This is a huge step backwards for the city, one of several deliberate steps ABC has taken to ignore or even increase the physical risks for me and my family when moving around town.

Great post. Unfortunately, I am increasingly convinced that most planners don't even have a conceptual framework to understand how restrictive zoning does harm. Let alone the ability to quantify the harm done.

A popular Vancouver argument against the second one is that total development in the region and in each municipality is capped by quotas (“targets”) and that’s the binding constraint. Given that, development charges are just regulatory capture, but don’t directly reduce housing.

To build far more non-market homes we need to:

*Remove the bottleneck of restrictive zoning.
*Increase capital grants and loans.
*Develop more public sector-driven projects.

We also need far more housing supply, period. Non-market and market rental both. policynote.ca/scale-up/

Loving the changes, in particular the new questions on homelessness and second address. (Question that are being tested are here: statcan.gc.ca/en/statistical…)

I like the theoretical appeal of differential privacy, and have in the past been worried about re-identification. But I have come around after seeing how much DP degrades data quality after running some simulations. This article makes a convincing case against DP for census data.

Nice and short piece on the history of local control and resulting NIMBYism. It’s focused on NYC but Vancouver followed similar paths in the late 60s and early 70s.

Looking forward to getting my hands on this!

Can confirm, Bonn is a nice place. (I grew up there.) And yes, integrated regional transit is awesome.

Happy to have played a part in this doing data analysis/forensics. It's about Facebook's use of 'Sponsored Stories'. Submit a claim if you were on Facebook in the early 2010s and residing in BC, SK, MB, or NL during that time. mailchi.mp/6c8683462bbf/s…

Gentlemen,

Just an observation …

This is a great explainer on the limitations of often-used ways to assess how many houses we need to build, and how using systems thinking can improve our planning going forward:
Planning for Scarcity homefreesociology.com/2022/04/26/pla…

Your regular reminder that targets and “growth forecasts” can be used to enable housing just as much as they can be used to limit housing. Which way you choose to set targets depends on your values.

The foreclosure sale brochure explaining the case for provincial intervention. Municipalities have created and fostered a system of “limited competition” ensuring “robust market growth”. This is not to the benefit of not yet comfortably housed people. storeys.com/marvel-group-2…

A UBC colleague posted this. I share their statement as it says what I would say.

My mother used to say 'two wrongs don't make a right' - the occupation by Israel does not justify the brutality committed by Hamas, neither is Israel justified in destroying Gaza.

All housing is good housing, and basement suites shine when it comes to making existing housing more useful. Which is what the new BC policy is trying to do. I still can’t get excited about encouraging the most “empty” and least secure form of housing. doodles.mountainmath.ca/posts/2021-06-…

I’ve met and I like Patrick Condon. He’s a skilled landscape architect and long-time Congress for the New Urbanism member. Sadly, his ideas about housing economics are largely wrong. Stephen Hoskins explains why & cites good research to support his argument:

Good to see the interest, hoping that a good number of these will materialize. This graph from the article is really informative and puts things into perspective, so far only 226 units have approval to build (or at least to dig), and anther 223 have zoning in place but no DP yet.