Here's an interesting, though not shocking, chart from a recent Globe and Mail article talking about "Canada's dysfunctional housing market." What is noteworthy is that Toronto is dead last when it comes to the number of new 3+ bedroom homes built between 2016 and 2011.

Peterborough, for example, is a census metropolitan area with somewhere around 130,000 people. And yet, based on this data, it is building more family-sized homes than Toronto.

Why this is not surprising is that the vast majority of new homes now built in Toronto are high-density and built out of reinforced concrete. This means that they are relatively expensive on a per square foot basis.

In fact, you could argue that mid-rise housing -- the exact high-density type that is supposed to be most attractive to families -- is the most expensive to build. What this means is that if you're building a 3+ bedroom home in this way, it's not going to be affordable to most.

It also means that people are going to go shopping elsewhere: Ottawa, York, Simcoe, Durham, and so on. The expected market outcome is decentralization. But in my mind, this raises an important question: Is this what people really want?

This is a great debate. And many will argue that grade-related suburban housing is exactly what people want. What we are seeing is a result of raw consumer preference.

However, the costs are so skewed in favor of low-rise housing, that I think it's hard to say with absolute certainty the degree in which this is true. What if higher-density 3+ bedroom homes were the cheaper option? My bet is that we would see a lot more centralization.

The development charge rate for a 2+ bedroom apartment in the City of Toronto is currently $80,690 per unit (effective June 6, 2024). As development charges work, this is supposed to pay for the growth-related impacts of adding a 2+ bedroom apartment in the city.

However, the above chart suggests that there are also impacts to not building that 2 or 3 bedroom apartment in an already developed area next to existing infrastructure. It means the home goes somewhere else (further away) or doesn't get built at all.

Both of these outcomes also have costs.

I am, of course, more grid than cul-de-sac, but here is an interesting NFT art project that is launching on December 12, 2023 at 1PM EST. It's called Cul-de-Sacs:

“Cul-de-Sacs” explores the banality of suburban sprawl through the anachronistic stylization of American folk art. The algorithm generates flattened representations of suburbia at range of scales, interspersed with the remnants of rural life.

The starting price is 0.2 ETH and the resting price is 0.05 ETH. What this ultimately means is that these NFTs are being offered by way of a Dutch action.

Dutch auctions are a price discovery mechanism. They start with a high asking price and then gradually lower it until a price is reached where the quantity demanded equals all of the available supply.

In other words, it's a way to determine what the market thinks a particular thing is worth. In this case, though, the resting price is 0.05 ETH. Meaning there's a floor.

If lots of people are willing to pay 0.2 ETH for this art, it could sell out right away and that will prove to be the market price.

But if few people want to buy it, then the price will gradually fall to 0.05 ETH, and that is where it will hang out until all of the available supply is absorbed. If/when that happens.

Another important feature of this auction process is that if you buy early, and the price subsequently drops, you get a refund equal to the difference between what you paid and the final achieved price (thought to be the market price).

So there is zero incentive to wait for a possible price decline; everyone ends up paying the same price no matter what. You're encouraged to bid aggressively.

And because all of this is now happening on a blockchain and enshrined in code, you can be confident that this is exactly how the process will work and that you'll get any refunds that you deserve.

Good morning from rainy New Hampshire.

It’s been raining all morning, but apparently there is an ocean hidden in the above picture. We also got in after dark and so all I really saw was what I could see on the drive from the airport.

Whenever I am reminded that the vast majority of built form in North America is car-oriented in nature, I can’t help but think of how sticky all of this is going to be.

Witold Rybczynski put it accurately when he said, “urbanism and architecture observe different time lines.” Buildings may take forever to build, but relative to urban form, they actually change pretty quickly.

New materials and styles emerge, and so do new buildings. But the streets that surround them change so slowly, that for all intents and purposes, they mostly don’t change.

What that means is that, for better or for worse, most of what we see is likely to persist. No wonder there is an arms race going on with autonomous vehicles.