I’ve been meaning to write this post for about a week now. I stumbled upon a set of maps via FlowingData that used public running data to plot where people run in various cities around the world. And since I love maps, I couldn’t resist.
What’s interesting is how people tend to gravitate towards the water rather than the parks. In the case of Toronto, High Park is barely touched, which may have something to do with the fact that it’s too far from downtown. The data could also be skewed based on the type of people who make their running data available and where they happen to live.
Last week I wrote a post on my personal blog about housing policy in San Francisco. My argument was that the backlash against the tech community (for allegedly driving up real estate prices) is actually misdirected and that housing policy should be the target.
The reasoning behind this is simple: More people are moving to San Francisco than new housing is being provided. And so regardless of whether you have tech workers or not, you have an environment where the rich are always going to outbid the poor for housing.
If you look at the numbers from the past 2 decades, San Francisco on average builds
The app allows you to click on a location within one of these cities (or enter an address) and then receive a visual representation of travel times from that location.
Both public transit and walking are factored in, and the fastest of the two is then modeled. The public transit data is taken from each respective authority and is similar to the data used by Google Maps.
With these sorts of applications, I always wonder what it might look like overlaid with additional data points, such as home prices. Intuitively I would expect the best connected neighborhoods to also have some of the highest real estate values.
I’ve been meaning to write this post for about a week now. I stumbled upon a set of maps via FlowingData that used public running data to plot where people run in various cities around the world. And since I love maps, I couldn’t resist.
What’s interesting is how people tend to gravitate towards the water rather than the parks. In the case of Toronto, High Park is barely touched, which may have something to do with the fact that it’s too far from downtown. The data could also be skewed based on the type of people who make their running data available and where they happen to live.
Last week I wrote a post on my personal blog about housing policy in San Francisco. My argument was that the backlash against the tech community (for allegedly driving up real estate prices) is actually misdirected and that housing policy should be the target.
The reasoning behind this is simple: More people are moving to San Francisco than new housing is being provided. And so regardless of whether you have tech workers or not, you have an environment where the rich are always going to outbid the poor for housing.
If you look at the numbers from the past 2 decades, San Francisco on average builds
The app allows you to click on a location within one of these cities (or enter an address) and then receive a visual representation of travel times from that location.
Both public transit and walking are factored in, and the fastest of the two is then modeled. The public transit data is taken from each respective authority and is similar to the data used by Google Maps.
With these sorts of applications, I always wonder what it might look like overlaid with additional data points, such as home prices. Intuitively I would expect the best connected neighborhoods to also have some of the highest real estate values.
Brandon Donnelly
Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly.
. And yet the city gained approximately 25,000 new people between 2010-2012 (that’s roughly 8,300 people per year). So what you have is a perpetual housing supply shortage.
To correct this problem, San Francisco needs to start building. And I’m stealing this idea from Harvard economist Edward Glaeser, who wrote an article on this very same topic back in December of last year for Bloomberg (and a book called Triumph of the City). His argument was that “the surest way to a more equitable housing market is to reduce the barriers to building.”
Now, if you compare San Francisco’s situation to Toronto’s, we’re almost on the opposite end of the spectrum. Toronto doesn’t have a problem building. We’re building lots. So much so that it’s become fashionable to joke around and complain about all the condos going up in this city.
But it’s important to remember that all of these condos are making us a relatively affordable city by global standards. We have more people moving to this city every year than San Francisco and yet home prices are less. We’re also less expensive than Vancouver, where there are strong natural barriers to building, namely water and mountains.
So rather than complain, I’m going to be the contrarian. I like seeing new housing built. I like knowing that the neighborhoods I love in this city are becoming home to more and more people.
At one point, my home (which is in the St. Lawrence Market) was a “new development” and somebody could have fought and opposed it. But it was allowed to be built and I was allowed to move in. I’m thankful for that. And so my plan is to be just as gracious to the next person who wants to join the neighborhood.
1,500 new housing units a year
. And yet the city gained approximately 25,000 new people between 2010-2012 (that’s roughly 8,300 people per year). So what you have is a perpetual housing supply shortage.
To correct this problem, San Francisco needs to start building. And I’m stealing this idea from Harvard economist Edward Glaeser, who wrote an article on this very same topic back in December of last year for Bloomberg (and a book called Triumph of the City). His argument was that “the surest way to a more equitable housing market is to reduce the barriers to building.”
Now, if you compare San Francisco’s situation to Toronto’s, we’re almost on the opposite end of the spectrum. Toronto doesn’t have a problem building. We’re building lots. So much so that it’s become fashionable to joke around and complain about all the condos going up in this city.
But it’s important to remember that all of these condos are making us a relatively affordable city by global standards. We have more people moving to this city every year than San Francisco and yet home prices are less. We’re also less expensive than Vancouver, where there are strong natural barriers to building, namely water and mountains.
So rather than complain, I’m going to be the contrarian. I like seeing new housing built. I like knowing that the neighborhoods I love in this city are becoming home to more and more people.
At one point, my home (which is in the St. Lawrence Market) was a “new development” and somebody could have fought and opposed it. But it was allowed to be built and I was allowed to move in. I’m thankful for that. And so my plan is to be just as gracious to the next person who wants to join the neighborhood.
