Canada's 'housing bubble' deemed close to bursting

[LightingGuy]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

I think the left and right on either side of the construction spectrum are mostly philosophical debates about how to get to the same outcome.

You hit the nail on the head there. We all want the same result, and are debating about the most efficient/effective path to get there.

In my personal and subjective opinion, central planning does more harm than good and should be kept to an absolute minimum.

The irony of the heritage buildings that people are trying to protect via central planning, is that those buildings were built through free-market forces 100 years ago - designed by private-sector architects of the time.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by goodgrowth

The interesting thing about some of these historical neighborhoods that you tend to get a double dose of colonialism. Symbolically and literally.

At least the local John A MacDonald statue wasn't also a literal form of wealth capture prior to being beheaded...

Yeah, let's obliterate Victorian neighbourhoods because they entrench colonialism.

I'm gonna pop the Orville Redenbacher in the microwave and wait for Rousseau...

[MonkeyRonin]

I'm of the opinion that the housing crisis has many causes, and so it needs many solutions, especially if we want to maintain a high QOL.

On the housing supply side:

• Zoning should be simplified, to something more in line with the Japanese model. In cities like Toronto and Vancouver, a blanket 5-storey height limit should apply across the city (higher of course in certain higher-density areas & TODs), with fewer restrictions on things like FSI, parking minimums, etc. as well as allowing for more mixing of commercial & residential uses.
• Developments that include affordable components or other community benefits should receive density bonuses above & beyond what their zone allows for.
• At least in Toronto's case, development fees should be reduced & the permitting process simplified.

On the demand side:

• Government could use better controls to tackle issues of speculation, flipping, and money laundering, which are unproductive uses unnecessarily driving up housing costs.
• Reduce immigration levels to be more in line with recent historical norms - 250,000-300,000/year, give or take; with more wiggle room for provincial programs that would better distribute immigration to where it's needed.

And on the budgetary side:

• Governments should incentivize rental construction with tax breaks, and facilitate co-ops.
• Funding for affordable housing in general has been slashed in recent decades, and could be increased to be more in line with historical norms.

At the same time, housing development doesn't need to compromise the livability or attractiveness of our cities. We can do all of the above while still:

• Maintaining - or even increasing - heritage protections for historical or architecturally significant properties.
• Maintaining ecologically or agriculturally important areas in greenbelts, while still allowing some necessary outward growth (ie. basically what Toronto's greenbelt does currently).
• Imposing better design guidelines on new buildings & the public realm.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Yeah, let's obliterate Victorian neighbourhoods because they entrench colonialism.

It's a strange focus. There's way more — suburbs like the one I grew up in, than Victorian (or rather mostly Georgian) neighbourhoods in Canada. The focus on a handful of heritage buildings seems like a red herring. Especially since those areas with heritage neighbourhoods are almost never the lowest density hoods in any city. Why not focus on the 80% of any city that is post 1970 low density sprawl with no controversial heritage debates to be had? This focus on heritage stuff seems like the wrong end of the Pareto Principle.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

I posted the above graphic and like it, in part, because it shows the major division on urban development isn't really left-right. It's pro vs anti construction. The responses here seem to confirm my hunch. I think the left and right on either side of the construction spectrum are mostly philosophical debates about how to get to the same outcome.

Agreed - compared to almost any other issue, I find that, as a conservative, I find way more common ground with the left on housing.

[Coldrsx]

Move to Alberta they said...cheap housing and low taxes they said...

https://torontolife.com/city/i-moved-to-...ter-three-months-i-came-back-to-toronto/

[Coldrsx]

So she moved from near Square One, which, if you know the GTA well is kinda like living beside WEM here in Edmonton and far from anything urban, really walkable or 'hip'. She basically moved from Central Mississauga to the far reaches of Brampton up the 410 and likely would have had a similar experience there.

Sounds like she chose somewhere between Ellerslie and 41Ave SW, which, really is made for couples and families.

She did mention Joey (Tomatoes) though, which should have impressed her at SEC and reminder her of SQONE.

I know part of the reason for moving was to get a 'house with a yard', but would her experience have been different if she had moved near the UofA/Whyte, or Downtown and 109st... hmmmmm

[goodgrowth]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Yeah, let's obliterate Victorian neighbourhoods because they entrench colonialism.

I'm gonna pop the Orville Redenbacher in the microwave and wait for Rousseau...

[Victorian neighborhood preservation association unironically doing land acknowledgement before meeting] "We recognize this unceded territory, hope you don't mind if we forcefully continue with the aristocratic feudalism vibe in 2022?"

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by Coldrsx

So she moved from near Square One, which, if you know the GTA well is kinda like living beside WEM here in Edmonton and far from anything urban, really walkable or 'hip'. She basically moved from Central Mississauga to the far reaches of Brampton up the 410 and likely would have had a similar experience there.

Sounds like she chose somewhere between Ellerslie and 41Ave SW, which, really is made for couples and families.

She did mention Joey (Tomatoes) though, which should have impressed her at SEC and reminder her of SQONE.

I know part of the reason for moving was to get a 'house with a yard', but would her experience have been different if she had moved near the UofA/Whyte, or Downtown and 109st... hmmmmm

got enticed by the "house for $400k" without realizing that even in Edmonton a house for $400k is going to get you a bland suburban home and the tradeoffs that requires.

[Coldrsx]

^bingo. Ubiquitous.

[LightingGuy]

Originally Posted by Coldrsx

Move to Alberta they said...cheap housing and low taxes they said...

https://torontolife.com/city/i-moved-to-...ter-three-months-i-came-back-to-toronto/

Originally Posted by Coldrsx

So she moved from near Square One, which, if you know the GTA well is kinda like living beside WEM here in Edmonton and far from anything urban, really walkable or 'hip'. She basically moved from Central Mississauga to the far reaches of Brampton up the 410 and likely would have had a similar experience there.

Sounds like she chose somewhere between Ellerslie and 41Ave SW, which, really is made for couples and families.

She did mention Joey (Tomatoes) though, which should have impressed her at SEC and reminder her of SQONE.

I know part of the reason for moving was to get a 'house with a yard', but would her experience have been different if she had moved near the UofA/Whyte, or Downtown and 109st... hmmmmm

Toronto Life must have searched a long time to find the one person who actually moved to a different part of the country because of an advertisement.

Kidding aside, moving to the other side of the country is hard especially by yourself - affordability doesn't replace family. I lived in Edmonton by myself for 3 years, made good friends there (we met btw, this is middeljohn, lost my login info for the old account) enjoyed what the city had to offer, but ultimately got homesick. My moving back had nothing to do with Edmonton, I just missed my family and friends that I'd known my whole life.

Certain things about Edmonton bothered me - I felt it was too small for my liking, and the summers weren't hot enough - but many other people enjoy those things, it's subjective. There are other things about the GTA that bother me as well (traffic, cost of living, still too cold) but I will probably never move from here. No place is perfect, it is what you make of it.

All in all I had a great experience in Edmonton (lived in Oliver then Jasper Place) and don't regret having lived there for one second. I still keep in regular contact with friends and former colleagues from my time there and look forward to being able to visit again. It also gave me a more balanced outlook on life.

[theman23]

Great to see that the Canadian dream is still alive:

‘I can finally afford a house,’ Toronto man says after winning $55M lottery jackpot

https://globalnews.ca/news/9337718/toronto-man-can-afford-house-lotto-max-win/

[someone123]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Yeah, let's obliterate Victorian neighbourhoods because they entrench colonialism.

A lot of heritage areas that urbanists like today were higher density mid or lower end housing in their day. I'd bet that in Canada the highest end estates have had a higher loss rate since they were on so much land. A lot of those sites are now slab apartment towers or got subdivided for postwar houses.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by someone123

A lot of heritage areas that urbanists like today were higher density mid or lower end housing in their day. I'd bet that in Canada the highest end estates have had a higher loss rate since they were on so much land. A lot of those sites are now slab apartment towers or got subdivided for postwar houses.

I'd say the lower end areas were generally the least likely to survive - slums and ramshackle, poorly built homes mostly fell victim to urban renewal projects.

Higher end or more central areas also often had high loss rates due to development pressures, but some of the best stuff was more likely to be saved.

You're right though that generally mid-range, more peripheral residential areas (ie. Montreal's east end, Toronto's west end, East Vancouver, etc) were the most likely to survive and as a result tend to have the highest rates of older buildings, with the exception of preserved core neighbourhoods (Old Port, Gastown, Exchange, etc).

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by goodgrowth

The problem with central planning is that it...tends to centralize things. So density and use get's centralized(city center/core, use segregation)...then the transit planning follows that. Every planning action becomes a reaction to the previous planning action. It ultimately tends to prioritize one urban area over another.

I'm almost convinced "urban planning" should really just be transit planning and should have a limited role when it comes to what can be built on land. There would be still be tendency to centralize transit capacity but if land use is more organically driven it wouldn't be as much of a problem as it is today imo.

That would be a better way to plan out growth. That would end the ugly parts of suburbia. Things like cul du sacs and disconnected neighbourhoods would be a thing of the past. The walkibility would be good finally in these new neighbourhoods. We could have better bus routes, and we could see it easier to build higher order RT as the need arises.

[ssiguy]

That woman in the Toronto Life article certainly has a point. Toronto is the most — urban centre in the country {sorry Montreal but in that regard you are a very distant second} with an energy that can't be beat.

That said, if she enjoys the urban life but wants affordability why in hell would she go to Edmonton? Also, if she is an urbanite and wants transit then why did she move to a far out suburb? If she also wanted to be near family and still afford to live then why not another cheaper alternative city in Ontario where her family and Toronto urban life is still easily within reach?

If she is in the corporate sector, she also should have known that Calgary is the place for that and not Edmonton. Calgary also offers the mountains nearby so she could enjoy the majestic beauty of the province. Calgary's downtown is also vastly more urban, vibrant, and walkable than Edmonton's will ever be. Calgary is also well known for being the city for young professionals as opposed to Edmonton which is known for having a more suburban and family oriented environment. Calgary is also safer which being a single woman you would think that too would have been a priority.

For someone in the corporate sector, you would think she should have done her research first.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by Coldrsx

Move to Alberta they said...cheap housing and low taxes they said...

https://torontolife.com/city/i-moved-to-...ter-three-months-i-came-back-to-toronto/

The only thing I got out of that is that people who are still single when they're 30 probably shouldn't buy a house in the burbs. Sounds like sour grapes from someone who didn't do any research before making a major move.

[rousseau]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Yeah, let's obliterate Victorian neighbourhoods because they entrench colonialism.

I'm gonna pop the Orville Redenbacher in the microwave and wait for Rousseau...

Heh heh...that was basically tee'd up for a primo rant from yours truly, but I'm not taking the bait.

[rousseau]

Originally Posted by niwell

Similarly, I'm not sure we can fully chalk up the ascendance of great North American (or other) cities solely on market forces outside of a macro sense which has remained unchanged.

I'm talking in the macro sense. And it has changed. The great buildup of tenements and rowhouses in the 19th century was a response to the need to house workers in expanding cities, but in the postwar era the urban planning project in city halls was devoted more to using streamlined modernist design to combat the decay of the old and the flight to the suburbs. Modern new urbanist principles aren't a response to people crying out for tiny townhouses on the periphery of Mississauga instead of something bigger, but rather, seem to be premised on a romanticization of the bustling urban neighbourhoods of the first half of the twentieth century (buttressed by dubious moral and ethical claims).

Okay, that's not entirely fair. Even the most libertarian of urban thinkers out there would surely be forced to admit that we can't continue to carve up farmland for suburban sprawl like we did in the twentieth century, so increasing density is seen a practical requirement. But the Richard Floridaesque claims of increasing density equalling linearly increasing wealth per capita never sounded all that plausible, did it? A random plot of land with ten thousand people in Phoenix with their massive new houses and three-car garages is going to represent an exponentially greater amount of wealth inputs/outputs for a local economy than ten thousand people in apartment blocks and condos in Toronto, or ten thousand people in a declining postwar hood in Dayton Ohio.

Much as the ideological ethoses of different eras look questionable in hindsight, I'm not convinced that the case for denser urban footprints is a slam dunk given the march toward reduced carbon emissions in transportation, greater efficiencies in home heating/cooling and new agricultural trends (even though I myself prefer them for aesthetic reasons--give me the northeastern seaboard over Phoenix any day). Who's to say we won't end up closer to the Jetsons than the Honeymooners?

More crucially, who's to say that people should live one certain way instead of another certain way?

[Truenorth00]

This is a great example of what can be done in a lot of neighbourhoods:

https://twitter.com/BradMBradford/status/1602753321839755265?t=7RdrEZr-oOTdqcapEjcExA&s=19

I challenge anybody to argue this is going to substantially change the character of their neighbourhood.