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I tweeted the above photo on Saturday morning with the following text: "No sidewalks. Towers in the distance. Welcome to the inner suburbs of Toronto." What I, of course, wanted to highlight is the contrast between the rural-like street with no sidewalks in the foreground, and the high-density towers built on top of Kipling subway station in the background. It is a perfect example of the kind of Toronto we are building, by design, all across the city. And it also exemplifies one of our great philosophical divides.
If you look at the responses on Twitter, you'll see that there are a few opinions. Generally speaking, though, there are probably two main ways to think about this scene. One way is to look at the transit-oriented housing and think of it as urban progress. We are adding new housing and we are doing it in a way that hopefully results in more walkable communities. With this in mind, you might now see the three humans on the street (one of which is in a stroller) and think it's a shame that they have been forced to walk on the road.
The other main way to look at this is that not having sidewalks is actually a feature and not a bug (indeed, a lack of sidewalks can be a pretty good indicator for rich people/wealthy households). From this lens, not having sidewalks means uninterrupted driveways (more parking), less through foot traffic, and a more quaint small-town feel. Also with this lens might be a view that the rural-like street was there first, before the transit-oriented towers. And it was doing just fine before people like me drove through their neighborhood and pointed out the lack of sidewalks.
How do you see this scene?
We have spoken before about how walkable urban communities punch above their weight. In the US, only about 1.2% of land is, on average, designed and built for walkability. And yet, walkable neighborhoods in the top 35 metro areas account for about 19.1% of total US real GDP.
At the same time, because walkable communities are a rarified commodity, they usually come at a premium. According to some sources, it's to the tune of 30-40% when you look at home prices and rental rates. This again suggests that humans actually like and want this type of urbanism.
Which is probably why there's a growing interest in building more of it. Here's a recent article from Bloomberg CityLab and here's a photo of Culdesac's new completely car-free community under construction in Tempe, Arizona (this doesn't look like the Arizona I know):
A lack of affordable housing certainly feels like a global phenomenon. Companies are trying to 3D-print homes for under $100k. Berlin froze apartment rents back in 2019 because things were getting too expensive. And today, Hong Kong is working on building some sort of "light public housing" in an effort to reduce its massive wait times for new homes.
But depending on where you are in the world, it might be somewhat comforting to remember that this problem seems to be particularly pronounced, here, in English-speaking countries. Whether it's restrictive zoning rules or a general distaste for apartments and urban density, the English-speaking world has fallen behind on housing supply compared to places like continental Europe.
Here's an excerpt from a recent FT article:
Forty years ago, the UK, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland had roughly 400 homes per 1,000 residents, level with developed continental European countries. Since then the two groups have diverged, the Anglosphere standing still while western Europe has pulled clear to 560 per 1,000.
And this shows in our home prices:
I tweeted the above photo on Saturday morning with the following text: "No sidewalks. Towers in the distance. Welcome to the inner suburbs of Toronto." What I, of course, wanted to highlight is the contrast between the rural-like street with no sidewalks in the foreground, and the high-density towers built on top of Kipling subway station in the background. It is a perfect example of the kind of Toronto we are building, by design, all across the city. And it also exemplifies one of our great philosophical divides.
If you look at the responses on Twitter, you'll see that there are a few opinions. Generally speaking, though, there are probably two main ways to think about this scene. One way is to look at the transit-oriented housing and think of it as urban progress. We are adding new housing and we are doing it in a way that hopefully results in more walkable communities. With this in mind, you might now see the three humans on the street (one of which is in a stroller) and think it's a shame that they have been forced to walk on the road.
The other main way to look at this is that not having sidewalks is actually a feature and not a bug (indeed, a lack of sidewalks can be a pretty good indicator for rich people/wealthy households). From this lens, not having sidewalks means uninterrupted driveways (more parking), less through foot traffic, and a more quaint small-town feel. Also with this lens might be a view that the rural-like street was there first, before the transit-oriented towers. And it was doing just fine before people like me drove through their neighborhood and pointed out the lack of sidewalks.
How do you see this scene?
We have spoken before about how walkable urban communities punch above their weight. In the US, only about 1.2% of land is, on average, designed and built for walkability. And yet, walkable neighborhoods in the top 35 metro areas account for about 19.1% of total US real GDP.
At the same time, because walkable communities are a rarified commodity, they usually come at a premium. According to some sources, it's to the tune of 30-40% when you look at home prices and rental rates. This again suggests that humans actually like and want this type of urbanism.
Which is probably why there's a growing interest in building more of it. Here's a recent article from Bloomberg CityLab and here's a photo of Culdesac's new completely car-free community under construction in Tempe, Arizona (this doesn't look like the Arizona I know):
A lack of affordable housing certainly feels like a global phenomenon. Companies are trying to 3D-print homes for under $100k. Berlin froze apartment rents back in 2019 because things were getting too expensive. And today, Hong Kong is working on building some sort of "light public housing" in an effort to reduce its massive wait times for new homes.
But depending on where you are in the world, it might be somewhat comforting to remember that this problem seems to be particularly pronounced, here, in English-speaking countries. Whether it's restrictive zoning rules or a general distaste for apartments and urban density, the English-speaking world has fallen behind on housing supply compared to places like continental Europe.
Here's an excerpt from a recent FT article:
Forty years ago, the UK, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland had roughly 400 homes per 1,000 residents, level with developed continental European countries. Since then the two groups have diverged, the Anglosphere standing still while western Europe has pulled clear to 560 per 1,000.
And this shows in our home prices:
But in addition to just giving people more of what they want, there are also real economic benefits to stripping out parking and to overall more compact development. Charlotte-based Space Craft is another developer focused on car-light and transit-oriented apartments, and they have seemingly managed to make their projects more affordable as a result:
“Our product offered lower rents to residents, $100 to $200 below our competitors, and was the best product in the market because we were able to reinvest some of the savings from parking,” said [Harrison] Tucker, who sees walkable urban neighborhoods becoming their own real estate investment class. “The economic case was just very strong.”
This also flies in the face of the common argument that developers will always profit maximize and charge whatever the market will bear for their spaces. So why even bother trying to make it easier and cheaper to build? But this is not true! Lower development costs, as we see here, can and will translate into lower rents and higher quality buildings.
I also agree with Tucker that we will see walkable urban neighborhoods, and their associated building typologies, become an important real estate asset class. For all of the reasons that we talk about on this blog, this is where our cities are headed.
However, it's going to take some time. I like the metaphor (mentioned in the above article) that, right now, we are creating "walkable archipelagos" or walkable islands in seas of cars. With the right connectivity (transit, micromobility, and so on), these islands can do just fine. But over time, I suspect we'll see a lot more land reclamation. Good.
One argument is that continental Europe is simply more culturally accepting of apartment buildings, and that allows more new homes to be built. Seems right:
According to this chart, the average person from the UK or the US would not be happy unless they were living in a detached house. When you get to the continent, people start to become increasingly more positive around missing middle-type housing (something in the 3-4 storey range). Though, anything more than that and things get divided.
All in all, it doesn't seem to really matter where you're from, there's a clear preference for detached housing. But maybe liking apartments even a little bit is all you need to help with overall housing supply.
But in addition to just giving people more of what they want, there are also real economic benefits to stripping out parking and to overall more compact development. Charlotte-based Space Craft is another developer focused on car-light and transit-oriented apartments, and they have seemingly managed to make their projects more affordable as a result:
“Our product offered lower rents to residents, $100 to $200 below our competitors, and was the best product in the market because we were able to reinvest some of the savings from parking,” said [Harrison] Tucker, who sees walkable urban neighborhoods becoming their own real estate investment class. “The economic case was just very strong.”
This also flies in the face of the common argument that developers will always profit maximize and charge whatever the market will bear for their spaces. So why even bother trying to make it easier and cheaper to build? But this is not true! Lower development costs, as we see here, can and will translate into lower rents and higher quality buildings.
I also agree with Tucker that we will see walkable urban neighborhoods, and their associated building typologies, become an important real estate asset class. For all of the reasons that we talk about on this blog, this is where our cities are headed.
However, it's going to take some time. I like the metaphor (mentioned in the above article) that, right now, we are creating "walkable archipelagos" or walkable islands in seas of cars. With the right connectivity (transit, micromobility, and so on), these islands can do just fine. But over time, I suspect we'll see a lot more land reclamation. Good.
One argument is that continental Europe is simply more culturally accepting of apartment buildings, and that allows more new homes to be built. Seems right:
According to this chart, the average person from the UK or the US would not be happy unless they were living in a detached house. When you get to the continent, people start to become increasingly more positive around missing middle-type housing (something in the 3-4 storey range). Though, anything more than that and things get divided.
All in all, it doesn't seem to really matter where you're from, there's a clear preference for detached housing. But maybe liking apartments even a little bit is all you need to help with overall housing supply.
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