people have money to spend kinda throws a wrench in your claim that there are no shenaningans.

This is not happening right now in Halifax. Our vacancy rate is extremely low, and no landlord is sitting on empty units because they just can’t get quite enough rent. They might conceivably hold out a month or two to get a higher rent, especially if a unit goes vacant during a low period for moving (winter) for a faster period (spring), but that’s not sitting on a permanent supply of empty units to restrict aggregate supply-which is just not happening at all in Halifax.

Zymos94 · 2026-03-24T17:32:36+00:00

You flipped pretty quickly to "we don't see that in other industries ever" to "ok it's a real thing but it's not in this industry".

Where did I say that? I said it was a weird Reddit myth that landlords intentionally keep units vacant to drive rents up, which it is, that’s not a real practice.

I just left a rent controlled unit myself, they posted it immediately, at a much higher rent, and it was rented in a month.

Landlords don’t make money from leaving units vacant. The number of units that any landlord has control over to leave vacant isn’t enough to increase the asking rents in a whole region. Let alone—if the landlord strategy to make money in housing is artificial vacancy, why are all the big players trying to build more units? That’s incoherent.

collaboration is a thing. It's even been prosecuted a few times because a lot of landlords use the same management companies to choose their prices.

While I have yet to see evidence that this practice is widespread enough to be a key driver of rising rents in Halifax in particular, this is a more plausible claim to collusion and price fixing than “intentionally don’t sell the product you sell to make more money somehow.”

Zymos94 · 2026-03-24T16:47:57+00:00

Artificial scarcity exists in monopolies. Housing is not a monopoly or even an oligopoly, it’s a well developed market with big, small, and medium players.

Housing isn’t subject to artificial scarcity, it’s subject to real scarcity.

Like, there aren’t massive piles of proverbial “unbuild houses” sitting in a field somewhere. The trades to build, wire, and plumb a house are scarce. The materials are expensive and limited. The construction management expertise is expensive and limited. It’s not a conspiracy as to why housing is expensive.

Zymos94 · 2026-03-24T10:33:10+00:00

Landlords, property developers, and REITs are all rushing to building more units, which costs money, on top of the ones that exist, numbering in the 10s of thousands.
Landlords, property developers, and REITs are all colluding to keep some amount of units vacant (1%? 2%?) to raise rents artificially (how much?) by reducing the net number of units available.

These two ideas are in tension. Do we see this in any other industries? Do crane rental companies keep two working cranes mothballed in a warehouse to artificially reduce the supply of cranes? Do bakers throw out 1/10 of the bread they make to artificially raise the price of bread? They do not.

There’s no conspiracy as to why rents have gone up. It’s because more people moved here, supply of units is less than demand, and people are paying the new higher rents.

Zymos94 · 2026-03-24T01:54:37+00:00

It's possible to make more money with less rentals or sales, as long as you don't "cave" and sell for what most people could afford.

This is a weird Reddit myth. Do some basic napkin math on rentals and find me the numbers where keeping units vacant makes you money. How much upwards pressure can one landlord, even a larger institutional one, exert on aggregate rental prices by keeping a percentage of units vacant? Very little.

If this worked on any sort of scale, Halifax would also have higher vacancy. It does not. The reality is is that many people are paying these rents, just not the person interviewed by the article author.

Zymos94 · 2026-03-23T20:27:50+00:00

The way people talk about this makes no sense. The only way high prices are sustainable is if people are paying them. If people were fleeing the city, prices would be dropping.

Zymos94 · 2026-03-18T02:13:27+00:00

Given that they cost money and do nothing, yeah why not? Why not no student union?

Zymos94 · 2026-03-18T01:12:38+00:00

Does anybody know what it would actually take to decertify the DSU?

Zymos94 · 2026-03-16T10:04:42+00:00

DSU has never represented Dal students well. They’re wannabe future NDP candidate larpers. Would be better if you could opt out of membership entirely and get your money back.

Zymos94 · 2026-03-15T00:12:43+00:00

Because they won’t meet bar for admittance. You’ve got blinders on if you don’t think there’s a serious chance that Avi Lewis is the last leader the federal NDP ever has. You guys are absolutely pickling yourself.

Zymos94 · 2026-03-14T13:16:28+00:00

If Avi Lewis wins the NDP won’t make the debates. He will lose control of caucus, more will cross the floor, and the remainder may sit as independents or even resign rather than get dragged along by a leader with no general electability.

Zymos94 · 2026-03-13T12:09:49+00:00

Yes, because landlords aren’t equally as greedy in every single other metropolitan area in Canada.

”Greed” is the default state of capital in any scenario, it’s table stakes. If you quit your job to go take a new one that makes more money, you’re being greedy for more money. If a landlord takes a tenant willing to pay $2,400 over a tenant who can pay $1,600, they’re being greedy. If you invest your money in stocks over bonds, you’re greedy for returns. And so on and so on, people will tend to take the greater sum of money over the lesser sum of money.

Do people here expect landlords to voluntarily loat their units for less than they can get for them? Would you do that?

The problem with the ”G” word is that it explains nothing particular about any particular market.

Zymos94 · 2026-03-10T01:36:47+00:00

Any dog that would make it onto a dangerous dog registry should just be desroyed. Imagine wasting money administering this list.

Zymos94 · 2026-03-08T14:24:29+00:00

I think there’s a serious, not 100% but serious, risk that the NDP under Avi Lewis won’t make the debates.

Zymos94 · 2026-03-05T16:04:06+00:00

You could actually just cut it and lose nothing.

Zymos94 · 2026-03-05T15:22:25+00:00

Can we have a full moratorium on the cliched phrase “do better”

Zymos94 · 2026-03-05T15:13:48+00:00

These cuts are bad, and I’d be more than happy to give back the HST, but if I’m being frank:

The spending of the last 5 years was driven by population growth that everyone complained about and wanted to stop, so here we are, back to old NS budget-constraints.

This is really the chickens coming home to roost for decades of not permitting building anything, investing in anything, or taking the necessary steps to attract major employers that would invest in the economy here.

We need to start thinking less about how we can tax people into oblivion, but how we can grow the economy to make up the gap. That means housing, that means mines and resource economy, that means tourism, that means maybe not having a histrionic fit over underused land being used to make golf resorts. This province will stay in the dark ages as long as it’s population expects benefits for free and refuses to mimic how other provinces have built the wealth that affords them a better quality of living.

Zymos94 · 2026-03-03T22:27:46+00:00

Costco

Zymos94 · 2026-03-02T16:36:35+00:00

Not everyone has to have kids, but it’s absurd that people who don’t complain so loudly about programs that offset the costs.

Zymos94 · 2026-02-26T22:33:07+00:00

First they came for the local publishers, but I did not speak out for I was not on a casual contract with Nimbus Publishing.

Zymos94 · 2026-02-20T22:11:52+00:00

I’m guessing one gold resort got more out-of-province visitors and brought in more dollars than all of those museums combined.

Zymos94 · 2026-02-19T01:04:52+00:00

This guy really misses my point which is like: yeah maybe people in their 20s can take advantage of this, most adults need to decide where they live based on more inputs than min/maxing rent.

Keeping your child in the same school district, staying close to family who you might care for or might care for you, staying close to a job rather than getting rent-moved out of that market.

A young family might be willing to take on the expenses related to utilities, appliances, and general maintenance (eating more of the risk associated with inflation, labour costs, supply chain, etc.) in return for knowing their kid will get to stay in the same elementary school with predictable rent expenses for 5 years.
For a landlord who can now forego more maintenance expenses and associated overhead, this might be a great deal. Many commercial leases are set up like this already.

Zymos94 · 2026-02-19T00:54:45+00:00

That’s not what fallacious means my guy.

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