John Stone, a newly minted PhD at the University of Melbourne, just sent along his finished thesis:
Political factors in the rebuilding of mass transit: an investigation of failure in Melbourne since 1970 through comparisons with Perth and Vancouver.
For you transit wonks, the whole thesis is worth the read. But even if you’re only interested in the sections on Vancouver, John’s analysis is the best summary of our transportation history I’ve come across.
It begins on page 214 of the thesis (page 224 on the pdf), and is chock full of insights by commentators past and present – especially from Ken Cameron, past strategic planner at the GVRD.
Congratulations, John – and thanks for giving your Commonwealth cousins the benefit of your study.
“Later changes have included requirements for ‘non-market’ housing and for a certain proportion of residential developments to be ‘family housing’ of a fixed minimum size located in the lower floors of high-rise towers.”
This is from page qr7 of the thesis. It’s news to me. I wasn’t aware that any of the new Coal Harbour or Yaletown towers had any family sized apartments, that is 1500 to 200 square feet, except of course at prices of $1 million or more.
TYPO: I meant page 157!
I wasn’t aware that you needed 1500-2000sqft to be consindered family sized.
Heck my sfh isn’t that large, the home I grew up with wasn’t either.
Family units are any unit with 2 or more bedrooms, they might not be what everyone deems family friendly but they seem to work well for quite a large segment of the population on this planet.
I cannot imagine a family today, with one kid let alone two, being comfortable in an apartment of much less than 1500 square feet. When you add together the demands for a main bedroom with its own bath and major closet, a bedroom/den for office and guest sleeping, the kid’s bedroom, and sufficient closets all round for insuite storage and laundry, you’re going to end up at somthing very close to 1500 sf as a minimum.
A detached house can have an official main and second story area less than that because there’s a basement, garage, crawl space, etc. for storage.
If there were two kids of opposite sex, any hope of staying under 1500 sf is gone if you’re going to use contemporary North American standards, instead of tricking people by altering the comparison frame to “the planet”. Is that the comparison base you would agree to accept for your wage level or other income source? Then why try to impose that comparison base onto the housing stock of others?
The average house size in our grandparents generation was under the 1500sqft and they had more kids then we do today. We need to drop the fixation of bigger is better. In fact I reckon that the close quarters helped develop stronger family ties. We don’t need to escape North America, we just need to look backwards.
Why not consider contemporary Canadian standards, instead of those of 50 or 100 years ago? Would you accept the same household appliances? A B&W TV? No computer at home?
In Greater Vancouver people have been forced by bad public policy to accept well above national average house and apartment prices for nearly 40 years. Some have resigned themselves to this fact and now try to advertise essentially below average accommodation, which is all they can afford, as somehow being the new normal. People earning the same income doing similar work in other communities would be appalled if they had to live in the conditions their Vancouver counterparts have been forced to accept.
People are free to move to those other communitiesif they chose. I could make the same arguement that some Vancouverites would be appalled if resigned to live in some of those communites and have to give up all the vancouver standards they have grown used to. We are running in circles and should just agree to disagree. I beleive the market sets the price and people are obviously prepared to pay more for less to live here and it’s been that way for a long time now.
“I beleive the market sets the price and people are obviously prepared to pay more for less to live here and it’s been that way for a long time now.”
This is what I hear from realtors. People are “prepared” or “willing” to pay these prices, they are set by the market, that’s it, there’s nothing further to consider.
But the truth is that the market price is heavily influenced by government policy in the form of deliberate supply side restrictions such as zoning and densities, floor space ratios, and transportation infrastructure, as well as the decisions of senior governments on locating major health and educational facilities, port traffic, etc. This market is not operating in a vacuum, and the people with the greatest interest in appreciating real estate prices are those who have the material incentive to put the most pressure on senior and local governments in the design of all the public policies that impact the GVRD real estate market.
Frankly, their backroom influence has been a roaring success for them, and a complete disaster for Vancouver. Since 2000 Vancouver has slipped into fourth place behind Calgary for head office employment. No company wants to put people in a city where either they agree to live poor, and start compensating by shirking and becoming less productive, or else the employer agrees to double his payroll costs.