It's interesting that Montana managed a big change without going past a doubling of occupancy per lot. The thing that has Calgarians Up in Fear is the notion of four families per lot - and all their cars.
But Calgary and Edmonton are already partially urbanized, as touted in this video by Montreal urbanist activists:
I noticed it myself from all the infilling in Calgary. This is a graphic from my GIS of the water system. There's a dot for every new water service installed this century. So the outer-ring of the city is solid blue ring of SFD new water services in the new subdivisions, with a few red dots for duplexes.
...and also, in the centre of town, a couple of thousand new dots that are all infills, since very few people ever have to put in a few water service because the old one wore out. We require every new build to put in new pipes, so it's a cute way to map the new construction in old areas. Calgary, you can see, has been aggressively infilling for 25 years and more, doubling the population of older streets.
Excellent article. I really appreciate the international context and research. Adequate, affordable housing is a complex issue and given the various responsibilities of every level of government - and the various industries & issues involved - this is really only solved through a collaborative effort, and not just governments. Canada can also learn from other countries - as they are.
Another interesting outcome of this housing shortage is a growing interest in improving design & construction productivity through taking a manufacturing approach and an increased use of technology by re-thinking how we design & build. This approach has been in experimental stages for a couple of decades - globally - but is now maturing into a better way to build.
This housing shortage is also revealing a convoluted, linear zoning & permitting approval process. Policy that has only ever been tweaked rather than revised to be more efficient. This lends itself to an opportunity - especially with the use of technology to improve government productivity as well.
I can't decide whether we're seeing housing as an area with genuine overcoming of polarization or as something serious enough to un-stick things and allow more consolidation to oppose against MAGA/right-populism, but it's definitely welcome. (Just please don't ask me about what will happen to our mortgage if Canada really and truly fixes this.)
And two flags:
"The trends continued into 20222."
"And yet those solutions proved unpopular and political impractical."
Just a quick correction—the Liberals had the Housing Accelerator in their last campaign document, but it spent some 18 months in regulatory hell at the CMHC before it was ready to be rolled out, at which point Poilievre had won his leadership and had come out with his plan to withhold transfers. It looked like the Housing Accelerator was in response to Poilievre, but had been in the works for long beforehand.
The problem with the plans of Trudeau (bribery) and Poilievre (enacting a law) is that the federal government is encroaching on Provincial and municipal responsibility. One of the take away I have from your article is that the places where this activism has been successful has been at the lower levels of government.
It's interesting that Montana managed a big change without going past a doubling of occupancy per lot. The thing that has Calgarians Up in Fear is the notion of four families per lot - and all their cars.
But Calgary and Edmonton are already partially urbanized, as touted in this video by Montreal urbanist activists:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpBVEfO5IwI
I noticed it myself from all the infilling in Calgary. This is a graphic from my GIS of the water system. There's a dot for every new water service installed this century. So the outer-ring of the city is solid blue ring of SFD new water services in the new subdivisions, with a few red dots for duplexes.
...and also, in the centre of town, a couple of thousand new dots that are all infills, since very few people ever have to put in a few water service because the old one wore out. We require every new build to put in new pipes, so it's a cute way to map the new construction in old areas. Calgary, you can see, has been aggressively infilling for 25 years and more, doubling the population of older streets.
http://brander.ca/CalgaryC21.png
...and that may be enough, if it was for Montana.
Excellent article. I really appreciate the international context and research. Adequate, affordable housing is a complex issue and given the various responsibilities of every level of government - and the various industries & issues involved - this is really only solved through a collaborative effort, and not just governments. Canada can also learn from other countries - as they are.
Another interesting outcome of this housing shortage is a growing interest in improving design & construction productivity through taking a manufacturing approach and an increased use of technology by re-thinking how we design & build. This approach has been in experimental stages for a couple of decades - globally - but is now maturing into a better way to build.
This housing shortage is also revealing a convoluted, linear zoning & permitting approval process. Policy that has only ever been tweaked rather than revised to be more efficient. This lends itself to an opportunity - especially with the use of technology to improve government productivity as well.
I can't decide whether we're seeing housing as an area with genuine overcoming of polarization or as something serious enough to un-stick things and allow more consolidation to oppose against MAGA/right-populism, but it's definitely welcome. (Just please don't ask me about what will happen to our mortgage if Canada really and truly fixes this.)
And two flags:
"The trends continued into 20222."
"And yet those solutions proved unpopular and political impractical."
Just a quick correction—the Liberals had the Housing Accelerator in their last campaign document, but it spent some 18 months in regulatory hell at the CMHC before it was ready to be rolled out, at which point Poilievre had won his leadership and had come out with his plan to withhold transfers. It looked like the Housing Accelerator was in response to Poilievre, but had been in the works for long beforehand.
The problem with the plans of Trudeau (bribery) and Poilievre (enacting a law) is that the federal government is encroaching on Provincial and municipal responsibility. One of the take away I have from your article is that the places where this activism has been successful has been at the lower levels of government.