Yule Heibel's Library tagged affordability →  View Popular, Search in Google

Indeed: those attractive downtown neighborhoods aren't very affordable anymore.
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These neighborhoods are the economic drivers of their cities, often accounting for a disproportionate share of public revenue relative to their land mass. But today, only the wealthiest among us can afford to live in them. That will remain the case until we create many more Dupont Circles – enough to finally bring the supply of walkable urban neighborhoods in line with the demand of all the people who want to live in them.

These numbers all speak to a fundamental change in demand in our cities.

“It wasn’t that many years ago that walkable urban places had a price penalty associated with them, not a price premium,” Leinberger says. “That’s the structural shift. And when you have a structural shift, it’s important to change your public policy to take it into consideration.”

Those “walkable urban places” he’s talking about did not necessarily have people walking around in them 20 years ago (“Maybe they were running around because they were fearful of being mugged,” Leinberger says). These were the inner-city neighborhoods that middle-class city-dwellers abandoned decades ago. Over time, they deteriorated. They became the cheap places to live. And now that trend is reversing.
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atlantic_cities urbanism gentrification affordability

Excellent blog post by Donald Elliott on why and how (un)affordability is systemic, and what (little) steps municipalities can take to mitigate the problem.
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What can local government do? It cannot solve the macro-economic problem, but it can remove barriers that drive housing prices even higher than they need to be. Minimum lot size and minimum house size requirements are two of the main culprits. Artificially low multi-family densities are another, and narrow definitions of allowable housing types are a third.
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affordability housing planning urbanplanning density donald_elliott

- about the importance of affordability in helping sustain diversity...

affordability diversity cities vancouver renting replace_magazine

Ryan Avent argues a perspective against NIMBYism here, which never occurred to me before: that "the biggest problem with public involvement and development is that some of the biggest beneficiaries of new development have no seat at the table–those who’ll be living at to-be-constructed residences. Even if you bring all neighborhood stakeholders in, educate them, and get their opinion (eliminating squeaky wheel bias), you’re still not getting the views of all interested parties." He continues as follows:

"However the planning process addresses public participation, policy should begin with a pro-density bias to reflect that fact that other things equal, developments will always be less dense than is socially optimal. That’s because the people who would like to be residents of an area but aren’t benefit from development but have no political say in the matter."

Got that? In ciites, you should plan for optimal density (because that's ecologically efficient, too), but the NIMBYs will argue against density, and they will make those who want to move into the neighbourhood pay the additional cost of keeping density *below* optimal levels. As Avent puts it, "we need to determine whether the burden is on current homeowners to pay for the right to exclude additional residents, or if the burden is on non-residents to pay for the right to live there. Current policy is de facto the latter."

nimbyism urban_development density affordability the_bellows ryan_avent

Ryan Avent of "The Bellows" critiques Ed Glaeser's piece for the New York Sun, which, according to The Bellows, is riddled with errors and is undermined by Glaeser's own research. Glaeser's neo-con thesis in the NY Sun article is that Houston is middle-class-friendlier and somehow more affordable due to its libertarian anti-regulationist stance, and that NYC is unaffordable because it's regulated to the nines. It's a very familiar argument in some circles, and it's interesting to see Ryan take it apart quite deftly.

nyc edward_glaeser ryan_avent urban_development regulation affordability

Great article by Crosscut's Knute Berger on affordability/ housing costs in Seattle, with much to be gleaned for us (BC, Southern Vancouver Island, Lower Mainland), too. "You can blame many factors for the high cost of housing in Seattle, from growth management to infrastructure expansion. But we often overlook another reason: personal taste."

affordability affordable_housing crosscut knute_berger seattle

"Canada is the only major country that doesn't have a national housing strategy, the report notes." The article deals specifically with Toronto and Ontario, but most of what it argues holds for every desirable (and expensive) city (including Victoria) in Canada. This article, by Laurie Monsebraaten, is followed up by a second one from the same day; see http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/299928 "The long wait for affordable places to live" by Tanya Talaga.

affordability affordable_housing funding housing municipal_funding toronto

"By relying on donations from suppliers, a Brampton developer has managed to build high-quality abodes for low-income families.
(...)
When the 16-storey "Chapelview" project, on John St. in downtown Brampton, is finished next year, it will provide 200 apartments for seniors and low-income singles as well as people with disabilities, and if all goes according to plan, it will earn LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification.

If he's successful, D'Angelo believes the Chapelview project, which includes a six-storey garage for municipal and tenant parking, will be the first high-rise social-housing project in North America to receive the LEED platinum rating, the highest benchmark for green building and design."

And then you wonder why this can't be done in more cities across Canada...?

affordability canada cities development socialjustice toronto

affordability cities crosscut housing policy seattle