Should Cities Require Density, or Encourage It?

[@maf10s1]

Something something free-market. As with all things, it's about offering choices and alternatives to developers and home buyers. We decry widespread exclusionary zoning when it doesn't permit anything besides single family homes... Can't then put a blanket ban on them and go the other way. Should aim for more inclusionary zoning, borrowing a page from Japan's book could be cool here. Have areas where highrises aren't allowed, but people can still build low-mid rise buildings and denser terrace homes etc in the same neighbourhoods. Keeps "quiet neighbourhoods" for the NIMBYs but still allows greater densification that is better for the city as a whole.

[@user-64962]

The view that there's no space for cars is deeply specific to a few cities who think they are the whole country (and even many who live there are leaving for some elbow room if their alternatives are not pulled up on them by people who want to declare even the second-tier cities full). But beyond that, if we're admitting that population growth is lowering the standard of living and causing crowding, the real question is why we are courting it? I don't really understand the view that treats it as an unalloyed good we just need to maintain acceptance for from a population that doesn't know what's good for them (especially given that Canada would still need immigration just to stabilize the population). It's a policy choice with real trade-offs, like any other. I'm curious about the hard data behind the idea suburban development is so much more expensive. Doesn't seem to line up with e.g., spending for American suburbs that are more often their own municipalities compared to cities and definitely can't be having their local infrastructure subsidized. The argument about how people would suddenly realize the error of their ways if they had to pay for services is completely unconvincing if you're not going to put a dollar amount on it. (Even the idea of 'subsidy' is imo often ignoring that it's often commercial real estate subsidizing everything else. If suburbs are such a drain, why is Toronto scrambling to get the suburbanites back to the office?)

[@fredbergotte]

I think one of the main attractions for immigrants coming to Canada is precisely that: the detached house and the back yard. The Canadian dream.

[@zachweyrauch2988]

That's the irony. That lifestyle is precisely the thing that wrecked our communities and removed all the things those immigrants took for granted. (Local commerce and hospitality, musicians and artists, parks for children)

[@4mulatorza858]

@@zachweyrauch2988 i don't think a lot of people are looking for hospitality, musicians and artists, parks to be near by most are ok with driving for that

[@zachweyrauch2988]

@4mulatorza858 that's the thing. By and large, that's a generational gap. Cars weren't convenient for many young canadians like they were for our parents. By the time there were concerts I could drive myself to tocketmaster was every concert and commissionaires was all the parking. Parks are a weird game most of us know how to manipulate: gotta leave at 6 or you won't find parking. Cars were not better for all of Canada. Just the boomers and gen x.

[@4mulatorza858]

@@zachweyrauch2988 wrong, cars are good, just that canada decided to stop building infrastructure and mass import the 3rd world. If we build enough highways and build new amenities further out from cities it will work. I recently went to Arizona and they've done a better job.

[@zachweyrauch2988]

@@4mulatorza858 i suggest you give Arizona a few years to decide what it does for water.

[@4mulatorza858]

if you want to live in a dense city thats fine, but if I don't want to I shouldn't be forced to. I like American style suburbs and want that. The Idea that it is subsidized by cities is wrong, Include income and sales taxes and we will see that suburbs subsidizes cities not the other way around.

[@BillSmith1]

I live in a condo in Toronto, I used to live in South East Oakville in a house with a 100' frontage lot, truthfully if there's anywhere that needs densifying, it's 1960s big lot suburbia. Currently an almost 3000 sq ft house is torn down and replaced with a 5000-7000 mansion that uses up as much of that 100' frontage as possible when two single houses can fit on that lot, or four semis, or a well designed six story condo. In said suburban neighbourhood, any small errand you have to hop into your car. Where I live now, I still have my car but I'm doing a lot of walking to get most of my things, the way it should be.

[@jamiesonroberts]

We need more density and a lot more smaller public parks, and look at shared usage of spaces like schools and community centres. My kids school is 4 blocks away, and we go there to play all the time. More community spaces combined with more density is a perfect recipe

[@iangibson2834]

We bought a single detached house with a backyard but in our neighbourhood in Guelph there are so many high quality parks that we our backyard is mostly irrelevant. If we stay in our current area our next house will probably not be a detached home.

[@4mulatorza858]

10:39 we can ask people to pay the true "cost" but we should first massively lower income taxes before. Cities are subsidized by suburbanites working there as well as income and sales taxes, the cost of crime and pollution, healthcare are higher in cities and should be paid by the people in the cities too.

[@cowoffun3545]

I think provinces should not fund infrastructure projects in cities. Cities have deficits because of the high maintenance costs and low taxable base of single-family home sprawl. They go to the province because they need money to build a bridge or highway that can more efficiently bring people to the downtown. This induces demand for more housing in the outskirts, which increases the deficit for the city when the maintenance come due a generation later. I don't think it's right for provinces to bail cities out from what are easily avoidable mistakes, especially by subsidizing projects that exacerbate the problem. If the provinces are to help cities that have financial problems, it should be in ways that increase the taxable base while keeping infrastructure costs low, which generally means densification.

[@DmitryEsaulov]

Are parks paying enough taxes? Think of all the tax revenue you could get by replacing them with high rises!

[@larms1000]

The governments has a cost and expense management problem. Their need for revenue is insatiable. Also, how many of the parks need to be converted to high rises? How far do families need to travel before seeing a park?

[@peterwoolcott8537]

Isn't it true that housing in our cities is too expensive and people seek cheaper homes elsewhere? Most people can't even dream of living on the Danforth or in The Glebe. The last twenty years seems to prove that densification doesn't solve affordability. Maybe these cities are just big money pits and the resources for new homes should be put in areas outside of the big cities. I don't think Canada is good at building cities - maybe Spain is.

[@edwinleong892]

There are plenty of good reasons people stick to the big cities instead of branching out to smaller and more remote regions. Being close to friends and family, the availability of jobs within your skillsets and scope of ability, wanting access to better, higher quality amenities. All of these things will continue to attract and keep people within the orbit of large cities. At the end of the day, resources for new homes come from the people choosing where to live, and they choose to live in the big cities, overwhelmingly. Unless you think you can change the wants and needs of all of those people, densification is the only way to let people live where they want to live.

[@peterwoolcott8537]

@@edwinleong892 The resources to build new homes, transit, etc in cities are being provided by many people who don't live in big cities. It is too expensive to build in big cities. That is why it is so cheap to buy a house in Texas.

[@edwinleong892]

@@peterwoolcott8537 There are a lot of factors that make land costs cheaper in Texas, one of those primary reasons being that they tax land and property as a substitute for taxing incomes, which suppresses the capitalization of land. But importantly you still see the same effect of people flocking to the big cities even in Texas. There is little substitute for being near your friends and family, place of work, and other amenities that make life easier to live in different circumstances (single, disabled, etc).

[@peterwoolcott8537]

@@edwinleong892 How do you explain immigration? ie. moving away from friends and family for economic gain. I think the people in walkable, transit friendly neighbourhoods are subsidized by people who live everywhere else.. The decision makers are wealthy and they make sure their neighbourhoods have the amenities that everyone wants but can't get, thus you get the suburbs, where everyone else lives and this video argues against. Too many value judgements in Canadian housing debates, too much 'this is good and that is bad' Everybody deserves a pragmatic solution to housing solutions. Downtown densification cannot provide this. The resources for housing should be spread out equally, all across Canada, not just urban centres. Living outside the urban centres is not so bad and it is a lot, lot cheaper.

[@peterwoolcott8537]

Are you Edwin Leong the billionaire property developer? Wow, if so, I appreciate your perspective, but you should have have declared your interests. I guess your arguments confirm my arguments that the rule makers do not act in the interest of affordable housing for everyone - across Canada.