Part 9 from a discussion guide, Density in a City of Neighbourhoods – my perspective of a journey from the earliest years of land-abundant settlement to the towering glass city of 2012 – written for Carbon Talks at SFU.
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LIVABLILITY, SUSTAINABILITY, AND … AFFORDABILITY?
For the more fortunate, the issue that emerged in the 2000s was not density; it was whether there was room for the kind of people who used to be able to afford a Vancouver home when it was still a largely suburban city. That was Vancouver from the 1890s to the 1970s – the era, not surprisingly, coincident with a constant supply of cheap land. As the early 1970s demonstrated, with rapidly rising housing prices, rents and interest rates, there are no simple explanations in complicated markets. However the era of cheap land is over, subject to the impact of some seismic event, whether literal or metaphorical, such as the kind of economic earthquake we experienced in 2008.
As real estate increases in value, property owners become more vested in stability. Only incremental change is desired, on the assumption that nothing should (or can) lower property values. When it comes to change in a well-aged neighbourhood, certainty is preferred.
Consider, though, what would happen if an affordable housing strategy succeeded at lowering values of existing housing below the cost of the mortgages paid by struggling homeowners. Such a policy would not be received kindly. Perversely then, new housing in an expensive neighbourhood will be seen to be expensive. If new housing was significantly cheaper, it might threaten existing values.
Affordability, in those circumstances, can only be achieved by buying less space, often in forms that are different from the existing housing stock and which don’t easily serve the needs of families with children, at least by traditional standards. Some adapt to more constrained conditions (probably not that much different from their parents), sometimes with ease depending on the amenities and support systems for children. Those families looking for larger but more affordable houses go to the farther suburbs – places that are still opening up green fields and rezoning cheaper land, like Vancouver in its first decades.
But a strategy that assumes most growth will occur beyond our boundaries will likely make our transportation and sustainability goals more unreachable, even as commuters are forced to pay higher transportation costs and become more car-dependent. Nor will it address the affordability demand of housing for our own workforce, much less accommodate economic diversity, particularly for the younger creative workforce.
Hence, the process of planning for the future must inevitably look to existing neighbourhoods, and to new forms of housing – to different ways of accommodating change without changing the fundamental character of a community.
Vancouver is still an adolescent city, and its growth can be sudden and awkward. For those who recognize its extraordinary beauty and civility, change can threaten a sense of paradise. When something can no longer be, there is nostalgia for what once was, or what we remembered it to be. This leads to a desire to slow down change, and to extend the planning process until all potential threats are mitigated.
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Part 3: The Beginning of Densification
Part 4(a): The Modern Era – Transition
Part 4(b): The Modern Era – A Decade of Highrises
Part 6: Condos and Megaprojects
Part 7(a): Vancouver’s Greenest City Goals
Part 7(b): Vancouver’s Greenest City Goals
Part 8: New Issues, New Challenges
Density in a City of Neighbourhoods (full document)
