Land trusts are such an interesting concept and I do hope that they succeed. That said it sucks that it has to come to this and that the government doesnt do more in order to curb affordability crisis. The failure of pruit igo and other housing projects echoes all over north america and is used as proof that public housing is a failure while ignoring the many many other factors that went into making these projects a failure.(from poor maintenance, out of place high density, intentionally kneecapped funding structure, and of course just the bad timing of subsidized suburban sprawl hollowing out cities in general). But land trusts are at least something to help compete with developers and put downward pressures on real estate pricing.

Regarding airBnB though I feel like the impact on housing prices is over stated. The units that exist really only number in the thousands, and while it is awful there are some scumbag landlords who use it as a way to do short-term rentals without the rental protections, when it comes to housing in major cities like Toronto or NYC this is a drop in the bucket. The issue, especially in torronto is lack of public competing at more affordable prices, and the poor zoning options that mean that a stones throw from a street of high rises is a single family home neighborhood.

If there was more generous density zoning then toronto could become a lot more dense while also spreading things out a little. It wouldnt need a street of high rises because low rises and mid rises in more places would be cheaper to build, more humane in scale, and also be more dense.

Most importantly an issue that plagues north american cities that isnt addressed is the density of its suburbs. There is high demand for urban living within metro areas, but urban density falls off a cliff. So people who want that lifestyle only have one choice and it’s to go into the city. If suburbs were more urban, more able to house people, and not just decentralized single family homes around stroads then we’d have a lot of pressure relief from the city itself.

And the craziest thing is that density doesnt mean high rises. It doesnt mean tall buildings and heavy traffic, and low green space. Just across the border in the buffalo metro area there is the suburb of kenmore ny which has a pop density of 4,088.77/km2 compared to Toronto’s 4,427.8/km2 . Look at this place: https://maps.app.goo.gl/SeGrD7t5ytxcZQsa7

It’s a lot of single family homes, some commercial drags with the major village center being on delaware with low rise units, and split houses(two flats) distributed throughout the village. This is the thing that is most frustrating about nimby anti-density proponents. You can still have a nice sfh, with some land to bbq, parks neaby, a driveway to park your car in, and all that other expected nonsense and have density. The character of your neighborhood doesnt have to turn into midtown manhattan in order to become more dense.