Canada’s real estate market fueled by more people choosing to live downtown

[mrnyc]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

But even if US cities built thousands more apts/condos in their downtowns the reality is that most would sit empty.

There would certainly be some exceptions like NYC/SF/Wash and others but by and large Americans shun their inner cities. This is where the cultural differences bewtween the US and Canada become very noticeable.

you made a lot of silly generalizations, but one this is especially completely untrue nowadays. the 'back to the city movement' is in full swing in every city in the usa relative to its size, same as in canada. this is what the millenials and empty nesters want and this is what they are getting. everybody else is jumping on board gradually but steadily as well. the city is where its at from tacoma to pittsburgh and it will only be more so over the next decade and over the years.

[Mister F]

This article has some relevance to this thread:

GTA home buyers prefer walkable neighbourhoods, study says

The dream of home ownership in the Toronto region is evolving, with more home buyers prioritizing a walkable neighbourhood over floor space.

An Environics survey for RBC and the Pembina Institute confirms that most people prefer it when even suburban neighbourhoods function like cities, with easy access to transit, shops and services.

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

Are "indigenous" Canadians that keen on living in Toronto's tower blocks as opposed to rowhouses and single family homes? My understanding is that a lot of these are immigrant-dominated.

There's no real correlation between housing type and immigrant status as far as I can tell, except maybe in some of the older tower-in-the-park neighbourhoods. The mix of ethnicities and backgrounds in the condos built in the last 15 years is pretty representative of the city as a whole.

[M II A II R II K]

Only the old city of Toronto has real walkable neighbourhoods. The rest might as well be outside the city limits.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I am not sure that Ottawa should be lumped in with those cities as opposed to the much closer in size Calgary which you have anointed as one of the big four cities.

In actual fact, Calgary, Ottawa and Edmonton are all basically the same size of city, and their suburban development patterns and practices are also reasonably similar.

I didn't lump Calgary into the larger cities because I think it's more important or worthy, but because it is an outlier in terms of development. The metropolitan region is basically a single city with very centralized employment. It's like a textbook case of an urban economic model, but not really representative of the average Canadian city.

That said, I think that Edmonton and Ottawa have much looser, US-style development practices. Ottawa may be denser in the aggregate, but that's probably only because it has a dense, pre-war core. It also has some 1960s centrally planned satellite areas of high rise slabs, but those days are long gone, too.

[hipster duck]

Anyway, my main point is that before we pat Canadians on the back for having such sustainable land use patterns, we should realize that the small number of Canadian major cities - and the very large proportion of the country's citizens that live in them - means we can't conclude that all Canadian cities have superior land use practices to their US counterparts.

If I picked 5 US cities like Davis CA, Lexington KY, Honolulu, Portland and Miami and said that these are examples of good growth control in cities of various sizes, people would accuse me of cherrypicking, and they would be right. But it's almost impossible not to cherrypick if you're dealing with a country as small as Canada.

[memph]

Originally Posted by M II A II R II K

Only the old city of Toronto has real walkable neighbourhoods. The rest might as well be outside the city limits.

Depends what you can real walkable. I'd consider NYCC and parts of East York and York relatively walkable although not in the same league as Downtown where car ownership is pointless (unless you work in the suburbs).

Also, I think a lot of people who have access to a car still appreciate having a walkable area. And of course people without a car too, although those are relatively uncommon in the Toronto suburbs for now, I think single car households with more than one adult are fairly common in the more working class neighbourhoods.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

I didn't lump Calgary into the larger cities because I think it's more important or worthy, but because it is an outlier in terms of development. The metropolitan region is basically a single city with very centralized employment. It's like a textbook case of an urban economic model, but not really representative of the average Canadian city.

That may be true, but it's not really something it has in common with Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver and Montreal, that would justify grouping them together with them. All three of them have their metros split up into numerous municipalities and are much more polycentric than Calgary.

[sharkfood]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

But even if US cities built thousands more apts/condos in their downtowns the reality is that most would sit empty.

There would certainly be some exceptions like NYC/SF/Wash and others but by and large Americans shun their inner cities. This is where the cultural differences bewtween the US and Canada become very noticeable.

Canadians live a far more communal type existence and we are far more comfortable living that way. Public transit is not a dirty word in Canada nor is public education, public housing, or public space. We are more tolerant of sharing common enmities and are FAR less individualistic than Americans. Americans cherish their independence, individualism, and their space.

In many ways apt living and using transit in the US is diametrically opposed to the very nature of what it means to be American. There are exceptions but they are few. The biggest exceptions are NYC and SF and they are probably the most un-American of all American cities.

Canadians are more socialistic in many ways and are use to and comfortable with government involvement in their lives and society. Canadians are more comfortable with strict planning and government urban regulation whereas in much of the US planning/regulations/government control is equated with communism.

Even if you levelled for incomes downtown, brought in stricter planning, improved transit, brought in better urban schools, and had the same low crime rate as Canadian cities, the truth is the US will never be as urban a society as Canada.

It's not that one is right and the other wrong but that doesn't change the fact it's the reality of our respective cultures.

I think that's a pretty big overstatement of cultural differences. It would be more true to say that Canada has created the right government policies for cities to thrive and for people to be attracted to cities - - That includes severe land use restrictions that force a lot of development into cities; public investment in transit; public investment in education, etc.

In those parts of America where you see similar policies, you also see more urbanism.

America suffers more from intense localism (federal style government) than any innate hostility to cities. I would remind the Canadian readers that when Toronto expanded its urban boundaries about 15 years ago, it did so against the wishes of most Torontonians, who are just as susceptible to localism as anyone else.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by Acajack

That may be true, but it's not really something it has in common with Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver and Montreal, that would justify grouping them together with them. All three of them have their metros split up into numerous municipalities and are much more polycentric than Calgary.

They're not grouped at all. They're just outliers.

[Mister F]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Anyway, my main point is that before we pat Canadians on the back for having such sustainable land use patterns, we should realize that the small number of Canadian major cities - and the very large proportion of the country's citizens that live in them - means we can't conclude that all Canadian cities have superior land use practices to their US counterparts.

If I picked 5 US cities like Davis CA, Lexington KY, Honolulu, Portland and Miami and said that these are examples of good growth control in cities of various sizes, people would accuse me of cherrypicking, and they would be right. But it's almost impossible not to cherrypick if you're dealing with a country as small as Canada.

Canadian cities do, on average, have a more compact built form and higher densities than American cities. Most of the American urban areas you mentioned as having good growth control are no better than the likes of Winnipeg, Windsor, and London. This list has every urban area in the two countries over 250,000 (yes it's old and anything from Demographia is to be taken with a grain of salt, but the numbers appear to be solid). Not only are the Canadian ones concentrated toward the top of the list, but 80% of them have over 1000 people/sq km while only 39% of the American ones do. That's not cherry picking, it's a clear trend.

Of course, European, Asian, and Latin American cities tend to be denser still.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by Mister F

Not only are the Canadian ones concentrated toward the top of the list, but 80% of them have over 1000 people/sq km while only 39% of the American ones do. That's not cherry picking, it's a clear trend.

Of course, European, Asian, and Latin American cities tend to be denser still.

I don't think a sample of 15 cities - 3 of which are part of the same greenbelt legislation - on Wendell Cox's website establishes a "clear trend".

[Mister F]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

I don't think a sample of 15 cities - 3 of which are part of the same greenbelt legislation - on Wendell Cox's website establishes a "clear trend".

You're using the word "sample" in the statistical sense, as in a representative sample of a population. That's not what this is. Comparing every urban area over a certain size isn't a sample, it's the population. The numbers may be on Wendell Cox's site, but they're based on census numbers and simply presented in a list. The list does show a clear trend, one that's understood and accepted by people in urban development in both countries.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by isaidso

I agree that it's a rather crude characterization, but Maritime lot sizes are substantially bigger than what I've seen in Quebec and Ontario.



Interesting that you chose that photo. That's Clayton Park West (and Bayers Lake Industrial Park) I believe. I grew up in the older part (Clayton Park: approximately 10,000 residents) sloping down to the Basin. It is out of frame and would be to the right in that photo.

The densities in Clayton Park are much lower than in Clayton Park West. My house, for instance, was 3000 square feet and our back yard went back about 90 feet on a heavily wooded lot. Practically every house in the area is like that. There were no multi unit apartment blocks except for one small area. Another small area on the periphery had town houses. The bulk of Clayton Park consists of large detached houses on big lots.

It's less efficient land use, but I find Clayton Park far more idyllic than Clayton Park West. Neither is pedestrian friendly so I just don't see the point in building suburbs like Clayton Park West. You lose the beauty of those big lots and you don't gain any sort of urbanity in return. Both are car dependent.

Either build proper suburbs with big lots or proper urban residential with a retail apron and high streets. Those in between developments like Clayton Park West are the worst of both worlds. Clayton Park West type suburbia is pointless imo.

Except they aren't actually as car based as the lower density example, because even if the design isn't as pedestrian or transit friendly as it should be, there are still a larger number of people within walking distance of each bus route and as result it is possible to better cover the area with transit. I would wager that the areas without significant multi family construction would have a markedly lower transit mode share, although I don't know if such statistics are actually kept on a neighbourhood basis.