Alexis Self has an opinion piece in today's Monocle Minute (email newsletter) that deals with development in London and NIMBYism. Here's an excerpt:

Affluent, socially liberal city dwellers can be the most extreme Nimbys. But perhaps their ire wouldn’t be so fierce if what was being built weren’t so aesthetically offensive. In the postwar era, London’s councils teemed with ambitious urban planners. The result: design classics such as Trellick Tower in Kensal Green, the Barbican Estate and Camden’s Alexandra Road Estate. While it’s true that these were labelled ugly at the time, they were undeniably the work of Europe’s best architects. Few, if any, of the city’s 21st-century edifices will enjoy a similar reappraisal.

Alexis raises two interesting points: 1) Could better architecture and design actually help to quash NIMBY sentiment and 2) are we really not designing and building like we used to?

I'll start with number two.

I am not that familiar with the "design classics" that Alexis mentions above, but it just so happens then when I was watching Never Too Small over the weekend I came across this studio apartment in the Barbican Estate.

Designed by Chamberlin, Powell and Bon in the 1960s, the Barbican is a residential complex with somewhere around 2,000 apartments. It's considered a prominent example of British brutalist architecture and so most of it is listed.

While certainly noteworthy, it strikes me that it is likely one of those pieces of architecture that designers and architects love (I like it), but that the general public dislikes. In fact, architect Witold Rybczynski once argued that, "if people don't hate it, it can't be Brutalist."

Brutalism is having a bit of a renaissance. Kind of. But I don't think we're anywhere near universal appreciation. So I wonder if the general public really views these "design classics" as being some sort of golden era of British architecture and development.

I also think, and I have argued this before on the blog, that buildings sometimes take time to settle in. From Montreal to Stockholm, our perceptions have been shown to change. The things we disliked before suddenly become desirable.

Which means it can be hard to tell if we objectively dislike something (we're not building like we used to) or if it's simply not old enough for us to starting appreciating it. Beauty also happens to be a kind of subjective thing when it comes to buildings. Turns out we're better at assessing whether people are good looking.

This is probably a good time to come back to point number one: Could better architecture help quash NIMBYism?

Not quite. I would argue that it certainly helps but it won't completely quash it. I believe wholeheartedly in the power of great design. I want everything to be beautiful and considered. But the cynical developer in me knows that it will sadly only go so far.

Béton brut (raw concrete) isn't for everyone, I guess.

River Davis' recent article in the Wall Street Journal about Tokyo's generally flat home prices had me, again, wondering about demographics. I mean, aren't their demographics working in reverse? They have an aging population, low immigration, and a low birthrate. But Tokyo, which represents about 11% of Japan's total population, is still growing. And their home price index looks like this compared to San Francisco and New York:

Davis' argument, which of course has been made by others before, is that deregulation has allowed housing supply to actually keep up with demand. Land use policies were relaxed to allow taller and denser buildings to be built and some degree of decision making (I'm not sure how much) was moved to the central government in order to counteract the NIMBY problem that invariably attaches itself to local politics.

The result is housing numbers that look and compare like this:

In Tokyo last year, housing starts came in around 145,000, according to Japan’s land ministry. This figure is on par with the total number of new housing units authorized last year in New York, Los Angeles, Boston and Houston combined, based on the U.S. Census Bureau data. The same feat was achieved in 2017.

If we are to normalize against New York, it looks like this:

And the belief seems to be that it is working:

“A reason why housing prices in Japan are not rising as fast as in New York, for example, is the large number of housing starts,” says Masahiro Kobayashi, a director general at the Japan Housing Finance Agency, a state-run entity which supports the housing market by purchasing home loans.

One sentence that really stood out for me in the article is this one here: "Private consultants were given permission to issue building permits to speed up construction." If any of you have tried to pull a building permit for a large project in Toronto, you'll know that it can take a very long time (understatement). Maybe it is the same in your city. Should we be looking at this?

Charts: WSJ

McKinsey Global Institute just published a “supply-side toolkit” for cities struggling with housing affordability. This seems to be every successful city.

The article includes a long list of potential tools. Some of them you may agree with. And others you may disagree with. But I am sure that many of them will be familiar to you. One of the tools in the toolkit is accessory dwelling units.

Of course, the overarching theme is that housing supply has not and is not keeping pace with housing demand:

California, for instance, added 544,000 households but only 467,000 net housing units from 2009 to 2014. Its cumulative housing shortfall has expanded to two million units.

Another one of the tools in the toolkit is “overcoming NIMBYism.” Here is an excerpt:

People who come to a city to work need to be able to find an affordable place to live there. But the voices of existing homeowners who want to preserve the status quo often drown out those of newcomers, young adults, low-income service workers, and renters who need more housing. After a 2009 audit found that neighborhood councils were not representative of the city’s broader population, Seattle replaced these bodies with a central Community Involvement Commission that includes mayoral and council appointees chosen to represent a broader set of stakeholders.

I am intrigued by Seattle’s move to create a central body and a new approach to public engagement – one that moves away from local district-councils. However, it appears that this Community Involvement Commission is still very much in its infancy.

If any of you are familiar with the Seattle market, I would be curious to hear your thoughts on it in the comment section below. I am, however, going to spend some time reading up on it.

For the full toolkit, click here.

Photo by Sarah Brink on Unsplash