Category: Urbanism

• Walkable archipelagos are emerging across the US

  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):

  

  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.

  2023.03.18

• English-speaking countries don’t like apartments

  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:

  

  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.

  2023.03.17

• Honks against housing in San Diego’s University City

  The University area is one of 53 community planning areas in the City of San Diego. And this one, as the name suggests, houses the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), which is at the northern end of the blue transit line.

  The last time the University Community Plan was updated was in 1987, and so it’s an old plan and it is currently being redone to better align with the City’s current strategic plan — which includes things like “creating homes for all of us” and “championing sustainability.”

  The final draft community plan won’t be available until later this year, but there are two draft scenarios available for download. Here’s what Scenario A looks like:

  

  The “T” circles are transit stops on the Blue Line (which runs south to downtown and then to the Mexico border), the olive green areas are institutional (UCSD, hospital, etc.), and the purple areas are “urban villages” with densities that go as high as 218 dwelling units per acre (darkest purple). For the other areas, please refer to the legend.

  Now let’s put this residential density into some sort of context. One acre = 43,560 square feet. So we’re talking about 218 homes on every 43,560 square feet of land. For context, our mid-rise Junction House project is 151 homes and our site area is approximately 22,000 square feet (about 0.5 acres). That puts us at roughly 302 homes per acre — more than what is proposed here.

  In total the revised plan could allow for somewhere between 35,000 to 56,000 new homes in the University City area. Not surprisingly, the community has reacted by organizing rallies, such as this one, here, called “Honks against housing”:

  

  (I used a screenshot because embedded tweets don’t seem to show up properly in my email newsletter.)

  This is, again, not unexpected. And all of the typical things could be said about incumbent residents opposing new homes on top of an existing transit line, next to a major university. But what stands out to me about this protest is its format.

  These residents are worried that high-rises will destroy their community. So presumably they are looking to get the word out to as many people as possible. And one of the ways they have decided to do that is stand on the side of a busy road and appeal to people in their cars.

  Ironically, I think this actually reinforces the need for an updated Community Plan. Because it speaks to the car-oriented nature of this community and the need for better land use planning around its existing transit stations.

  In my view, the line of thinking here should not be, “this is going to destroy our community. How will our roads ever accommodate 35,000 new homes?” It should be, “how do we better plan this community so that our next generation of residents have the luxury not to have to drive everywhere?”

  If you’d like to offer constructive feedback on this plan, I’m told that you can email Nancy Graham at nhgraham@sandiego.gov.

  2023.03.12

• Sleeper trains — what’s old is popular again

  One of the great promises of autonomous vehicles is that, one day in the future, you’ll be able to get into your car, fall asleep, and then wake up refreshed at your destination. This would be a nice luxury, and it would almost certainly reshape the geography of our cities.

  But at the same time, it’s worth a reminder that “sleeper cars“, or bed carriages as they were originally called, are definitely not a new thing. Possibly the first example of a sleeper car was in England in the 1830s. Trains, of course, don’t take you exactly where you want to go like a car, but a sleeper train does allow you to travel while you sleep.

  And so it is interesting to see that sleeper trains are apparently seeing a resurgence in popularity across Europe. To the point that the trains are full and rail operators can’t seem to get their hands on new carriages. I can’t recall ever travelling in a sleeper train, but I have to say that this looks like a highly civilized way to move around:

  

  Image: ÖBB (Austria’s national rail operator)

  2023.03.11

• Amsterdam wants fewer drunk and annoying people

  Back in 2014, Amsterdam became the first city to have what is referred to as a “night mayor.” And at the time, including here on this blog, this was generally viewed as a pretty progressive thing to do. It recognized that there is an important nighttime economy and that, with the right leadership, it be harnessed for broader economic development purposes. As a result, many cities followed suit and appointed their own night mayors. (Toronto did not, despite my repeated posts.)

  But fast forward to today and things feel different. Night mayors aren’t talked about as much in city building circles. And Amsterdam is actually trying to limit overall tourism growth. It is working to relocate its Red Light District to outside of the city center and it hopes to reduce the amount of people who come to the city just to misbehave. To be clear, it still wants tourists; it just wants more people who do things like go to museums:

  The Netherlands’ capital plans to launch a deterrence campaign later this month aimed at tourists who go wild during their visits. In addition to new ads, the city has proposed rules in its infamous Red Light District, such as a ban on smoking marijuana in the street, earlier weekend closing times for bars, clubs and sex-work establishments and reduced alcohol sales. 

  Amsterdam’s liberal rules for drugs and prostitution have long attracted travelers looking to let loose, but officials say they are taking it too far and harming the quality of life for residents. 

  This is an interesting situation because usually the problem is, “how do we get more tourists to come and visit our city? Should we maybe build a casino or a Ferris wheel or something else equally as big?” Instead, the problem here is, “we have way too many drunk and annoying tourists. How do we swap them for more cultured visitors?” Of course, one solution is to just tell people that they are annoying and that they should stop coming. And that’s generally what the ad campaigns plan to do.

  An alternative approach might be to celebrate all of the other things that one can do in Amsterdam.

  2023.03.10

• Missing middle housing shouldn’t have a maximum floor space index

  At the beginning of the year, I wrote this:

  The desire to add more housing to single-family neighborhoods will continue to pick up steam across North America. How exactly this plays out will be market specific, but in Toronto I expect to see new planning policies put in place, as well as supportive building code changes.

  And this continues to happen. Right now, the City of Toronto is working on making fourplexes permissible in all low-rise neighborhoods across the city.

  This is exciting. But it’s not done yet. And it’s not perfect.

  The biggest change that I think still needs to happen is around maximum densities. If we actually want to encourage more missing middle housing, we need to increase the permitted FSIs or, better yet, remove them all together.

  Urban planner Sean Galbraith does a good job of explaining this in NRU:

  

  I responded to the city’s multiplex survey last night and this was one of my main comments. If you’d also like to voice your opinion, you have until March 10, 2023. Here’s the link.

  2023.03.08

• Why Utah wants to build the world’s longest and most expensive urban gondola

  If you drive around the Cottonwood Heights neighborhood in Salt Lake City, which I have done multiple times over the last year, you will invariably see lawn signs shouting for “no gondola!” And the reason for this is that last summer, the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) came forward with its preferred solution to traffic congestion in Little Cottonwood Canyon: an eight-mile long gondola all the way up and into the mountains. If built, this would apparently be the longest and most expensive urban gondola in the world.

  To try and explain why this is being recommended, I’ll give the example of what happened to us when we were there last week. We drove into Little Cottonwood Canyon on Tuesday morning when it was not snowing. We left Park City around 8am, passed through the valley (Salt Lake City), and arrived at Snowbird (resort) in around 45 minutes. This is normally how long it takes. But on the way up it started snowing, and it didn’t stop all day. (Nice!) So our drive home took significantly longer and looked like this (we were going 8-10 miles per hour all the way down):

  

  This is what happens when it snows in the canyons. Which is why a wise bartender at one of the resorts advised us that, “on powder days, you need to leave the valley at 6AM. Because at some point, some asshole is going to think they can get up the canyon in a Tesla, and they will ruin it for everyone. It’s better to nap in your car at the resort than white knuckle for 2-3 hours.” During our drive home, we learned that he was not at all joking. This is what happens. And it is why UDOT wants to build one really long urban gondola.

  There are, however, some very good reasons why urban gondolas aren’t really that common. Portland has one. Medellín has one. And apparently both are quite successful. But other than these examples, they generally aren’t thought of as the most effective tool in the transportation arsenal:

  Gondolas are low-capacity vehicles that quickly get cramped if turned into high capacity ones. They don’t work well for multiple stops. As a result, they are a point-to-point transportation method with low capacity. They are also expensive, especially relative to how many people they might serve, making them financially unattractive options for most applications. At their best, gondolas work when traversing difficult terrain with a consistent but low ridership, which is why they’re most often deployed on ski resorts.

  But this situation is maybe a bit unique. It’s kind of urban transport, but really it’s for people to get up the canyon and shred deep powder. Here’s more on how it might work:

  The Cottonwood Canyon gondola would be a hybrid of sorts between urban transportation solution and resort-based gondola. The proposal is to build a massive 2,500-spot parking garage at the base of the canyon, about 20 miles from downtown and the airport, where people will park. They will then ride the gondola for 27 minutes to Snowbird or 37 minutes to Alta, a trip duration which has no parallel in the urban or resort gondola scene (the Snowbird tram, one of the most famous in the world, fits more than 100 people per tram but takes less than 10 minutes to ride). Even though the gondola would serve two ski resorts, it belongs more to the urban gondola concept because it is being proposed and recommended by the state’s transportation department as a solution to a recurring traffic problem.

  As a snowboarder, this sounds great. But it is, of course, complicated. Conservation groups are objecting, and some/many taxpayers don’t want to pay for a gondola that will largely benefit two ski resorts. Especially one that doesn’t permit snowboarders (I made this part up). So we’ll see. A final decision is expected by UDOT this summer. In the meantime, if you’re interested in urban gondolas, check out this recent article in Vice Magazine by Aaron Gordon (quoted above). He does a good job explaining both sides of this debate. And if you are interested in this topic, I’d be curious to hear whether you think this is a good idea or not.

  2023.03.03

• Calm down, Dubai

  Knight Frank just published the 17th edition of its annual “The Wealth Report.” I have spoken about this report many times before on the blog because I generally find them really interesting. So today I’d like to share two items from this latest one.

  The first item is their most recent Prime International Residential Index (PIRI). What this does is track prime residential prices across 100 key city, sun, and ski locations. “Prime”, in case you are wondering, is defined as the most desirable and most expensive properties in each market — generally the top 5%.

  Look at Dubai go:

  

  When I see a chart like this I usually start at the top and then immediately start scanning for Toronto. Here, it’s more or less in the middle with a 4.1% increase. Totally reasonable. Prime property in Auckland and Wellington, on the other hand, didn’t fair as well in 2022.

  The second item is this very wonderful diagram showing flight connectivity before Covid (12 months to March 2020) and then post-Covid (12 months to December 2022):

  

  The way to read this diagram is that the most connected cities — ranked by the number and quality of flight connections — get pushed toward the center. They also get bigger. Less connected cities, on the other hand, slide toward the edges. All of the cities also generally gravitate toward their main regional connections.

  The most obvious change is the greatly weakened connectivity of Chinese cities. This is not surprising given their zero-Covid approach. Moscow also seems to get rightly pushed out to the side.

  Another story is the continued rise of both Singapore (to the likely detriment of Hong Kong) and Dubai. I have only been to Dubai once, and I couldn’t figure out how to navigate its sea of roads and highways, or how to locate an actual city center where humans walk around (though the historic Bur Dubai area was interesting).

  But there is no denying that Dubai has become a pretty important global city.

  2023.03.01

• Segways, scooters, and AI-powered electric shoes

  The original Segway launched in 2000 and was supposed to revolutionize micro-mobility and the “last-mile problem” associated with getting around cities. Instead, only about 140,000 units were sold in the following two decades and, in 2020, the company stopped production on the namesake vehicle. In hindsight this seems kind of obvious. Segways are/were clunky and expensive. There’s a learning curve. And it’s infinitely difficult to look even remotely cool while riding one.

  But one thing they did get right was the problem. There was in fact a need for micro-mobility solutions, which is why we have seen bike share and e-scooter ridership grow, like this, since the late 2000’s. I think it remains to be seen just how ubiquitous things like e-scooters will become in our cities. But in 2021, there were 900,000 electric scooters sold in France alone. So we’re already doing much better than the Segway did during its lifetime.

  As I have said before, I am a big fan of electric scooters. And I wish that Toronto would stop being so conservative with allowing them in the city. But I remain open to other ideas, so here’s another last-mile solution to consider: $1,400 AI-powered electric shoes. Casey Neistat recently reviewed them in New York City and, I can safely say, that they look Segway-like in terms of their clunkiness and overall attractiveness. They’re still in the prototype phase and they do make you walk about 250% faster; but I’m not yet convinced.

  How about you?

  2023.02.25

• The most expensive new subway line in the world

  In other New York City news, they apparently have the most expensive new subway line in the world:

  At $2.5 billion per mile, construction costs for the 1.8-mile Phase 1 of the Second Avenue Subway were 8 to 12 times more expensive than similar subway projects in Italy, Istanbul, Sweden, Paris, Berlin and Spain, according to a report from New York University’s Marron Institute of Urban Management.

  This is an important problem because public transit is good for cities:

  It is not possible to outdo the subway in capacity per amount of land consumed— and in a high-demand city, 12-lane freeways are prohibitively land-intensive. Hook (1994) argued that Japan focused on rail transportation in its largest cities because it had high land values in the postwar era and such strong property rights that widespread land condemnation for freeways based on the American model was impossible.

  If this is a topic that interests you, I would encourage you to check out the report, as well as their Transit Costs Project website. It allows you to compare transit project costs for 159 different cities.

  2023.02.24