The countdown is on. Our baby girl will be arriving at some point in the near future (we're on her schedule) and so I think you should all expect to see more baby-in-an-urban-condo-related content.
If you're familiar with planning in Toronto, you'll know that there are specific urban design guidelines related to children in vertical communities. (The final 2020 report can be found here.) They include neighbourhood guidelines, building guidelines, and specific unit guidelines, which include, among other things, recommendations for "ideal" family units.
Why all of this matters is that approximately 95% of the new housing built in the City of Toronto today is now multi-unit housing (buildings greater than 5 storeys). Our future is vertical. So even though only about 32% of all households with children currently live in a multi-unit community (Toronto proper figure), it's not hard to imagine this number going up. Either that, or we're left with more sprawl, plummeting birthrates, and a bleak, childless city.
As I was writing this post, I asked my wife what she thought would be the biggest benefits and drawbacks of having a kid in a condo. On the positive side she said she likes the safety of being in a building and our nice walkable, urban community. On the negative side, her mind went straight to stroller management and general space constraints.
Indeed, when you visit friends and they have a driveway big enough to park an aircraft, a basement with a climbing gym for the kids, and bedrooms bigger than many urban apartments, it's hard not to think to yourself, "Yeah, you know what, maybe this would be nice!"
Interestingly enough, neither of us thought once about elevators. We live in a mid-rise building and never have to wait more than a few seconds. Now onto stroller management. Right now, it's sitting folded in our front hall closet:
It fits nicely, but it's obviously going to be work to constantly fold it up and put it away. We'll see how that goes. We are, however, fortunate in that we have two floors in our place, so it is house-like in that there's greater physical and acoustic separation between the main living areas and the bedrooms. We also have a good-sized outdoor space, but a backyard with grass it is not.
Back in the day, I used to enjoy following a blog out of Vancouver called 5 Kids, 1 Condo. Adrian Crook stopped updating in 2020 (presumably his kids grew up), but it was a good example that home is not a housing typology; it's both a physical and psychological space where humans (hopefully) feel a sense of comfort and belonging.
As our urban home grows, I'm looking forward to sharing what we learn along the way on this blog. It feels extremely relevant to the work that many of us do as city builders.