Can there be anything more…

Can there be anything more cringe-worthy than tearing up the greenbelt to build a swath of suburban wastes? Don't get me wrong: we have one hell of a housing crisis on our hands. Housing prices are sky-high. Building multi-million dollar McMansions on public land ain't the way to resolve it, chief. Instead of suburban sprawl, we can easily resolve the housing crisis with mid-sized apartment blocks on the land already available. Building up instead of out will reduce the need for sprawling urban infrastructure, reduce commuting times, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, reduce traffic, improve livability, and (most importantly here) save the greenbelt. To achieve building up, you may need to implement a province-wide ghost house tax, implement a tax on people renting out their homes for temporary lodgers (i.e. AirBnB slumlords), and tax the development of single-family suburban dwellings. These taxes will boost provincial funds and discourage large vacant sweeps of empty houses populated by isolated families held captive by long stretches of serpentine roads. You could put these taxes into funding cooperative housing developments and eco-friendly apartment blocks. If you wanted, you could de-zone "residential" areas to allow for mixed-development communities where housing, corner stores, restaurants, businesses, schools, community centres, and offices coexist side-by-side. No one wants to live in a suburban house where the nearest corner shop is three miles away and the roads are impossible to navigate. These unlivable communities generate vast amounts of pollution, waste, and social alienation. Don't think of the greenbelt as a restriction, but as a means of creating ecologically and financially resilient cities that can continue to grow through the 21st century. Ontario could be a world leader instead of an embarrassing holdover from 20th century bloated car-centric hellscapes.