Additional material on previous items:
Further to the post below on vault lights in sidewalks, PT quoted from a blog titled Vanalogue. Hadn’t heard of Christine Hagemoen‘s history-themed contribution to our city – “exploring and featuring all things analogue (or ‘old school’) in Vancouver (and the rest of the world).”
Our loss, because it’s been active since 2013, and it’s really good. Delves into all kinds of surprising items about this place, with a lot of background, insight and illustration. Check it out.
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PT has added a credit to the post on Larry Beasley and Metro Vancouver’s Potential Third Housing Sector, where we quoted Daphne Bramham‘s column:
Price Tags relies on journalists like Daphne to do a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to coverage of local issues, in particular. And we wouldn’t be the first to note that such experienced professionals are in danger in this new media environment. We’ll make sure we give them credit.
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Some interesting comments already to the post on Branch Plant Politics.
Rebecca thought “stuff like this belongs in another forum.” Dan Ross thought not. And Geof provided a particularly good commentary, worth bringing forward:
The urban/rural-suburban divide is perhaps *the* defining political fact, geographically and culturally. Rob Ford weaponized it. The NDP is divided over it. Christy Clark used it as a referendum wedge.
Urbanism changes our politics. I believe there is scholarship to that effect: the experience of urban diversity actually changes people’s views. Living in the city tends to make people more liberal. Mixed developments and transit make future liberal voters, just as suburban plots and freeways make future conservative voters.
At the same time, cities exacerbate and highlight hierarchy and inequality. City and suburb sort us by tribe, by education, by income. Often these are side-by-side, as with our own downtown east side. They are the home of both the poor and the smug elites: a politically explosive combination of others.
Urbanism is a class thing. To the rich (old neighbourhoods are like old money) go the spoils: the walkable neighbourhoods, the bicycle paths, the subway lines. Like a working class man who would not be caught dead with a posh accent, suburbanites denied these things reject them.
At its best, urbanism physically challenges echo chambers as we are brought face to face with those who are not like us. (But not all those who are not like us: tragically and perhaps shamefully, many Democrats in U.S. cities did not know a single Trump voter.) At its worst, it dissolves our community bonds and rubs our noses in who we cannot be and what we cannot have.
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Geof is not alone. From the Washington Post:
Daphne Bramham’s article gets close but still misses, in my view. She quotes Larry Beasley, to paraphrase, that “increasing supply has not brought down prices.” Well, supply of what? A more nuanced analysis would have examined median price comparisons between housing types. Many thousands of apartments in the Metro are affordable.
The real estate board publishes city-by-city data every month, and you can compare the median price gaps between apartments and townhouses (noticeable) and these with detached homes (a big gap there) between different locations. The Missing Middle is located in the gap …. that’s why it’s missing!
The third way Beasley proposes is a cogent proposal based on his decades of experience. However, family housing produced in the attached form using a very small piece of land will be several hundred thousand cheaper than the distinctly unaffordable detached models based on outdated 60s subdivision planning, and yes more expensive than the average apartment. However, including suites from inception will raise family incomes. Offering lower prices and increased incomes within single family homes, how can that not benefit our housing situation as well as neighbourhood schools and shops?
There will of course be speculation and investment purchases in multiples, but that is now starting to be addressed, whereas housing supply on the extraordinarily inefficient RS-zoned land hasn’t been touched, with the exception of laneway housing and secondary suites, which barely nip at the tens of km2 available.
The next rung down would be low-rises, and these may be ideal places to experiment with cohousing and such.