Oh boy, have we spoken a lot about inclusionary zoning over the years (see here, here, and the full list of 43 posts that I have tagged with "inclusionary zoning" here). Politicians tend to like this policy because they can present it as no-cost or "free" affordable housing. Few people have much sympathy for real estate developers, so it's easy to just say, "Don't worry, we'll just get the developers to pay for it."

But the reality of inclusionary zoning is that you need a robust housing market that can absorb the additional cost burden of delivering affordable homes. There's no such thing as a free lunch in economics, which is why when you read IZ reports and policy documents, you'll typically find language to the effect that it only works in a strong economy and a strong housing market.

These two descriptors do not generally apply in Ontario today, and so the province has just proposed an amendment that will pause the inclusionary zoning by-law. More specifically: developments with a complete application for a zoning by-law amendment, site plan approval, or a building permit on or before July 1, 2027, will not be subject to IZ in the cities of Toronto, Mississauga, and Kitchener.

Why?

Because IZ is deemed unviable under the current market conditions. In other words, there's nobody to whom the cost of building affordable housing can be passed. If you'd like to comment on this proposal, you can do that here, and you have until January 19, 2026.

Cover photo by Gleb Kozenko on Unsplash

Conventional wisdom suggests that the way to get really good at something is to (1) start as early as possible learning the thing and (2) focus exclusively on the thing. This is relevant information for elite schools, sport academies, and other institutions because it leads to, "let's find the best young talent and then further accelerate their skills through discipline-specific practice."

But recent research has found that this typically isn't the case. By looking at more than 34,000 adult international top performers in different domains ranging from classical music composers to Olympic champions, researchers found the following three major features associated with human development (quoted verbatim from here):

1. Early exceptional performers and later exceptional performers within a domain are rarely the same individuals but are largely discrete populations over time. For example, world top-10 youth chess players and later world top-10 adult chess players are nearly 90% different individuals across time. Top secondary students and later top university students are also nearly 90% different people. Likewise, international-level youth athletes and later international-level adult athletes are nearly 90% different individuals.

2. Most top achievers (Nobel laureates and world-class musicians, athletes, and chess players) demonstrated lower performance than many peers during their early years. Across the highest adult performance levels, peak performance is negatively correlated with early performance.

3. The pattern of predictors that distinguishes among the highest levels of adult performance is different from the pattern of predictors of early performance. Higher early performance in a domain is associated with larger amounts of discipline-specific practice, smaller amounts of multidisciplinary practice, and faster early discipline-specific performance progress. By contrast, across high levels of adult performance, world-class performance in a domain is associated with smaller amounts of discipline-specific practice, larger amounts of early multidisciplinary practice, and more gradual early discipline-specific performance progress. These predictor effects are closely correlated with one another, suggesting a robust pattern.

In other words, it's a long game:

The most successful and highest-performing adults seem to start off as well-rounded kids.

Cover photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

Oh boy, have we spoken a lot about inclusionary zoning over the years (see here, here, and the full list of 43 posts that I have tagged with "inclusionary zoning" here). Politicians tend to like this policy because they can present it as no-cost or "free" affordable housing. Few people have much sympathy for real estate developers, so it's easy to just say, "Don't worry, we'll just get the developers to pay for it."

But the reality of inclusionary zoning is that you need a robust housing market that can absorb the additional cost burden of delivering affordable homes. There's no such thing as a free lunch in economics, which is why when you read IZ reports and policy documents, you'll typically find language to the effect that it only works in a strong economy and a strong housing market.

These two descriptors do not generally apply in Ontario today, and so the province has just proposed an amendment that will pause the inclusionary zoning by-law. More specifically: developments with a complete application for a zoning by-law amendment, site plan approval, or a building permit on or before July 1, 2027, will not be subject to IZ in the cities of Toronto, Mississauga, and Kitchener.

Why?

Because IZ is deemed unviable under the current market conditions. In other words, there's nobody to whom the cost of building affordable housing can be passed. If you'd like to comment on this proposal, you can do that here, and you have until January 19, 2026.

Cover photo by Gleb Kozenko on Unsplash

Conventional wisdom suggests that the way to get really good at something is to (1) start as early as possible learning the thing and (2) focus exclusively on the thing. This is relevant information for elite schools, sport academies, and other institutions because it leads to, "let's find the best young talent and then further accelerate their skills through discipline-specific practice."

But recent research has found that this typically isn't the case. By looking at more than 34,000 adult international top performers in different domains ranging from classical music composers to Olympic champions, researchers found the following three major features associated with human development (quoted verbatim from here):

1. Early exceptional performers and later exceptional performers within a domain are rarely the same individuals but are largely discrete populations over time. For example, world top-10 youth chess players and later world top-10 adult chess players are nearly 90% different individuals across time. Top secondary students and later top university students are also nearly 90% different people. Likewise, international-level youth athletes and later international-level adult athletes are nearly 90% different individuals.

2. Most top achievers (Nobel laureates and world-class musicians, athletes, and chess players) demonstrated lower performance than many peers during their early years. Across the highest adult performance levels, peak performance is negatively correlated with early performance.

3. The pattern of predictors that distinguishes among the highest levels of adult performance is different from the pattern of predictors of early performance. Higher early performance in a domain is associated with larger amounts of discipline-specific practice, smaller amounts of multidisciplinary practice, and faster early discipline-specific performance progress. By contrast, across high levels of adult performance, world-class performance in a domain is associated with smaller amounts of discipline-specific practice, larger amounts of early multidisciplinary practice, and more gradual early discipline-specific performance progress. These predictor effects are closely correlated with one another, suggesting a robust pattern.

In other words, it's a long game:

The most successful and highest-performing adults seem to start off as well-rounded kids.

Cover photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash