This massive construction site along Howe St. and Pacific St. is not unfamiliar in Vancouver but it typifies the expensive building projects in the city. Luxury condos are enriching developers, construction firms, real estate companies and investors. Of course, they provide a beautiful space for those who can afford it, and some investors will actually live in the condos.

This particular project is designated Vancouver House. There will be a 59-storey main tower with a uniquely twisting shape containing mostly owned units, a 9-storey podium for rentals and office space, and two 6-storey triangular structures for office and retail. Environmentally, the builders are seeking Leed Gold certification. For community enrichment, the derelict area around and under the Granville Bridge will be transformed into a public space which may include retail, restaurants, beer gardens, drive-in movies and an outdoor gallery installation on the underside of the bridge. This comprehensive development which considers environmental, social and cultural amenities with a mix of owners, rentals, and businesses is certainly admirable, and the combination of all these aspects has been named Gesamtkunstwerk by the award winning Danish architect of the project Bjarke Ingels. There is a Source article by this name with more details in the January 7–21, 2014 issue.

With projects like the above, Vancouver is attracting attention from international architects, real estate firms and investors. Engel & Völkers, a German real estate firm will supplant the Yaletown office of Sotheby’s, a multi-national corporation based in New York which brokers real estate among other things. This amounts to a takeover of the luxury real estate market. According to Sotheby’s, sales of homes in the first half of 2015 worth more than $4 million increased by 71%.

For those of us lesser mortals, if we are hoping for a break into a lower-priced market, the outlook is bleak. The median market in Vancouver is well over $1 million for detached homes on the east side and over $2 million on the west side. Increasingly, condos are listing at prices exceeding $1 million. At Vancouver House, condos of roughly 750 square feet can be over $1 million with a rise in price matched by the increase in square footage until we reach prices of over $3 million for 1572 square feet. This inflated market is predicted to only increase for the next several years. With Vancouver’s limited space for growth and low interest rates, it’s a veritable gold rush for wealthy investors.

So where does that leave room for most wage earners to buy or rent in the city? It’s a question, in spite of municipal promises, that does not seem to have any hope of a reasonable answer.

It’s time to think of our city not just as a playground and investment opportunity for the wealthy, but also as a viable place for its citizens to live. Like climate change, it has taken a while for people to realize the extent of the destructiveness caused by the inflated housing market. It takes the form of the empty homes of absentee landlords which alter the harmony of neighbourhoods and deplete rental opportunities, people continually displaced to make room for luxury apartments, and most visibly we have the ranks of the homeless. And it’s not just the impoverished who are being marginalized but even the middle class can not compete in this exaggerated market. There is loss of business opportunities because of jacked up rents and the inability to attract employees to a city too expensive to live in. The overall effect is an impoverishment of the quality of life for most city dwellers.

The answer is not just to raise salaries that could never be commensurate with the current cost of housing, or move to another city or province. There needs to be federal, provincial, and municipal willingness to cooperate with changing this situation. If we can have international conferences on the urgency of addressing climate change, we should also have ones on the growing unaffordability of housing in major cities that should be regarded with a similar urgency. Housing in these places has become like a stock market commodity with no regard for the human element. This must end. Decent, affordable housing is a right for everyone and not just a privilege of the wealthy.