sprawl

By Frank de Jong, 22 May, 2012

Toronto Star, Saturday, May 19, 2012

There’s really only one way to make Toronto housing affordable for everyone — including young families. But the City can’t do it alone; the provincial government will need to help out.

Step one: the Ontario government would need to instruct the Municipal Property Assessment Corp.(MPAC) to ignore buildings and assess only the land under buildings.

Step two: Toronto would then apply the municipal tax to the lot values alone, also ignoring buildings.

By Frank de Jong, 26 April, 2012

Who is property speculation really good for? With global economies stressing as property values plunge and banks write down their books, this film gives an alternative to the push for austerity.

http://realestate4ransom.com/

Real Estate 4 Ransom is a documentary about global property speculation and its impact on the economy. Real Estate 4 Ransom considers the changing motivations behind property investment and challenges the notion that the Global Financial Crisis was caused by bank lending alone.