Category: Urbanism

• Immersive digital experiences at Superblue Miami

  If you happen to find yourself in Miami or London in the near future, I would highly recommend that you check out Superblue. Neat B and I visited Superblue Miami this past weekend and it was an incredible experience.

  Above is a short video of one of the immersive installations (click here if you can’t see it embedded above). This one is by the Japanese art collective teamLab and what you’re seeing is a whole year’s worth of seasonal flowers coming to life and then dying off.

  It’s meant to show you the continuous change and cycle of life and death that we all live through every day, and you certainly feel that as you go through the space. The installation itself also responds to how you move and interact with it, with some actions encouraging more blossoms.

  It’s, of course, all very Instagrammable.

  But I think this descriptor is old news and doesn’t do the work justice. Superblue is a serious cultural experience. One of the other works on display right now is a piece by light and space artist James Turrell. And for this one, there were no photos and talking allowed. The timed experience was meant to be more meditative.

  It was the first time that I had seen something by James Turrell in real life and it didn’t disappoint. It made me feel things, as did the entire Superblue experience. So again, a top experience that I would highly recommend.

  On a related real estate note, the 50,000 sf Superblue space is located in an area of Miami called Allapattah (which is west of Wynwood and 5 miles east of MIA). I’m an outsider to the city building undercurrents of this city, but I keep hearing people talk about the area as the next Wynwood.

  The other cultural institution in Allapattah is the Rubell Museum, which I wrote about in 2019 as it was moving over from its original home in Wynwood. Supposedly the family now has the largest private collection of contemporary art in North America. So that’s something.

  Maybe these two anchors will be what does it for Allapattah. When we walked around the area there didn’t seem to be much else going on. But we all know how quickly that can change.

  2022.01.30

• A nation of apartment dwellers

  The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) recently published its latest data on housing starts, housing under construction, and housing completions. Here are a few of the highlights:

  • Canada saw 271k housing starts last year (2021). This includes single-detached housing and multiples, which captures semi-detached housing, row housing, and apartments (and other unit types). This is the highest number of annual housing starts that we have seen over the last five years. The range for the prior years has been between roughly 209-220k.
  • Ontario saw 100k (~37% of the country), Quebec saw 68k (~25% of the country), and British Columbia saw 48k (~18% of the country).
  • What I was curious about when I first saw these numbers was the split across the various housing types. Single-family homes, for instance, came in at 82k for all of Canada. So that’s about 30% of total housing starts. If you add in semi-detached and row, which I believe would also be all grade-related, you get to 124k or 46% of all housing starts.
  • Apartments and other unit types make up the balance at about 147k or 54% of all housing starts. This is kind of interesting because they now represent a majority.
  • Looking at Ontario, the percentage of apartments actually drops to 50%. But the numbers are much higher in both Quebec and BC at 69% and 63%, respectively. Again, this is kind of interesting.

  Despite all of our deference to single-family housing, the numbers suggest that we are actually in the midst of building a different kind of country — one that entails people living in “apartments and other unit types.” Maybe it’s time we got more granular with this line item.

  Note: CMHC defines “apartment and other unit types” to include not just apartments, but also stacked towns, duplexes, triplexes, double duplexes (whatever this is), and row duplexes. A number of these will, of course, be grade-related. But they still represent more intense forms of land use.

  2022.01.24

• Drive until you qualify

  The “drive until you qualify” approach to finding housing that you can afford is a well established practice. Anecdotally, I can tell you that I have friends who are right now looking for a grade-related home under the C$1 million mark. This constraint, as most of you know, is pushing them to the outer reaches of Toronto’s suburbs. But if it were up to them, it would be their preference to stay in the city. According to the “two millennials” behind The Habistat, the average distance of an entry level detached house from the Toronto core (defined as a 3 bed, 1 bath under $800,000) is now 81.8km.

  

  There’s a lot to be said about this. For one, home prices across many/most markets are way up. Earlier this week on the blog it was mentioned that the average price of a US home is up about 19% year-over-year. This is likely unsustainable. We are coming off of a period of easy money policies and at some point things will normalize along with the broader economy. Looking at the equity and crypto markets, it may be happening right now, but I don’t really know. (Fred Wilson wrote a post last year calling this “one of the great asset bubbles of modern times.”)

  We know that the centralizing forces inherent to most cities have been weakened during this pandemic. For periods of time, they were completely off. So it is no surprise that we have seen greater decentralization (sprawl) than what might have ordinarily happened. I was in a (zoom) meeting this past week with somebody who has spent the last two years traveling around South America while working remotely. It sounded like a lot of fun and I was admittedly a little bit envious of her adventures. But as I argued at the beginning of this year, I think most people are going back to offices and this centralizing force will have an impact on real estate.

  Because “driving until you qualify” is a function of an affordability constraint, it tells you certain things about consumer preference, but not all things. What I mean by this is that it tells you that somebody is willing to trade the cost of a commute for more space and/or the housing type of their choice. This has been an easier trade during COVID because the cost of commuting has been relatively — albeit temporarily — low for many people. So less of a discount for distance. But what I think this doesn’t tell you is what true consumer preference would be if all things were more equal and we increased housing supply and options in other areas of our cities.

  At the same time, there’s a very real question of whether the measuring stick in the above chart should be a grade-related detached house? Is this a reasonable expectation in the same way it was for prior generations? I am not a fan of dictating what people should and shouldn’t do. But maybe 100km away from the core becomes untenable. And again, maybe if we increased both supply and options, we would find new housing preferences revealing themselves. I am specifically thinking of those who would prefer to stay in the city, but can’t find something they think is suitable.

  At the end of the day, we can’t ignore the fact that we are profoundly hypocritical when it comes to the delivery of new housing. We acknowledge that we’re in a housing crisis and we acknowledge that we need more affordable housing (both for sale and for rent), and yet we continue to make it systematically more difficult and more expensive to deliver it. The development charges, parkland fees, and many other costs that continue to increase and get applied to new housing are a real worry to those in the industry.

  It is a worry because we’re all wondering how much price elasticity is left in the market. That is, how much more can consumers afford before they stop buying and renting? It is a worry because it means that new rental housing, which has always been a challenge to pencil in our market, is now completely infeasible in many more submarkets. Our solution to all of this is to mandate a certain number of affordable units in new developments. But this is yet another tax on new housing.

  To be fair, the delivery of new housing is subject to countless competing interests. This is arguably why it is such a tricky problem to solve and why there are no easy answers. But that’s what we do around here. We explore new ideas. And maybe, just maybe, there are other options besides just driving until you qualify. Next up (or soon up): A look at the competing interests behind new housing.

  2022.01.22

• Ownership and participation — what cities share with Web3

  

  Here’s a cogent argument by Dror Poleg about how urban economics can be used to explain the evolution of Web3, and also why it’s all a bit of a ponzi scheme, but that when it works, it works.

  His argument revolves around ownership and participation. If you own real estate in a city, you could say that you are both a part owner of said city and a participant. You participate by virtue of living and/or doing other things there, but beyond that you also have a vested interest in the city doing well. Because if the city continues to do well and grow, there should be more demand for real estate, including yours, and that likely means your wealth will increase over time.

  This same force could be said to apply when existing property owners oppose new development. It restricts supply and increases the value of people’s existing “ownership” in a city. It’s kind of like being a company and not issuing new shares so as to not dilute your existing shareholders.

  This connection between ownership and participation is similarly a hallmark of Web3. In the world of crypto, users buy tokens (some fungible and some non-fungible) and those tokens provide access and rights to various things.

  For example, owning tokens might allow you to vote on key decisions affecting the overall organization. And if the organization does well and continues to grow, all token holders should, in theory at least, see their wealth increase. More people will want those same tokens. Ownership and participation.

  Web2 companies, on the other hand, do not typically offer this automatic connection between ownership and participation. That is, of course, unless you’re a shareholder. If you’re just a regular user of a platform like Instagram (which I am), but you don’t own any shares in Meta (I do not), then you’re only a participant.

  If you happen to be a widely followed influencer then you can certainly benefit indirectly from the platform, but you do not benefit from any sort of direct ownership in the organization. Pretty much everything accrues to the house.

  In fact, you also don’t own your followers, from which you derive your indirect benefit. Not to pick on Meta, but if Meta decided that your content was suddenly inappropriate for the platform, perhaps too salacious, then it could choose to close you down and your indirect benefits.

  This, of course, is one of the great promises of crypto and Web3. If you’re a part owner and you have some say in the way things are being run, you can maybe avoid this kind of outcome. And if things really aren’t working out, one should have the flexibility to take their followers and be extra salacious somewhere else.

  We shall see if this is ultimately how Web3 plays out, but the connection between ownership and participation is an interesting one and, if things do end up working out as planned, maybe it can be harnessed to improve our cities. Because we know the problems: inequality, housing supply and affordability, and many others. The system is clearly far from perfect.

  Photo by Adrian Schwarz on Unsplash

  2022.01.21

• Berlin is considering going car free

  

  Berlin is considering something pretty radical. A grass roots movement called Volksentscheid Berlin Autofrei, or the People’s Decision for Auto-Free Berlin, is trying to turn the entire core of the city into a car-free zone. (There would be some exceptions and so we should maybe call it primarily car free.)

  The area in question is everything inside of the city’s circular S-Bahn train line (pictured above), which would make it the largest car-free zone or mostly car-free zone in the world. It’s larger than Manhattan and it’s about the size of London’s zones 1 and 2, to help give you a sense of the scale.

  So far the group has collected about 50,000 supportive signatures and, according to Fast Company, the Senate of Berlin is set to make a decision on the proposal next month. I have no idea how much community and/or political momentum this actually has, but I love how bold of an idea this is.

  Is it too bold?

  Again, it is perhaps useful to flip the question and use Seth Godin’s status-quo-bias-checker model when thinking about this. If the center of Berlin was already car free and a community group had just come forward with a plan to now allow vehicles, how do you think you’d feel? I could see that being contentious.

  Do you think Berlin should do it?

  Image: City of Berlin via Fast Company

  2022.01.19

• Slime mold may be better than us at transportation planning

  So slime mold, which is a fungus-like single-celled organism, has a tendency to build highly optimized networks across its food sources. In other words, if you scattered a bunch of food on a surface and then dropped in some slime mold, it would naturally create an interconnected web of linked veins across this surface. And this web would be based on the shortest and most efficient paths of travel between the various food sources.

  I am mentioning this odd factoid because ten years ago researchers in Tokyo used this naturally occurring phenomenon for the purposes of trying to improve transportation planning. What they did was map out greater Tokyo. They then placed oat flakes (i.e. food) in spots that correspond to the various cities and urban centers that surround the city. Alongside this, they blocked off the areas where transportation networks do not typically run, such as through mountains and into the water. They then dropped in some slime mold, wet the surface, and watched it grow.

  

  What they found was that the resulting network was remarkably similar to Tokyo’s actual rail network. The slime mold had found the most efficient routes, eliminated redundancies, and generally discovered the optimal way in which to connect its food sources. And if you think about it, this is basically what transit networks are supposed to do. They should connect clusters of people in the most efficient way possible.

  It has been a decade since this slime mold transportation discovery was first publicized, and it would seem that it hasn’t really caught on as an invaluable planning tool. So I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that we should take out a map of every major city in the world, plot its population centers, drop down some oat flakes, and then let slime mold tell us all the ways in which we are screwing up and over-politicizing our transportation planning efforts.

  Thank you to Angus Knowles for making me aware of this study. Angus writes an occasional newsletter about cities and housing, over here.

  Image: LiveScience

  2022.01.17

• A new 15-minute city is being developed near Salt Lake City

  In 2018, the Utah State Legislature passed a bill creating a new land authority to guide the future development of 600 acres of state-owned land in Draper, Utah (just south of Salt Lake City). It’s near an area called The Point of the Mountain and so that’s what’s this project is now being called — The Point. Here’s a map to help you get situated:

  

  In addition to this being a big and meaningful development opportunity with an estimated 7,400 new households being contemplated, the land authority also wants this to become an innovation hub and a model “15-minute city.”

  There has been a lot of talk about 15-minute cities over the course of this pandemic, but the idea is simply to have all/most of your daily needs within walking distance of where you live and to not have to always rely on a car. This is a difficult thing to achieve in many cities, but I think it’s one the greatest urban amenities out there.

  

  A big part of this is creating the right street network and planning for enough density, which is why this can be so challenging to do after the fact. Street grids, in particular, tend to be extremely sticky and mostly immutable. In this case, the plan is to create car free zones (or limited vehicle zones) across the various centers of the development.

  

  Developing walkable communities from scratch is a lot harder than slotting into existing urban fabrics, particularly when you have a contrasting context all around it. You have to get a bunch of different things right for it to be successful. But we continue to see lot more of these urban-focused masterplanning efforts and I think the trend will only continue.

  If you’re a developer who would like to participate in The Point, the RFP door is currently open.

  2022.01.15

• What is a beautiful place?

  

  The UK has something called the National Model Design Code. The purpose of this national code is to provide guidance to local authorities and communities on the production of policies that promote successful design. More specifically, it is intended to help people determine what “good quality design looks like in their area.”

  So as part of this, the code wades into subjective things like beauty, attractiveness, and distinctiveness (see above chart). This is an interesting discussion — and a topic in this recent Monocle radio episode — because, at the end of the day, is there really such a thing as universal beauty? Can we all agree on what the most beautifully designed places in the world are?

  At the same time, and architect Félicie Krikler points this out in the Monocle episode, there are countless examples of ugly places that are still wildly successful by all other urban measures. Is that okay or should they also be beautiful? And if budgets are tight (they always are), is it better to be a beautiful building or to be a more affordable one? Uh oh.

  There is also a temporal consideration. Sometimes the things that were once thought to be ugly are now actually thought to be quite beautiful. Beauty can take time, and places sometimes take time to settle in and find their best uses. This is something that I have written about a few times before on the blog.

  All of this being said, I believe wholeheartedly in the importance of beautiful places. And I don’t think we talk enough about it. Too often we get hung up on esoteric planning stuff, even though so many of the places that we love would never meet these same tests. However subjective as it may be, more beauty is rarely a bad thing.

  Image: National Model Design Code

  2022.01.12

• Informal settlements are the desire lines of housing

  Toronto’s new garden suite (accessory dwelling unit) policies are headed to Planning and Housing Committee this week for approval. If you’d like to leave a supportive comment, you can do that over here by clicking “submit comments” at the top of the page. I just finished doing exactly that.

  Given that this is happening, I figured I would share this related article from the New York Times talking about ADUs and informal housing in Los Angeles. I discovered it through this Strong Towns article by Jay Strange. And I love how he refers to informal structures as the “desire paths” of housing.

  Desire paths, for those of you who may be unfamiliar, are the naturally formed paths and lines that get created when people just walk where they want to walk. Usually these are the shortest and/or most logical routes and, by definition, they don’t align with any designed paths or walkways.

  Jay’s point with informal housing is that it is similarly what people actually want to do, but maybe can’t, usually because of restrictive zoning and/or building codes.

  The New York Times gives the example of a family that illegally built an accessory dwelling unit at the back of their house in the 1990s. It was rented to friends and family, and it helped them get through some difficult financial times. But again, it wasn’t lawful.

  According to some researchers at UCLA, Los Angeles County is estimated to have some 200,000 informal units. Many are forced into demolition, but many, like the above example, manage to sneak under the radar because lots of other people are building them and nobody in the community wants to disrupt things.

  Of course, Los Angeles now allows backyard cottages. And so what was once illegal is now not only permitted, but encouraged. Funny, isn’t it? I don’t know if it was the “desire housing” that ultimately made it happen. But it is clear that many people wanted it and they were voting with their actions.

  2022.01.10

• Toward more multi-family housing

  This recent article by Brookings is a good reminder of the all too important link between land use policies/patterns and GHG emissions. Because electric vehicles are cool and all, but they’re still not as efficient as just walking around and/or taking transit.

  As has been argued before on this blog, we need to not only electrify our transport network, but we also need to change how we get around. And probably the best way to encourage a modal shift, is to plan and build our cities differently. Something that is simple, but not easy.

  It also turns out that people who live in multi-family buildings tend to consume less energy (on a per capita basis) than those in single-family houses. So there are numerous benefits to encouraging denser housing on top of transit and within mixed-used communities.

  With all of this in mind, here are some interesting charts from the above Brookings article.

  

  This first one shows new housing permits in the metro areas of Atlanta, Chicago, and Washington DC, according to their urban, suburban, or exurban status. Here, Chicago is an outlier, with the “urban core” (defined as Cook County) now making up about half of all new housing.

  If you look at the entire study period, the number is less. The urban core accounted for about one-third of new housing permits in Chicago, and only 15% of permits in Atlanta and DC. But in all cases, housing permits in the urban core have been increasing since the 2008 financial crisis.

  

  

  But here’s the other thing. Looking at these next two charts, there appears to be a clear trendline toward more urban housing typologies. The first of these next two is showing single-family housing permits as a percentage of all new housing. And the second is structure type over time.

  Atlanta is still building mostly single-family housing, but less of it. And based on these charts, Chicago has already passed its inflection point. DC is not far off. Every city region is of course going to be different, but it does look like there is some kind of broader housing shift underway.

  2022.01.07