Could a “doom loop” be coming to a Canadian city near you?
a doom loop is a much more terrifying reality where rather than eluding gravity, a city plunges into a bottomless sinkhole of decline.
The San Francisco Chronicle defines it as such: “Doom loop (noun) — A scenario in which one negative development causes another negative development, which then makes the first problem worse. A vicious cycle.”
They would know. The term has become a succinct way of summing up San Francisco’s rapid downward spiral, where problems including high crime, soaring homelessness, exorbitant real estate, widespread drug use, crumbling transit, empty offices and businesses fleeing the area feed into one another, making each other worse and worse with no end in sight.
While the destruction of the middle class in Canadian cities has become near impossible to ignore over the last several years, in reality, it’s been happening for well over a decade. The only question now is whether we can prevent a prolonged doom loop from taking hold.
A disappearing middle class directly ties into almost every other crisis downtowns face. Obvious consequences include homelessness, drug abuse and crime. Brain drain and labour shortages in key sectors follow. These then spur broader economic decline, empty downtown cores and transit cuts. Repeat the cycle.
While perhaps the U.S. can still thrive without a healthy San Francisco, it’s harder to make the case that Canada still thrives if Vancouver and Toronto, or a combination of other major economic engines, fail. Here, it’s easy to imagine localized doom loops become sweeping doom vortexes.
We must stop the cycle by protecting what’s left of the middle class in Canadian cities and their surrounding areas across the country— and that starts with fixing housing.