Last week, we spoke about one of Toronto's failures when it comes to new "missing middle" housing, namely our inability to look forward to the Toronto of tomorrow, as opposed to only thinking about the Toronto of today. But let's not forget that there are greater biases at play here influencing these outcomes.
Beneath our concerns about not enough parking (how dare you wage a war on the car?) and congruency with neighbourhood character is a deeply rooted aversion toward higher-density apartment living; one that is arguably most prevalent in the English-speaking world.
Consider Toronto's response to the handsome Spadina Gardens apartment building at the start of the 20th century. We were certain that only people of questionable moral fibre would ever want to live in a four-storey apartment block!
Since then, we've become far more open-minded, but survey people in the Anglosphere about whether they'd like to live in an elegant Parisian block, and you'll often discover a stark preference for detached housing. In contrast, survey people on the European continent, or in Asia, and you'll often see different preferences.
Combine these preferences with the common law system prevalent throughout English-speaking countries — where individuals can more easily object to and block projects if, you know, the "vibe" is off — and the broad result is very different housing outcomes. There's data to suggest that civil law countries tend to build more housing.
Cover photo by Clarisse Croset on Unsplash
London has an ambitious housing target of 88,000 new homes per year — yes, per year — over the next decade. This is part of a broader national goal to create upwards of 1.5 million homes in the UK. It's an admirable goal, but the city appears destined to fail. According to a recent FT article by John Burn-Murdoch (their chief data reporter), London saw just 5,891 housing starts last year, which is 94% below its annual target and which represents a 75% year-over-year decline. When compared to many other global cities, London now ranks at or near the bottom when it comes to new homes per 1,000 residents:
How the Gordie Howe International Bridge came to be is a city and nation-building story worth telling. The Windsor-Detroit crossing is the busiest commercial border crossing in North America. It handles about one-third of the trade between Canada and the US, or about $1 billion per day, much of which passes over the Ambassador Bridge.
This is problematic for a few reasons.
One, there are concerns about capacity. Two, the bridge is, unfortunately, in the wrong place and doesn't offer direct highway-to-highway access. A truck coming off the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor has to pass through something like 17 traffic lights before reaching Highway 401. And third, and most importantly, the bridge is privately owned.
So, at some point, various people in government got together and said, "Hey, this bridge is pretty critical to our respective economies, it might be in our national interests to have a publicly owned bridge."
The federal government of Canada reportedly tried to buy the bridge in 2009, but the late Manuel Moroun wanted too much for it, and a deal was not struck. So then, in 2012, the Canadian and US governments approved the construction of a new bridge, now nearing completion and called the Gordie Howe International Bridge.
However, a second river crossing meant that Moroun would no longer have a monopoly, and so, an aggressive lobbying campaign was mounted. It was so effective that the bridge almost got canceled and funding for it became a "third rail" in Michigan politics. To save the project, the following deal was struck:
Canada pays 100% of the ~C$6.4 billion cost to build the bridge.
Last week, we spoke about one of Toronto's failures when it comes to new "missing middle" housing, namely our inability to look forward to the Toronto of tomorrow, as opposed to only thinking about the Toronto of today. But let's not forget that there are greater biases at play here influencing these outcomes.
Beneath our concerns about not enough parking (how dare you wage a war on the car?) and congruency with neighbourhood character is a deeply rooted aversion toward higher-density apartment living; one that is arguably most prevalent in the English-speaking world.
Consider Toronto's response to the handsome Spadina Gardens apartment building at the start of the 20th century. We were certain that only people of questionable moral fibre would ever want to live in a four-storey apartment block!
Since then, we've become far more open-minded, but survey people in the Anglosphere about whether they'd like to live in an elegant Parisian block, and you'll often discover a stark preference for detached housing. In contrast, survey people on the European continent, or in Asia, and you'll often see different preferences.
Combine these preferences with the common law system prevalent throughout English-speaking countries — where individuals can more easily object to and block projects if, you know, the "vibe" is off — and the broad result is very different housing outcomes. There's data to suggest that civil law countries tend to build more housing.
Cover photo by Clarisse Croset on Unsplash
London has an ambitious housing target of 88,000 new homes per year — yes, per year — over the next decade. This is part of a broader national goal to create upwards of 1.5 million homes in the UK. It's an admirable goal, but the city appears destined to fail. According to a recent FT article by John Burn-Murdoch (their chief data reporter), London saw just 5,891 housing starts last year, which is 94% below its annual target and which represents a 75% year-over-year decline. When compared to many other global cities, London now ranks at or near the bottom when it comes to new homes per 1,000 residents:
How the Gordie Howe International Bridge came to be is a city and nation-building story worth telling. The Windsor-Detroit crossing is the busiest commercial border crossing in North America. It handles about one-third of the trade between Canada and the US, or about $1 billion per day, much of which passes over the Ambassador Bridge.
This is problematic for a few reasons.
One, there are concerns about capacity. Two, the bridge is, unfortunately, in the wrong place and doesn't offer direct highway-to-highway access. A truck coming off the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor has to pass through something like 17 traffic lights before reaching Highway 401. And third, and most importantly, the bridge is privately owned.
So, at some point, various people in government got together and said, "Hey, this bridge is pretty critical to our respective economies, it might be in our national interests to have a publicly owned bridge."
The federal government of Canada reportedly tried to buy the bridge in 2009, but the late Manuel Moroun wanted too much for it, and a deal was not struck. So then, in 2012, the Canadian and US governments approved the construction of a new bridge, now nearing completion and called the Gordie Howe International Bridge.
However, a second river crossing meant that Moroun would no longer have a monopoly, and so, an aggressive lobbying campaign was mounted. It was so effective that the bridge almost got canceled and funding for it became a "third rail" in Michigan politics. To save the project, the following deal was struck:
Canada pays 100% of the ~C$6.4 billion cost to build the bridge.
Burn-Murdoch cites a multitude of factors responsible for this suboptimal performance: onerous new safety standards following the horrific 2017 Grenfell Tower fire, more stringent environmental regulations (compared to other European countries), the disappearance of international buyers in the residential buy-to-let market, and increased demand for non-residential uses. What is obvious is that building safety is paramount and nothing like what happened with the Grenfell Tower should ever happen again. But with ~281,000 new homes approved but financially unviable, there does appear to be a desire to balance safety with supply.
His third point is an interesting one in that parallels have played out in Toronto's new condominium market. The pejorative narrative of "foreigners taking homes away from locals" is commonplace in cities all around the world, which is why Canada ultimately moved to temporarily ban foreign buyers. But what we start to see here is the impact on overall housing supply. Indeed, a 2017 study from LSE (cited in the above FT article) found that international capital and residential pre-sales are essential ingredients in de-risking high-density projects and promoting greater housing supply.
Tying this all together, what has happened is the creation of an interdependency: we have made new housing developments so complicated and onerous to construct that the only financially feasible way to build them is to amortize all of the required time and money across bigger projects. Then, given the scale and cost of these projects, they have become dependent on investors and international capital to provide financing. Raise interest rates, remove the capital source, and then all of a sudden you have far less housing than 88,000 new homes per year.
It is for reasons like these that I get frustrated when critics simply blame developers or investors for shortcomings in a housing market. Finding villains is a lot easier than doing the difficult work of unpacking what's really going on and coming up with solutions.
Cover photo by Gonzalo Sanchez on Unsplash
Chart from the Financial Times
Construction jobs and materials are sourced from both sides of the border.
Oversight of the bridge is handled by the International Authority, a board with equal representation (3 members from Canada, 3 from Michigan).
Canada receives 100% of the toll revenue until it recoups its costs; after that, toll revenue will be shared with Michigan.
In other words, the only way this deal got done was (1) for Michigan not to spend any money on it and (2) for Canada to finance Michigan. This was the solution to dysfunctional politics, where individual interests trump the greater good. I have not looked into and modeled the exact terms under which Canada is financing Michigan, but let's hope that taxpayers are being fairly compensated for bringing this solution.
Regardless, there's no doubt that this is a crucial nation-building project for both Canada and the US. It will be an exciting moment for our countries when it opens and people and goods begin to flow. Based on the current status of construction, my understanding is that this will happen early this year. It's basically ready.
Cover photo from Gordie Howe International Bridge
Burn-Murdoch cites a multitude of factors responsible for this suboptimal performance: onerous new safety standards following the horrific 2017 Grenfell Tower fire, more stringent environmental regulations (compared to other European countries), the disappearance of international buyers in the residential buy-to-let market, and increased demand for non-residential uses. What is obvious is that building safety is paramount and nothing like what happened with the Grenfell Tower should ever happen again. But with ~281,000 new homes approved but financially unviable, there does appear to be a desire to balance safety with supply.
His third point is an interesting one in that parallels have played out in Toronto's new condominium market. The pejorative narrative of "foreigners taking homes away from locals" is commonplace in cities all around the world, which is why Canada ultimately moved to temporarily ban foreign buyers. But what we start to see here is the impact on overall housing supply. Indeed, a 2017 study from LSE (cited in the above FT article) found that international capital and residential pre-sales are essential ingredients in de-risking high-density projects and promoting greater housing supply.
Tying this all together, what has happened is the creation of an interdependency: we have made new housing developments so complicated and onerous to construct that the only financially feasible way to build them is to amortize all of the required time and money across bigger projects. Then, given the scale and cost of these projects, they have become dependent on investors and international capital to provide financing. Raise interest rates, remove the capital source, and then all of a sudden you have far less housing than 88,000 new homes per year.
It is for reasons like these that I get frustrated when critics simply blame developers or investors for shortcomings in a housing market. Finding villains is a lot easier than doing the difficult work of unpacking what's really going on and coming up with solutions.
Cover photo by Gonzalo Sanchez on Unsplash
Chart from the Financial Times
Construction jobs and materials are sourced from both sides of the border.
Oversight of the bridge is handled by the International Authority, a board with equal representation (3 members from Canada, 3 from Michigan).
Canada receives 100% of the toll revenue until it recoups its costs; after that, toll revenue will be shared with Michigan.
In other words, the only way this deal got done was (1) for Michigan not to spend any money on it and (2) for Canada to finance Michigan. This was the solution to dysfunctional politics, where individual interests trump the greater good. I have not looked into and modeled the exact terms under which Canada is financing Michigan, but let's hope that taxpayers are being fairly compensated for bringing this solution.
Regardless, there's no doubt that this is a crucial nation-building project for both Canada and the US. It will be an exciting moment for our countries when it opens and people and goods begin to flow. Based on the current status of construction, my understanding is that this will happen early this year. It's basically ready.
Cover photo from Gordie Howe International Bridge
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