housing

On May 3, Canada’s Financial Post, the nation’s leading business daily, published my commentary entitled: “Doug Ford was right: Toronto housing won’t be affordable unless we develop the Greenbelt: The PCs could have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to effectively deal with the housing-affordability crisis.”  read more »

It has long been known by economists, but ignored by planners, that urban containment policies create speculators markets. This has been especially evident in Vancouver, the third most unaffordable market in the Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey, and Toronto, which has experienced record breaking house cost escalation relative to incomes since enacting its “Places to Grow” urban containment policy in the middle 2000s.  read more »

As George Bernard Shaw is reported to have said, Britain and America are two countries separated by a common language. So too, America and Australia, not to mention America and Canada, New Zealand, and elsewhere.  read more »

Patrik Schumacher, managing partner of Zaha Hadid Architects, and consultant Wendell Cox join Aaron M. Renn on his podcast to speak on their beliefs and what it's like to challenge the urbanist conventional wisdom.

You can find their conversation here.

•  Annual new home starts were up 14% compared to 3Q16 – and this is the first time since 1Q08 that annual starts were above 6,000.  read more »

The San Francisco Bay Area (home of the San Francisco and San Jose metropolitan areas), which has often been cited as a place where natural barriers have left little land for development. This is an impression easily obtained observing the fairly narrow strips of urbanization on both sides of San Francisco Bay, hemmed in by hills.  read more »

The Daily Telegraph reported (June 20) that:

"Crews believed they had put out the fire at the London high-rise and were astonished to see flames rising up the side of the building, new reports have claimed."  read more »

On 12 December, ABC Radio National’s Breakfast Program aired another group discussion on “Australia’s housing market”. Presenter Hamish Macdonald was joined by an “expert panel” made up of Ken Morrison, CEO of the Property Council, John Daley, CEO of progressive think tank the Grattan Institute, and Tom Whitty, managing editor of The Project, a television show pitched to the youth demographic.  read more »

In a Globe and Mail column, Margaret Wente accurately describes Toronto’s housing affordability crisis and its principal cause. The Toronto area’s house prices have escalated strongly relative to incomes since the province enacted its “Places to Grow” urban planning regime.  read more »

Analyst Phil Hayward of Wellington, New Zealand provides a provocative perspective on why urban intensification (densification in the urban cores) is incapable of compensating for the huge house price increases attributable to urban containment boundaries.  read more »