Urban Scrawl

Pic of the Day: The Evolution of Urban Planning

noreply@blogger.com (lmcguire) — Fri, 16 Feb 2018 22:33:00 +0000

Urban planning is a surprisingly young professional discipline. It's development over the past century has shaped our everyday lives; what our houses look like, our daily commute, how we interact with our neighbours. This infographic by Konstantin von der Schulenburg takes us on a visual tour of some of urban planning's most crucial, and bold, phases. These ideas will continue to shape our cities, and to no small extent, our daily lived experience.

Canada's New National Housing Strategy

noreply@blogger.com (lmcguire) — Sun, 26 Nov 2017 21:45:00 +0000

Housing in Canada

Last week, the Canadian Federal Government made the long awaited announcement to launch a national housing strategy. Access to decent housing is one of the strongest pillars towards positive long-term outcomes. The quality of our housing affects our physical health, it affects the levels of stress we experience, it impacts the early development of children. In short, housing is an important social determinant of health, along factors of gender, race, income, education, and ability (among others). Our understanding of the importance of housing is increasing, and has led to the growing acceptance of the Housing First strategy, which argues that securing housing is the first step towards effectively supporting people facing chronic homelessness.

The Federal Government was involved in a long period of leading the development of social housing units for Canadians for about thirty years beginning in the early 1960's. The vast majority of social housing townhouse and apartment units that we find clustered together in our cities came to life during this period. In the early 1990's things quickly changed. Social housing funding responsibilities were devolved to the provinces and federal money for affordable housing ended. This decade experienced a slide in housing access and an increase in housing stress across the country. In the present day there exists a strong argument that we are in the middle of a housing crisis. Although Canada is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, many Canadians struggle to afford rent or follow the path towards homeownership.

Rate of Affordable Housing across Canada
(Percentage of households paying more than 30% of income on housing)

Housing Affordability across Canada (source: Canadian 2016 Census)

How do we measure housing stress?

There are a number of things to consider when measuring access to housing. The first distinction is between homeowners and renters. Affordability is measured differently between these two groups. For homeowners affordability is in relation to mortgage and maintenance costs. For renters it comes down to the monthly rent cheque. The policy implications of housing needs for both groups is different as well. Support for homeowners would include policies of assisting with mortgage insurance, down payments and monthly mortgage interest. Renters would be assisted by policies the implement rent-controls and protect tenant rights and landlord obligations. In recent history housing policies and supports have been more geared towards supporting homeowners. The construction of new rental units has dwindled as focus has turned towards the construction of owned condo units.

The second distinction is the type of housing stress. The presence of "Housing Core Need" is determined by the presence of three types of housing stress: affordability, suitability and adequacy. If a household is experiencing need in any of these three areas (and would need to spend more than 30% of their income to meet these standards), they are experiencing housing core need. The definitions of these sub-categories are:

Affordable: housing costs (mortgage or rent) do not exceed 30% of a households income.
Suitable: there are enough bedrooms for the household
Adequate: housing does not require any major repairs.

Source: Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation

Housing Core Need across Canada

Housing core need is experience at a higher level by specific groups in Canada. While on average 12.6% of households are in a state of housing core need, lone parent families, off-reserve Aboriginal households and recent immigrant households experience housing core need at a much elevated level. Across Canada, about 1 in 2 low-income households struggle to maintain affordable, adequate and suitable housing.

Between 2006 and 2016 housing core need stayed stable at 12.7%, representing 1.7 million people. This means that while the situation overall isn't getting worse, it also isn't getting better. The housing crunch, felt most strongly by disadvantaged groups continues in a country that saw its GDP rise by over 16% during the same time period.

Source: Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation

Housing Core Need Across Canada

Toronto

Housing Core Need 2006 - 19%

Housing Core Need 2016 - 19.1%

Neighbourhoods with Highest Housing Core Need:

Flemingdon Park = 66 %

Thorncliffe = 62 %

Crescent Town = 55.9 %

Scarborough (Eglinton and Kingston) = 55.3 %

Flemingdon Park = 55.1 %

Ottawa

Housing Core Need 2006 - 12%

Housing Core Need 2016 - 11.9%

Neighbourhoods with Highest Housing Core Need:

Heron Gate = 45.5 %

Vanier = 43.4 %

Strathcona Heights = 38.5 %

West Centretown = 37.1 %

Overbrook = 34.6 %

Montreal

Housing Core Need 2006 - 12.5%

Housing Core Need 2016 - 10.9%

Neighbourhoods with Highest Housing Core Need:

Montreal Nord (Duplessis and Langelier) = 30.7 %

St. Jean sur Richelieu = 30.7 %

Montreal Nord (Duplessis and Langelier) = 30.5 %

Parc Extension = 30.4 %

Saint Jerome = 29.9 %

Calgary

Housing Core Need 2006 - 9%

Housing Core Need 2016 - 11.3%

Neighbourhoods with Highest Housing Core Need:

East Village = 32.2 %

Southview = 31.2 %

Forest Lawn = 28.9 %

Bridgeland = 24.6 %

Falconridge = 24.5 %

Vancouver

Housing Core Need 2006 - 17%

Housing Core Need 2016 - 17.6%

Neighbourhoods with Highest Housing Core Need:

Downtown Eastside = 55 %

Guildford = 44.2 %

Downtown Eastside = 43.5 %

Langley = 42.9 %

Gastown = 38.9 %

The National Housing Strategy

The National Housing Strategy will look to alleviate housing stress throughout Canada through an injection of new funds and stronger reporting tools to the government. Some key highlights of the strategy are:

- $15.9 billion for a National Housing Co-Investment Fund to repair and renew existing social housing and to build new affordable housing

- $4.3 billion for a community housing initiative aimed at protecting the affordability of existing housing units

- Resources for housing research and data collection

- Federal lands for affordable housing projects

- $2.2 billion for a Homelessness Partnering Strategy

- Development of language to enshrine access to housing as a right. This will create a responsibility for the Federal Government to maintain a strategy supported by national housing indicators while creating a housing advocacy body.

- Funding focus through a gender analysis leading to a 25% of funds going towards projects supporting housing for women and girls

For more on this housing strategy, visit the Canadian Housing Renewal Association.

Looking forward

This strategy is long past due, however it's good news all the same. From here it will be important that housing support is provided specifically towards groups that need it. Housing for Aboriginal communities, both rural and urban are in dire need and any successful strategy will need to prioritize this issue. Looking forward, hopefully this strategy will create small improvements in an incredible important area, changes that will hopefully be reflecting in 2021 Housing Core Need statistics.

To look up data on housing need in your community, check out the new Census viewer.

For more housing statistics, visit the CMHC's website.

Why can't on-street parking be this easy everywhere? San Francisco's SFpark...

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Sat, 18 Nov 2017 20:39:00 +0000

Just last weekend I had the fortune of visiting my close friends in San Francisco. It was my first time visiting SF and the combination of its climate, excellent (and diverse) food, lively sports culture (especially if you're a Golden State Warriors fan!), and urban planning marvels make it a gem of a city with no shortage of things to do.

Naturally, as an urban planner and transportation nerd, I couldn't resist the urge to closely examine the city's transit system (called "BART"), indulge in its many parklets, and cherish the good walkability in many of its neighbourhoods.

I was also observing its on-street parking behaviour and noticed how easy it was for drivers to find a parking space.

Several years ago I published a post about San Francisco's on-street parking pilot project (referred to as "SFpark"). The program, introduced in 2011, uses smart parking metres that "change their prices based on location, time of day, and day of the week with the goal of keeping about 15% of spaces vacant on any given block".

In other words, by pricing parking in real-time, drivers are equipped with information about where parking is available and at what cost. Because the system uses demand responsive pricing, blocks that only have a couple of vacant spaces will cost more, whereas those with only a few parked vehicles will cost less. This video provides an excellent overview:

As a transportation planner frequently working on parking management, SFpark is truly a masterpiece. In 2014, about three years after its implementation, an evaluation was completed to understand its overall impact. The most important finding from the evaluation is that SFpark has improved parking availability. It has also resulted in a number of secondary benefits, concisely presented in this 11 page report by the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA).

Here are some highlights:

Overall Experience Finding a Parking Space

Drivers surveyed before and after SFpark were asked to rate their parking experience. After SFpark was introduced, those who reported that it was "somewhat or very easy to pay for parking" increased in pilot areas by 75 percent, or about twice as much in areas that did not receive new parking metres or longer time limits (i.e., the control area).

Decrease in Search ("Cruising") Time

Drivers, the world over, often search for free parking or attempt to pay the lowest possible price. One potential consequence of free parking is known as “cruising”, which occurs when drivers circle an area or parking lot looking for an available parking space.

Cruising for parking has been shown to have negative ramifications including impacts on traffic congestion, air pollution, and loss of time and productivity. A study by Donald Shoup found that across 11 cities around the world, between 8 and 74 percent of traffic was searching for parking and it took between 3.5 and 13.9 minutes to find an on-street parking space.

According to the SFpark evaluation, the reported search time to find a parking space decreased by 43% for those streets that were part of the pilot. A decrease in search time (i.e., cruising) means less "circling" helping to reduce impacts on local traffic congestion. In fact, where parking availability improved, for both pilot and control areas, traffic volume decreased by about 8% compared to a 4.5 increase in areas where parking availability worsened.

SFpark has reduced the time it takes to find a parking space. Credit: SFMTA, 2014.

Decreased Vehicle Miles Traveled

In the United States, vehicle miles traveled (VMT) is a broad measure of how much private vehicle travel there is in a jurisdiction (be it a city, region, state, etc.). In Canada, it's referred to as vehicle kilometres traveled. SFpark reported that due to a decrease in cruising, pilot areas witnessed a 30 percent decrease in vehicle miles traveled from 8,134 miles per day in 2011 to 5,721 miles per day by 2013. Control areas saw a 6 percent decrease.

A decrease in VMT results in less traffic and less carbon pollution.

Reduction in Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions

The evaluation found that drivers generated 7 metric tonnes of GHG emissions per day looking for parking in pilot areas. By 2013, this decreased to 4.9 metric tonnes (30% less), compared to a 6 percent decrease in control areas.

Credit: SFMTA, 2014

Lessons for other Cities

Donald Shoup, who we've blogged about several times in the past, widely regarded as the world's foremost experts on parking management, provided the intellectual foundations for the approach used by SFpark. I bring this up partly to attribute how theoretical ideas from the academy, can, at times, significantly contribute to improving the way we manage our cities. Urban planning as a discipline (and profession) is inherently more applied than other fields, but it's encouraging to see how strong relationships and collaboration between universities and city agencies can truly have a positive impact.

While SFpark has its limitations (see article here), it has, and continues to demonstrate how priced parking can strongly influence driving (and parking) behaviour, resulting in a number of transportation, social, and environmental benefits. Oh, and by the way, SFpark has also increased the SFMTA net parking revenues by approximately $1.9M per year (according to the 2014 evaluation).

SFpark can deliver many of the same benefits in other North American cities. On-street parking is notoriously a painful, frustrating, and laborious exercise. Why not make it a better experience for all by charging the right price for parking?

Finding the Right Path for Transit in a Smaller Community

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Wed, 26 Jul 2017 16:50:00 +0000

As many of our readers know, I currently work as a transportation planner for a Calgary-based firm called WATT Consulting Group. I'm based out of the company's Victoria office.

Earlier this year I published an article on LinkedIn describing a recent transit project we completed on Vancouver Island. I've re-posted that article below as the project -- and its kind findings -- have implications for city planning. Hope you enjoy.

Finding the Right Path for Transit in a Smaller Community

By Tim Shah

Whether big city or smaller region, it’s critical that decisions on major transit route changes look far into the future.

But what if you’re a smaller community that has less access than your big city peers to the modelling tools or resources that can help you choose the right path?

In partnership with BC Transit and the Comox Valley Regional District, Watt Consulting Group ("WATT") recently helped the Comox Valley Transit System accomplish such a task. The project showcased how existing community tools and resources can be used in innovative ways to create a path forward for the system’s new Frequent Transit Route.

About the Community and Project

The Comox Valley Transit System serves the Comox Valley Regional District on British Columbia’s Vancouver Island. A region of approximately 66,000 people (2016 census) spread between the three municipalities of Courtenay, Comox and Cumberland and rural areas, the system serves a mix of riders in its growing community.

Funded in partnership with BC Transit—the provincial crown agency that provides funding, planning, scheduling, operating and administrative support to all transit systems in the province of BC outside of Metro Vancouver—the system recently completed a long term Transit Future Plan to chart future priorities and growth (you can view the plan here).

The purpose of the Transit Future Plan is to envision what a community’s public transit network should look like 25 years from now and include what priorities, infrastructure, and investment are needed to get there. Over the past five years, BC Transit has developed these plans for the 14 largest regions in British Columbia outside of Metro Vancouver.

In many of the Transit Future Plan communities, the first step after the plan’s completion is a comprehensive restructuring of all services around the proposed new network. Pivotal to this is identifying and confirming the corridors for the highest orders of transit: Rapid Transit or Frequent Transit corridors depending on the system.

In Comox Valley’s case, a brand new Frequent Transit corridor was set to be the anchor for the system’s future development and growth. The only issue? Two possible corridors it could utilize and many options in terms of where to place the connection points for local services.

How to choose the right corridor for the future? The map below illustrates the two corridor options that were assessed.

Choosing the Right Corridor

To assist BC Transit with realizing its next step, our team of planners and engineers at Watt Consulting Group prepared a comprehensive Frequent Transit corridor study to evaluate the two corridor options. The ultimate goal of the study was to recommend a preferred corridor where frequent service will be provided in the future and local routes would be re-planned to provide access to/from the frequent corridor.

Our team undertook a number of technical analyses that provide valuable lessons for transit professionals, especially those working in rural settings. The key findings are summarized below.

Ridership Potential

Understanding the ridership potential of a frequent transit corridor option is an important consideration for its overall success. In transit talk, ridership potential refers to the residential and employment population contained within a reasonable walking distance of each corridor option (typically 400-800m).

To determine the corridor’s ridership potential, our team identified land use designations from the City of Courtenay’s Official Community Plan that were situated along the corridors. We assumed maximum build-out over a 25-year period to estimate the development potential within each designation. A maximum build-out scenario allowed our team to determine the number of potential residents and employees within 100m, 200m and 400m walking distance from each corridor.

Looking at this information visually, through a spatial analysis with this rigor and clarity, helps transit planners make informed decisions about where transit service is most likely to result in maximum ridership.

Transit Travel Times

The corridors’ ridership potential is only part of the story. We also wanted to understand how transit travel time compared between the two corridors. Our first step was completing an in-field travel time survey where we drove the two corridors. We then compared our results with projected travel time in Google Maps. We averaged the travel times from these assessments and assumed a 20% increase in travel time to account for “bus dwelling time”, that is, the time that a bus spends stopped and travelling at reduced speed while serving a stop.

Using a traffic modelling program called VISSIM, we created a model to represent known current traffic conditions. We then modelled future traffic volumes on to the network using a growth rate of 1% per year for 25 years. The model also quantified the expected savings in bus travel time with the implementation of transit priority. Transit priority measures included everything from left-turn phase for “bus only” and queue jump lanes that enable buses to “leap frog” congestion, to transit signal priority measures that hold “green” time for buses as they approach at intersections. Our analysis also showed the anticipated delay on other modes of transportation at key intersections as a result of transit priority measures.

Summing Up and Making Decisions

Analyzing information was only part of the task: the key goal was to determine the right corridor. We fed the results from the technical analyses into a robust analysis and decision making tool that compared results across criteria that broadly reflected planning and engineering principles. This method allowed our team to present clear trade-offs associated with each route option and make an informed recommendation grounded in planning and engineering data.

Moving forward, our study will help the Comox Valley region and BC Transit with transit planning that is based on sound, technical and data-driven analysis. Even more importantly, the groups can move forward on further investment in future stations, connection points and land use decision making knowing that they are on the right path.

The study was recently endorsed by the Comox Valley Regional District Board and is available online here.

The Economist on "The perilous politics of parking"

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Wed, 05 Jul 2017 04:30:00 +0000

"Aparkalypse now" is the clever heading of a recent article in the Economist called "The Perlious Politics of Parking". As a transportation planner working on parking management studies on a frequent basis, I've become acutely aware of the many egregious consequences that arise when parking is not properly priced, or worse, when it is provided for free.

The Economist provides a succinct yet comprehensive global picture of why under-pricing parking can result in negative ramifications. From the article:

"Parking spaces seem innocuous, just a couple of lines painted on asphalt. Multiplied and mismanaged, though, they can create traffic jams, worsen air pollution and force cities to sprawl. The cost and availability of parking affects people’s commuting habits more than the rapid buses and light-rail lines that cities are so keen to build (see article). Next to other worthy policies like congestion-charging and road-tolling, parking is also easy to change.

In many cities people can park on the street for nothing, or a pittance. In Boston most parking meters charge just $1.25 an hour; in Chennai the rate is 20 rupees (30 cents) a day. Because the number of people who would take advantage of such terrific deals, rather than pay a market rate to park in a garage, exceeds supply, drivers end up circling the block. Researchers have found that much traffic consists of drivers looking for spaces. The record is held by the German city of Freiburg—in one study 74% of cars were on the prowl."

Image credit: Seattle Dept of Transportation

Ever since I started writing for the Urban Scrawl, I've argued that urban planners need to use pricing to [a] better and more efficiently allocate scarce resources (such as on-street parking spaces in a downtown core) and [b] alleviate negative externalities like congestion, air pollution, and carbon emissions.

As I wrote in my August 2012 post, planners have a role to play in better understanding how municipal parking policies may be unfairly subsidizing parking by not revealing its true market price. Whether this is through outdated parking requirements or artificially low on-street parking prices, planners need to be play a more prominent role in helping raise the price of parking in areas where demand is greatest. This is the essence of the article in the Economist and the crux of Donald Shoup's 40-year career studying this topic.

For those unfamiliar with this topic, the Economist article is a great start and nicely articulates why priced parking is an effective tool in the planner's toolbox for smart, efficient, and forward looking urban planning.

Remember, and to quote the Economist, the average car moves just 5% of the time. For the remaining 95% of the time, a car is parked -- that's right, just sitting there -- taking up precious (and increasingly valuable) urban space from pedestrians and urban development. Let's use priced parking to encourage commuters to think twice about using their vehicle and allow our streets to be less clogged by thousands of 3,000 pound pieces of metal.

Scarchitecture and the Urban Palimpsest

noreply@blogger.com (lmcguire) — Sun, 07 May 2017 17:04:00 +0000

Cities are constantly changing. Their landscapes adapt to growing populations, advances in technology and shifts in how the land is used. With each change creates a physical imprint on the urban landscape. Old commercial buildings are replaced by large residential condos while railways are replaced by highways. Rivers are diverted or disappear entirely under the urban grid. The past of a city can easily be lost to the winds of time. By viewing the city as a "palimpsest," urban geographers interpret urban landscapes as layers written over layers. Often however, the past is not entirely hidden. An understanding of a neighbourhood's history and some careful searching can often expose the physical footprints of our cities' histories.

The podcast 99 Percent Invisible is a great source of stories examining the hidden or subtle forces that govern our lives, especially in the context of urbanism. Recently they posted an online post on "scarchitecture," the revelation of past rail lines infilled by housing and other building developments. Their collection of birds-eye views reveals past lines of transportation that have been layered over with time, and yet are still visible through the angled in-fill of more recently development. You can read the full post by clicking here.

Former streets in Los Angeles (source: 99pi.org)

After reading this post I was inspired to look into my own backyard in an attempt to reveal past layers of Ottawa's own palimpsest. Combining some past histories of Ottawa with google maps allowed me to put a few local examples of scarchitecture into view.

Ottawa Trainyards

Believe it or not, the Ottawa Trainyards has a unique history prior to hosting the local Wal-Mart. During the 19th century Ottawa was a city defined by rail lines. Rail ran through downtown, and connected the growing city to the outside. One of the key rail lines was located just past the Rideau River, presently just north of the Alta Vista neighbourhood. Situated along a main rail line, the trainyards occupied a large lot serving the expensive rail network. As Ottawa entered a modern era ushered in by the Greber Plan, the downtown rail station was moved to the south-west suburbs, and rail was replaced with roadways and the highway. The trainyards became a large empty lot, and sat as an expanse of asphalt until the 2000's when its development began as a suburbanized shopping centre. Although the site has been levelled and rebuilt, some hints of the past are still present. In the image below, the outline of an old rail line still runs along Coronation Street, turning towards the trainyards before being cut off at Industrial Ave.

The Queensway

Old Rail Lines of Ottawa

As mentioned above, earlier "layers" of Ottawa heavily featured major rail lines. One major line ran the length of the city's southern boundary, along the line of today's 417 Queensway Highway. The construction of the highway in the late 1950's was in line with the Greber Plan, and replaced the rail line with the highway many of us commute on today. Although the massive concrete, rebar and asphalt roadway paved over most traces of the former railway, some past pages of the palimpsest remain. A Canadian Pacific Railway bridge still stands parallel to the 417 bridge across the Rideau River, and has been given new life as a key pedestrian and bike crossing.

Former Bridges along the Rideau River near today's Riverview Park neighbourhood (source: Riverview Park Review)

Ottawa's Union Station

Rail lines leading to Central Station (source: Queen's University)

Union Station opened in 1912 as Ottawa's main rail way hub. The opening coincided with that of the Chateau Laurier hotel, with the aim of provided rooms for train travellers. Similar to the past two images, this landscape was changed with the implementation of the Greber Plan. While Union Station physically remains, it's use and importance as a building took a major change. The building is now known as the Government Conference Centre, and the rail lines which once served it have been repurposed as canal pathways and Colonel By Drive.

Railway Along Rideau Canal, click image to swipe (source: pastottawa.com)

Lebreton Flats

Lebreton Flats was once one of Ottawa's oldest communities. Again, with the implementation of the Greber Plan the flats were completely flattened, forcing the eviction of many working class families. Recently the National Capital Commission awarded rights for developing much of the brownfields site. At this time the site is in a stage of transition. Many foundations are still visible, including the former canal at the bottom of the picture below, which ran through the community.

Lebreton Flats before and after (source: imgur.com).

MacDonald Gardens Park

Lowertown Cemetaries (source: Ottawarewind.com)

Urban living in the 19th century was much more hazardous than it is today. Poor sanitary infrastructure and overcrowding led to horrific disease outbreaks. Outbreaks of diseases like typhoid, cholera and smallpox killed thousands in Canadian cities throughout the 1800's. Understandably cemeteries established in central neighbourhoods faced increasing pressures of overcrowding with each passing outbreak. Today's MacDonald Garden Park in the Lowertown neighbourhood is an example of a past cemetery being repurposed. The current park is an amalgamation of four graveyards serving the Anglican, Presbyterian, Wesleyan Methodist and Catholic communities between 1845 and 1872. Today the former cemetery is a quiet park whose past is revealed by looking at overhead and historic maps. These cemeteries also represent the conditions which led the urban planning codes that so strongly influence our cities today. Following the poor urban living conditions throughout the 1800's, the early 20th century saw the rise of urban planning as a professional profession in order to improve urban living standards through formal land use regulations.

Chaudiere Falls

Today, the Chaudiere Falls today is the site of a major hydroelectric dam in the heart of Ottawa. Prior to the dam being constructed in the early 1900's, it was a massive set of uncontrolled falls. The construction of the dam assisted in the area becoming the centre of the city's lumber industry.

Chaudiere Falls, circa 1830 (source: Toronto Public Library)

Chaudiere Falls, click on image for swipe link (source: pastottawa.com)

With new development scheduled for the islands surrounding the Chaudiere Falls, a new layer of the palimpsest is being prepared. This process is far from uncontested. Local Algonquin First Nations groups have been split on support or protest regarding the site's development, as the land is on unceded and traditionally important Algonquin territory. While local development group Windmill prepares for construction with support from the Algonquins of Ontario, many such as renowned architect Douglas Cardinal argue against development of the site. Some groups have also argued that the falls themselves should be free-flowing . The development has become a flashpoint for issues of First Nations land claims, urban redevelopment, and the management of the Ottawa River itself.

What this process shows is that the layering of each new part of the urban palimpsest is a contested process, as various groups and ideologies clash to reimagine and recreate urban areas. The Greber Plan is one such example of the era of rail being erased by modernist ideas driven by beautification, suburbia and the car. MacDonald Gardens represents a glimpse into a pre-urban planning era of massive disease outbreaks. The current debate and future of the Chaudiere Falls area will write a new chapter of our palimpsest, and the ultimate physical manifestation will be saturated with the political, social and economic realities of our day.

Reclaimed land - the ebb and flow of cities

noreply@blogger.com (lmcguire) — Fri, 20 Jan 2017 18:19:00 +0000

Cities are dynamic places. They are recreated as each new generation lays it's stamp on the landscape, burying past histories under new roads, buildings and parks. As our cities have grown, each has had to independently answer the question of growth. In many cases cities will grow outward, transferring rural land into sprawling subdivisions. Many cities however have taken a different route. In the past, slower transportation methods limited cities to more constrained boundaries with denser neighbourhoods. In response, many cities have looked to their waterfronts to provide more space for their expanding needs.

San Francisco circa 1850 (http://99percentinvisible.org)

San Francisco is one such example. The city faced early expansion stress in the mid 1800's with the massive inflow of workers attracted by the gold rush. As people filled into the city the harbour also became congested, with over 1000 ships sandwiched on the waterfront by 1850. Situated on a peninsula, the early city was situated between the shoreline and sandy foothills unstable for building. As people continued to flood in, San Francisco opted for a unique solution. Plots on land along the shallow tidal zone were sold off. While some new owners built platforms over the water, others made use of the abandoned ships anchored just off shore. These new projects became floating homes, businesses and jails. Then, in 1851 a massive fire struck. Many of these structures were consumed by the flames and sank into the shallow waters, creating a mass of charred timber and debris. Over this debris new foundation was laid and what was once water became the heart of the city. In the years since, earthquake rubble and sand infill has expanded and rounded the craggy edges of the peninsula, creating the city it is today.

Water Line Change (https://pix-media.priceonomics-media.com)

This history of a past generation was suddenly dredged up in 1978 in the centre of San Francisco's financial district. While digging the foundation for a new building, workers discovered the hull of the Niantic (pictured above), one of up to possibly 70 ships buried under the city. You can watch more about San Francisco's buried past in the video below. You can also listen to more about this story by listening to the 99 Percent Invisible podcast.

Recovering the Charles Hare Lighter in San Francisco

While San Francisco's story is fascinating and unique, many other cities share the story of land reclamation. Cities such as Toronto, Vancouver and Hong Kong have developed their waterfronts, placing a new generation's stamp on the urban landscape.

Vancouver:

Toronto:

Hong Kong

Big U Project (Rebuild by Design)

Why this matters

Aside from providing insight on how cities change and grow with each generation, the idea of cities built from reclaimed land is important given how urban regions will be affected by a changing global climate. These reclaimed lands at sea level will be some of the first to be affected, and as such many cities are starting to turn their attention towards incorporating urban design that can mitigate higher sea levels and storm surges. In New York a project called "The Big U" has been proposed by the urban planning firm Rebuild By Design. This project features design that will be reclaiming and reshaping New York's waterfront to create a sustainable buffer to protect it's core as climate change brings new environmental challenge for cities. It's part of a large shift that will see land reclamation move from addressing the need for more space, and towards protecting cities from the advancing consequences of climate change.

For more on cities and climate change, check out some of our past posts on this theme:
http://theurbanscrawl.blogspot.ca/search/label/Climate%20Change

Image sources:
Historic map of Vancouver http://wpmedia.vancouversun.com/
Current map of Vancouver http://www2.laiwanette.net/
Toronto Waterfront map: http://www.blogto.com/
Toronto Waterfront building: http://torontoist.com/
Hong Kong: https://www.researchgate.net

Road pricing...an urban transport solution

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Sun, 11 Dec 2016 22:11:00 +0000

"It is no doubt ironic that the motorcar, the superstar of the capitalist system, expects to live rent-free". - Wolfgang Zuckermann

As a transportation planner, I frequently use the quote above to put things in perspective. I've had many debates with the general public, close friends, and driving enthusiasts about how good (and effective) urban planning requires us to price public goods so we use them most efficiently (and sustainably) as a society.

I often point out that public parking should not be free, especially in downtown areas where demand is highest. Most drivers, if not all of them, balk at the idea of paid parking, arguing that it should be free as a public good. Providing free parking, though, as shown by scholars like Donald Shoup, has proven to result in a number of negative ramifications including local traffic congestion (as cars search for available parking spaces), air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and a poorer quality pedestrian environment.

The same logic applies to our roads, which in many cities around the world, are not priced. Toronto is currently grappling with this question as its Mayor has proposed tolling two of its major highways - the Don Valley Expressway (DVP) and the Gardiner Expressway. The purpose of the toll would be to alleviate traffic on these busy highways and raise revenue to help the city pay for public transit projects and upgrades to road infrastructure.

A recent poll showed that Torontonians are split on this idea - some support it and some are vehemently opposed (for details on the poll, its results, and the larger story, see here). In short, at the heart of the debate is its potential equity impacts. Low income workers may face the greatest financial hardship with a toll in place. Transit may not be a viable option for them based on where they live, or where they work. Others argue that a toll would simply divert traffic off the highway onto local neighbourhood streets and result in more localized congestion.

Beyond the nuances of this intense debate in Toronto, the larger picture of congestion pricing is an interesting one. Urban planners generally support the idea of congestion pricing as it can both reduce traffic congestion and raise revenues for public transit. Economists also generally agree with it; in fact, the concept was created over 50 years ago by a Canadian Nobel winning economist named William Vickrey. One of my favourite economists, Edward Glaeser, has long been a supporter of congestion pricing as one of the most efficient market-based tools to raise revenue to pay for infrastructure.

The idea of the concept is simple: drivers do not currently pay for the congestion that they impose on other road users. This is what economists call the "social costs of congestion" which include GHG emissions, lost productivity to due delays in getting to work, etc. If drivers were subject to a price (or toll), then some would change their travel behaviour by driving at a different time of the day (off-peak) or taking a more affordable option such as public transit. This in turn reduces traffic congestion, lowers GHG emissions, and frees up road space, which results in faster commutes.

This is the theory of congestion pricing, but in practice, it has proven to work quite well in places where it has been adopted including London's congestion charge zone, Singapore's road pricing scheme, or Stockholm's congestion tax.

Returning to Toronto, the city has an opportunity to adopt road pricing in a way that is economically, socially, and environmentally beneficial. But, it will all depend on how the scheme is designed. The city must determine what its key objectives are.

The city's report (November 17, 2016), recommended a toll charge between $1.40 and $5.20 per trip, but did not provide any details on whether it would be a flat rate or if it would change depending on the hour of the day or according to traffic conditions. University of Toronto professor, Baher Abdulhai, completed a study of road pricing in the city. His team found that a dynamic toll system -- that is, one where the price would gradually increase from no charge at 7 am to 15 cents per km at 8 am., and then drop back to zero by 9:30 am -- could encourage some drivers to take trips outside of rush hour, maximizing efficient road use.

This type of scheme could address concerns around traffic flooding onto neighbourhood streets; a dynamic pricing system would result in some drivers deciding to leave earlier in the morning / afternoon peak, or just after. The study's modelling showed that dynamic pricing can reduce gridlock from current levels, and drivers on the Gardiner Expressway could cut their commute time by up to 25 per cent (see more here). The study concluded that while such a system can reduce traffic, it would only raise approximately $160 million in annual revenue, which is a small amount of money for paying for transit projects or road upgrades.

If the city's main objective is to raise revenue to pay for public transit and road upgrading then it would need to give strong consideration to setting a very high price at the busiest time of the rush hour commute (say 8:30 am in the morning, and 5:00 pm in the afternoon). In the short-term, there would be some hardships experienced by drivers (especially lower income workers), but in the long-term, a more robust and expansive transit system will benefit everyone, including drivers. A very insightful spatial analysis recently showed how future transit projects in Toronto, like the Eglinton Crosstown, can have a huge positive impact on increasing accessibility to jobs.

Road pricing, much like paying for parking, is something most users generally dislike. But for too long drivers have lived "rent free", not paying for the social costs of their actions. Air pollution, GHG emissions, and congested roads are just some of the consequences that our cities have faced as a result. Road pricing presents Toronto -- and other cities around North America -- with an opportunity to alleviate its traffic challenges, expand its transit systems, and mitigate its impact on climate change.

The Right to the City and UN Habitat III

noreply@blogger.com (lmcguire) — Sun, 06 Nov 2016 00:23:00 +0000

A few weeks ago thousands travelled to Quito Ecuador for Habitat III, a United Nations conference centred on establishing international guidelines for how our cities are governed, grow, and treat their residents. As a result of this gathering 167 countries have signed onto Habitat III's signature document, The New Urban Agenda. Similar to the Millenium Development Goals, the New Urban Agenda produced by the UN conference is not legally binding, but instead sets out a progressive vision for how our cities should grow and develop.

Quito, Ecuador (Source: http://www.rumboahabitat3.ec)

As the name suggests, this is the third UN conference concerning urban settlements. These conferences have taken place every 20 years and pick up a stronger importance each time. When the last conference was held in Istanbul in 1996, well under half (45%) of the world's population lived in cities. Today, that figure is closer to 55%, and quickly rising. Today one third of urban residents are living in informal settlements, including "slums." This proportion continues to rise, characterizing increasing urban inequality between wealthy and poor as cities grow (between now and 2025 an estimated 1 billion new urban homes will be needed). If cities fall short to provide adequate shelters, this inequality will continue to rise and destabilize societies. Other rising challenges to cities include the need to provide adequate infrastructure (water, sanitation, transportation, etc.) to areas soon to urbanize, accommodating migrants from areas destabilized by war and unrest, and making cities resilient to the effects of climate change. In addition to these important challenges is another critical issue: making these growing urban spaces inclusive and equitable.

Equitable urban development is an important goal for city regions world wide. As cities expand at exponential rates, a lack of protections for citizens will lead to exclusion based on wealth and power. Gentrification, evictions, privatized space and criminalizing homeless populations are just some of the negative outcomes from an increasingly unequal city. For philosopher and sociologist Henri Lefebvre, pieces of the urban fabric such as neighbourhoods, streets and parks were spaces of power and meaning. These spaces hold individualized significance to their users. A sports team may use a park differently then a young family, food vendor, or individual attending an activist rally. These spaces are also imprinted with power structures. Physical barriers may create a gated community while park benches have been designed to prevent sleeping. Even city permits and bylaws can lead to exclusion of one group over another. These power structures are designed to enforce accepted uses of a space by one group, while discouraging, or even making illegal, uses by another group. In short, Lefebvre wrote that urban spaces are coded with significance and power which both empower and marginalize. The concept can be applied on a small scale such as a city park, but also applies on a large scale to areas such as entire neighbourhoods. In your city, think about the people and experiences you'd expect to find in different neighbourhoods. When a neighbourhood only offers experiences accessible or desirable to a segment of the population, it is often a purposeful outcome created by city bylaws, income requirements, cultural norms and design elements of the built environment.

To counter unequal power structures in urban space, Lefebvre offered up the idea of The Right to the City. The Right to the City is an argument for cities to be spaces of democratic decision making and inclusive use for all regardless of wealth, race, class, ability or gender. It is the right of a citizen to be able to access housing, services and community within their city. And with the inclusion of the Right to the City concept within the New Urban Agenda, this right is now enshrined within the collective goals of UN members. In a nutshell, the language of a collective right to an urban home moves these issues closer into the sphere of universal human rights where they can hopefully gain more traction and importance for national governments.

Rise of the Megacities (Source: The Guardian)

Against many expectations, the final draft of the New Urban Agenda at Habitat III includes language emphasizing the Right to the City moving forward. The inclusion of this idea encourages the concept that cities "are for people, not for profit." With urban populations expected to grow to 70% of the world's population by 2050 a focus on democratic decision making will be critical for vulnerable urban dwellers, especially those living in informal settlements. This document however is not without its fragilities. The New Urban Agenda lacks universal measures to track progress, and is not legally binding for signing nations. The goals are also not linked to the popular UN Sustainable Development Goals. This may make voluntary buy-in weaker among nations as they struggle to agree on international metrics for positive inclusive urban growth along the lines set out by Habitat III.

Regardless of the challenges there is much optimism within the outcomes of Habitat III. With a foothold firmly attached in the lines of the New Urban Agenda, communities across the globe have been given an extra tool to advocate for a universal right to their cities. As urban regions continue to grow at unprecedented rates, the push for inclusive spaces and democratic control over development will make cities more equitable, and ultimately, better places to live in.

Click here to read the full New Urban Agenda.

Race and Real Estate in Vancouver

noreply@blogger.com (lmcguire) — Sun, 08 May 2016 18:02:00 +0000

Today's Canadian real estate market presents a number of severe challenges. Average housing prices continue to rise, outpacing what the majority of residents can hope to reasonably pay. This imbalance of housing affordability is most present in the real estate epicentres of Vancouver and Toronto. While the two cities share many similarities in terms of their housing market, Vancouver often stands out for stories of small suburban houses valued in the millions and a rising tension of residents feeling as though they are quickly being priced out of their city. Vancouver is ranked as the world's third most expensive housing market, with the average single-detached house fetching 1.65 million, an increase of 22.5% from last year. For an interactive report of housing markets across Canada, check out the Globe and Mail's House Price Data Centre.

House Price Index (Source: Globe and Mail)

Average House Price in Greater Vancouver (Source: Globe and Mail)

With such pressure comes a surge of demand for answers. At a town hall forum held by a provincial member of BC's legislature, Vancouver residents lamented the impact of foreign investment on housing prices. Anger over high housing prices is further flamed by reports of up to 11,000 condominium units sitting empty in Vancouver as many residents are pushed to living in secondary basement units (many of which do not meet legal code) or seek out a more suburban address. Within this town hall meeting, many residents pointed to property investment by Chinese immigrants as the source to the problem, a sentiment that has become more present with each passing day. While this argument is an outcome of residents' frustration, this housing issue cannot be condensed into an issue of race. It's crucially important that Vancouver's housing market be explored as a class problem inflamed by a globalizing economy and framed through a history of discrimination towards Asian Canadians in BC.

Within today's market, housing has become one of the safest forms of investment. While other types of investment took massive hits in the 2008 financial crisis, Canadian homes largely retained (and then grew) their value. The booming real estate market is no stranger to BC either. As UBC Geography professor David Ley points out, Vancouver has been a high-priced city for decades, passing Toronto in the early 1990's. In the 1980's British Columbia's industrial economy was in quick decline. In response, all levels of government worked to bring in enough investment to keep BC's economy afloat. Through the creation of a business class category for immigrants, our citizenship system allowed individuals with a large amount of personal wealth to gain Canadian citizenship. This system was designed to bring in a large amount of investment into cities like Vancouver, and it has worked, as British Columbia has managed to keep a strong economy. Losses in the industrial sector have been partly replaced by the booming real estate sector, which now represents about half of the revenue brought in by the forestry sector. This has also had the outcome of adding a huge amount of economic capital, a large amount of which has been directed towards the housing market both as an investment and to provide homes for these new Canadians.

Aftermath of the Anti-Asiatic Riots (Source: forbiddenvancouver.ca)

For Vancouver, a large proportion of this capital is coming from mainland China, which not only has long standing historical ties to the Canadian West Coast through immigration patterns, but was also courted specifically by Canadian trade officials for bringing business class immigrants and investment from East Asia to Canada. While this has led to a large influence of Chinese immigrants on the Vancouver housing market, this economic trend is by no means an anomaly in our modern globalized economy; Russian oligarchs buy up resort towns in the Czech Republic while citizens from Arab states have started buying English manor estates in the UK. When economic capital is deregulated and allowed to flow freely, it will. The reality is that the Chinese economy is growing rapidly, a phenomenon that will have impacts on Vancouver's real estate market similar to the impact of capital flow from the US in past decades. The difference here is that a strong undercurrent of historical discrimination towards Asian Canadians flows beneath Vancouver's streets. This history includes the Chinese Head Tax or the destructive rioting of Vancouver's Chinatown and Little Tokyo by the supremacist Anti-Asiatic League in 1907. The frustrated sentiments of out-priced Vancouver residents is more than legitimate, however the issue needs to be framed as a class, not race issue. Foreign investors in Vancouver's real estate market are simply capitalizing on a rational choice to buy housing in a market that is highly unregulated, promises healthy financial returns, and quite simply provides a home for them and their family in a city ranked globally as having an extremely high quality of living.

There is no quick fix to rapidly rising housing prices, but there are ways to blunt the sharp displacement effects of an unaffordable market. Cities such as Sydney, London, Hong Kong and Singapore have begun to take steps towards ensuring that housing remains affordable for residents including a tax on foreign ownership of property. Within the UK there is a move to create many more affordable housing options, while New York now taxes empty condo units. Just up the road from Vancouver in Whistler, a housing covenant is now in place curbing house resale value to inflation. In addition to governments creating policies to curb the impact of globalized capital on domestic housing markets, our own housing expectations will also need to change. As former Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan recently argued in a CBC interview, Vancouver's suburban-like single-detached housing neighbourhoods have largely shaped today's high housing prices. As demand for housing increases, the housing supply must also increase. This can either be done by building more suburban communities, or embracing a higher density of living within our current neighbourhoods. As David Ley argues, we may need to think about restructuring the traditional view of one household living in one dwelling. This also includes a smaller housing footprint, one that represents where we are in our life-cycle. A family of 5 is going to reflect a larger housing need than a retired couple or unmarried young professionals.

When thinking about rising housing prices and their causes, the message should not be a fear of foreign investors and immigrants, but of thinking about affordable housing solutions. Through encouraging our governments to create housing policies that protect and build affordable housing options for residents across the income spectrum and an openness to changing our housing norms and expectations we can have more progressive conversations that focus less on the restrictive conversations of race and more on how to build inclusive cities within a rapidly globalizing world economy.

The majority of material for this post comes from a recent radio documentary titled "Race and Real Estate - Vancouver's China Syndrome" on CBC's The Sunday Edition. To access this documentary please click on the link below.

Radio Documentary: Race and Real Estate - Vancouver's China Syndrome

How improved transit and parking reform can change our cities

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Fri, 25 Mar 2016 20:19:00 +0000

I stumbled across two excellent transportation articles in the Washington Post the other day. As a transportation enthusiast and huge proponent of good and accessible writing, these articles offer cogent arguments that need to be discussed on this blog.

The first article "Why cars and cities are a bad match" is written by a renowned public transit expert named Jarrett Walker. Quick bio of Walker: he has maintained a highly popular and super insightful blog for several years called Human Transit. He published a book in 2011 called "Human Transit: How clearer thinking about public transit can enrich our communities and our lives" which changed the way I think about transit in our cities.

Walker has and continues to influence transit policy by offering clear, logical, and strategic thinking about how transit can both serve to move a critical mass of people efficiently through our cities while offering service to the most marginalized populations who rely on transit for economic security.

Traffic congestion in three cities (Source: Gordon Price)

The thesis of Walker's Washington Post article is elegantly simple: "Cities have relatively little space per person. Cars are big. Big things don’t fit in little spaces." He argues that the geometry of our cities cannot be dramatically altered; we have finite space and thus adding more cars to the road will inevitably clog up our streets.

Yes, new technologies such as driverless cars, predicted to come online as soon as 2020, can transform the mobility of our cities. But the reality is that more and more people want to live and work in dense cities and the most efficient way to move people around -- recognizing our geometric constraints -- is via public transit.

Walker's argument does not nearly get the attention it deserves but it is such an important one as our citizenry reflects on the merits of multi-billion dollar investments in transit infrastructure. We know that transit serves other objectives such as reducing carbon emissions from the transportation sector and providing an affordable option for low-income citizens, but is also works best at transporting large numbers of people over long distances without using much scarce urban space.

The other article is I was intrigued by, "How parking requirements hurt the poor" is written by an incredible scholar at UCLA named Donald Shoup. His bio in short: Shoup has dedicated his career to the scholarship of parking policy (sounds fun and sexy, eh?). He has vehemently argued why parking in our cities is under priced, which has consequently resulted in a series of problems including everything from congestion and carbon pollution to degraded walkability and poor urban design.

The parking guru himself, Donald Shoup (Source: Streetsblog)

Shoup's article is focused on why cities need to abandon a zoning regulation called "off-street parking requirements". This zoning regulation is found across cities in North America. It specifies the minimum about of parking spaces that a developer must provide in a new building (whether it is a single-family home, multi-family residential building, a restaurant or something else). The "minimum" amount of parking is nothing more than a guessing game - better to provide more, just in case.

Shoup argues, using evidence from years of research, that these requirements tend to oversupply the amount of parking actually needed as not all of the residents, patrons, or employees who use/occupy these developments drive cars and therefore do not need parking. As a result, too much parking tends to be provided which is very expensive for the developer. Shoup's research estimated that the average construction cost (excluding land cost) for parking structures in 12 American cities in 2012 was $24,000 per space for surface (above ground) parking and $34,000 per space for underground parking. That's a lot of money! What if that money was instead used to construct affordable housing units?

Shoup puts those costs into perspective: "by comparison, the median net worth (the value of assets minus debts) was $7,700 for Hispanic households and $6,300 for black households in the United States, based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2011."

Shoup goes on to argue: "City planners cannot do much to counter the inequality of wealth in the United States [and Canada], but they can help to reform parking requirements that place heavy burdens on minorities and the poor. Removing minimum parking requirements may be the cheapest and simplest way to achieve a more just society, and will produce a cascade of benefits for cities, the economy and the environment. Best of all, cities don’t need to wait until cars disappear before they remove their unwise parking requirements. They can remove their parking requirements now."

Both articles above touch on some of the most critical issues facing our cities today. While they are both focused on transportation, the topics of congestion and off-street parking requirements affect our lives in so many different but inter-connected ways including the air we breathe, the affordability of our housing markets, and the design and overall appeal of our streets.

Video of the day: Toronto's changing transit plan

noreply@blogger.com (lmcguire) — Sat, 05 Mar 2016 21:29:00 +0000

Municipal politics offer a fascinating window into how political ideologies are geographically rooted, and how these ideologies shape the form and operation of our cities. City councils are often comprised of competing political ideologies which often pull support from different parts of the city. In Vancouver (which features municipal political parties), the Vision party offers a centre-left platform to its downtown neighbourhood voter base, while the more conservative NPA party draws in support from neighbourhoods in the more suburban south end of town. In Toronto, current Mayor John Tory won based on his ability to draw in voters on both sides of the inner-city/suburban divide. Based on their ability to pick up votes, more conservative or liberal political agendas will see their weight ebb and flow. A conservative city council may prefer highway improvements to increase private car traffic while a left-leaning council will focus investments on public transit options. This can lead to a messy process if planning agendas are overrun by a change in governance. Ottawa's light rail is a strong case. Since 2005, three mayors and three light rail transit plans have succeeded one another. Over ten years in the making, Ottawa's newest light rail plan is finally under construction and is expected to be complete in 2018, 13 years after the first project was approved.

These transit woes are no stranger to citizens of Toronto. Locked in their own experience of harsh swings in the political agendas of city councils, they have watched their own transit plans go through immense changes. In the video created by the Globe and Mail below, the impact of a changing political landscape under the mayorships of left-wing David Miller, right-wing Rob Ford, and centre-right John Tory are on full display, as transit lines are proposed, altered, scrapped, and reimagined anew. These transit plans often take centre stage, as they are strongly visible representations of a council's political leanings. More subtle and forgotten are the policies and funding decisions for community supports like affordable housing, and access to recreation and educational opportunities. While less visible than a new light rail track or subway stop, these supports have a massive impact, especially on our most vulnerable citizens. In watching the following video of Toronto's changing transit plans, I am reminded of the wider effects of a city government's political agenda, and how these important community supports, both visible and less so, are either improved or hollowed out based on who gains power in each election.

Comparing proposals for the Lebreton Flats development

noreply@blogger.com (lmcguire) — Sun, 31 Jan 2016 18:42:00 +0000

The process of redeveloping Lebreton Flats has begun. Earlier this week two major proposals were unveiled to the public with a two-day open house at the War Museum. The rooms were packed with Ottawa residents, and for good reason. Developing the Lebreton Flats would be the largest change Ottawa has seen in 50 years.

Background

Lebreton Flats was not always a series of rubble-strewn fields gated off with metal fencing. It was one of Ottawa's oldest neighbourhoods, known for hosting factories and rail depots. It was also home to many poorer Ottawa residents. It's complete demise came with the post-war reimagining of the National Capital. In line with the "beautification" of Ottawa (which included moving rail lines away from the canal and constructing parkways and the greenbelt), the community of Lebreton Flats was deemed to be an eyesore. The community just west of Parliament Hill was completely razed. The land was given to the national regional planning body, the National Capital Commission, and has stayed in perpetual abandonment. Until now.

This reimagining of Ottawa was called the Greber Plan, and drastically altered the capital, with both good and bad impacts. You can read more about the Greber Plan and the demise of Lebreton Flats in an older blog post here. After decades of inaction, the National Capital Commission put together a call for proposals to redevelop the land. There remain two contenders, the RendezVous Lebreton Group and DCDLS. Below I've put together a brief comparison of the two proposals. I'm not going to look at design principles, or how this development will affect our international standing as a global city, or anything like that. I'm going to focus on a couple of items that will hopefully measure if these proposals are good for the citizens of Ottawa.

What we don't need

One of the most recent projects to be completed was the redevelopment of Lansdowne in the Glebe neighbourhood. This warning isn't meant to trash Lansdowne - the project greatly improved on the asphalt landscape that preceded it. While the new Lansdowne has given the stadium and Aberdeen Pavillion a new lease on life, Lebreton offers such massive potential that we need to reach beyond what Lansdowne has accomplished. While the Lansdowne site has been renewed, the development could have been more progressive in its urban principles. The commercial outlets are mostly high-end chains in slightly more attractive box stores. As for housing, none of the units can be termed "affordable," although the city was provided with 2.5 million for affordable housing in lieu of any units being constructed. Again, Lansdowne is a fairly successful development, but the opportunity provided by Lebreton to improve our city is too big to pass on.

The context between these two areas is vastly different as well. Lansdowne is located in the Glebe, one of the wealthiest neighbourhoods in Ottawa. Lebreton Flats is bordered by West Centretown/Little Italy in the south, and Mechanicsville in the west. Both of these communities feature a mix of social and rental housing for low-income households within the downtown core. With the boom of the property market in downtown locations, these two communities are already at a high risk of gentrification. The risk of gentrification was not present in Lansdowne, so the lack of affordable housing units did not create the risk of displacing lower-income households. The context is completely different in the Lebreton Flats area. Both Mechanicsville and West Centretown are in the process of being gentrified. Any development in the Lebreton Flats area must react to this. Recently we argued for the importance of including a wide range of affordable housing options in future urban developments. With this being the most important development in over 50 years, we need to make sure that affordable housing is a core element of any plan for the Lebreton Flats.

Households spending more than 30% of income on housing costs in neighbourhoods surrounding Lebreton Flats (Source: Ottawa Neighbourhood Study)

The Proposals

DCDLS - "Canadensis: Lebreton Re-Imagined"

The DCDLS proposal would divide Lebreton roughly into two sections. South of the new light-rail line would be largely residential developments, while north of line would be a number of cultural attractions, including a hockey stadium, aquarium, museums and performance space.

Proposed residential units built: 2,500
Jobs hosted: 10,400
Building time: 15 years
Proposal site (live until Feb. 9th): http://lebretonreimagined.ca/

After visiting the open house, the impression left was that this proposal was meant to create a cultural hub in the Lebreton Flats. Many of these proposed institutions are interesting, however are not necessary fully open to the public (take into account entrance fees and memberships). The group has definitely given thought to the need for affordable housing, however no formal arrangement can be made until the development is close to completion and developers have taken into account housing market demand, which will influence how many affordable units can be included as a business case.

Model of the DCDLS proposal.

Site plan and phases of development (source: http://lebretonreimagined.ca)

Rendezvous Lebreton Group - "Illumination Lebreton"

This proposal looks at constructed a series of smaller neighbourhoods with a mixed use focus of residential and commercial uses. The plan is focused along the old aqueduct and also includes a stadium along with an abilities centre and performance space.

Proposed residential units built: 4,400
Jobs hosted: 12,000
Building time: 18 years
Proposal site (live until Feb. 9th): http://illuminationlebreton.ca/

My impression from the open house was that this proposal had given more focus to designing for a series of communities, with more focus on residential uses. In addition to providing more residential units, the Rendezvous group has already begun talks with the Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corporation (CCOC) to include affordable housing options. While representatives from both proposals were happy to speak to including affordable housing options, only this proposal actively promotes a relationship with an affordable housing provider. From a basic housing economics approach, the higher number of housing units will also ease a higher degree of pressure on the housing market, pushing rental and ownership prices down.

For this reason, I believe that the Rendezvous Lebreton proposal is strong for it's early interest in affordable housing and providing a higher density of overall housing. In the end, the winning proposal will need to live up the high demands placed upon it. To provide real meaningful change for Ottawa the Lebreton Flats development will need to become a mixed-income inclusive community that meets the challenges of poverty and housing need in the National Capital.

To see the online proposals for yourself, visit the websites included in each proposal's summary above. You can (and should) provide short feedback for the NCC. Find the quick online survey here. Take a look, and then provide your own take on these proposals. It may be well over 50 years until we have another chance to greatly improve our capital.

Model of the Rendezvous Lebreton proposal

New planning tool in BC holds great promise

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Mon, 11 Jan 2016 03:42:00 +0000

Happy New Year!

It's hard to believe that Liam and I started this blog four years ago. While our lives have been incredibly busy over the past year, which has resulted in fewer blog posts, the Urban Scrawl continues to live on. Since we started this blog in January 2012, our site has received over 120,000 page views!

Our visitors have been primarily from Canada and the US but some have been from as far as Russia and Australia. We owe it to you, our dedicated followers and esteemed readers, for your continued interest in the writing we produce. Our passion for cities will only continue to increase as Liam and I observe the many challenges and opportunities associated with urban growth in the developed and developing world alike. There is no shortage of exciting things happening in our cities and we love sharing stories about them.

In Canada, much of our urban growth over the past 50+ years has been overwhelmingly found in suburban areas. Historically, the era that followed World War II saw a massive increase in the construction of suburban housing. Developers, with generous support from various levels of government, promised young families the opportunity to escape the "urban" and inner city life and enjoy all of the nature, space (e.g., spacious backyards), safe communities and better schools that suburbia had to offer. This, in short, captures the essence of why there was massive migration to the suburbs in our country and especially in the US from 1946 to the early 1990s.

Over the past 20 years, there has been a migration back to urban areas. The appeal of having better access to a multiplicity of amenities and the frustration with increasingly long commute times are among the reasons why urban life has, once again, become more desirable, especially for the Millenials (check out this US survey).

Indeed, urban life has exploded in popularity that many of our urban centres across Canada, namely, Vancouver and Toronto, have become too expensive for the average Canadian. Simply put, people are being priced out of the cities they so desire and are being forced to either rent or live elsewhere. One consequence of this has been the rapid proliferation of more suburban housing to provide an affordable option to aspiring homeowners.

Suburban sprawl infographic. Source: Sustainable Prosperity, 2013

Such greenfield development (i.e., suburban sprawl) has been highly profitable for developers and has generated property tax revenue for many municipalities. But, it has resulted in many hidden costs for municipalities in the long run (i.e. increased costs of servicing the suburban development) and increased negative externalities (i.e., air pollution, traffic) for society as whole.

An excellent 2013 study by the Ottawa-based think tank, Sustainable Prosperity, explored the costs of suburban sprawl in Canada. Their study found, among other things, that the costs of 17 of more than 40 new planned developments in Edmonton are expected to exceed the city's revenues by nearly $4 billion over the next 60 years. You can read my blog about their study here.

So, our cities suburbanized, then urbanized, and are now suburbanizing again? Yes. That's the short answer. While our cities continue to grow and witness increased development, the reality is that our Canadian suburbs, according to Sustainable Prosperity, are growing 160 percent faster than our city centres. This has, and continues to, result in more car trips, increased traffic, more air pollution and everything else that flies in the face of how to build a sustainable city.

So, are we doomed? Not at all. Our urban planners continue to innovate and find ways to make the economic argument for why higher density and more compact residential growth is better for us in the long run.

One story of innovation comes from British Columbia. A new tool was recently created in BC called the BC Community Infrastructure Planning Decision Support Tool to help local governments make more informed decisions about what kind of development they want to see in their communities. The tool allows them to figure out the total costs over a development's lifetime (called lifecycle costs) including everything from the amount of energy it will consume, to the number of car trips it will generate to the amount of greenhouse gas emissions it will release. The purpose of the tool is three-fold:

1) Assist planners in evaluating the long term financial impacts of their land use decisions and compare to alternative development scenarios.
2) Facilitate a collaborative process among among planners, engineers and financial officers.
3) Provide a fast and simple planning cost and revenue estimates.

The tool allows users to complete a simple, nine-step process in Microsoft Excel requiring them to identify the characteristics of each development scenario (e.g., the types and number of residential units, types and length of roads etc.) and multiplies these characteristics with the capital and operational unit costs (e.g., the cost to service one household).

A number of BC communities have used the tool for modelling purposes and have found significant differences in the infrastructure costs between an inner suburb/low density development scenario and a downtown core/medium density development scenario. Things like motor vehicle collision rates and air pollution impacts tend to be much higher in the inner suburb/low density scenario along with the costs of building the physical infrastructure itself. While the tool is comprehensive in accounting for a number of different costs, it does not specifically quantify the quality of life differences and urban design benefits of higher density living which is nicely summarized in the graphic below.

The case for higher density living. Source: The Pembina Institute

This tool, therefore, helps present the full costs (lifecycle costs) of each development scenario under consideration by the planner. With the financial costs being more transparent and with ongoing budgetary constraints facing municipalities, tools like these can help better make the case for why higher density compact development makes financial and environmental sense. In short, the tool can lead to more informed and sustainable development choices and long-term savings for local governments and their residents.

As our cities and surrounding areas continue to grow, we'll need to utilize all of the tools available to us to figure out what form of development makes the most financial and environmental sense, and more importantly, what will help us achieve our sustainability goals in the long term.

For those interested in reading more about BC's Community Infrastructure Planning Decision Support Tool, see here (starting on page 8).

How will light transit affect housing value in Ottawa?

noreply@blogger.com (lmcguire) — Sat, 09 Jan 2016 21:54:00 +0000

Amidst the grumbling of commuters stuck behind construction-based traffic snarls, tunnels are being dug and tracks are being laid. Ottawa's long-serving Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) transitway is in transition towards becoming a light rail network that will better serve the city's rising transit needs. The current plan calls for two stages of development. The first stage (in green below) currently under construction, will travel east to west connected Blair Station in the east to Tunney's Pasture in the west. A second proposed stage (in red) would extend these lines east to Orleans and west to Bayshore and Baseline. The currently existing O-train would add a few stations and would be extended to the Ottawa south suburbs.

Phase 1 and proposed phase 2 stations (City of Ottawa, Ottawa Sun)

The introduction of light rail will be a game changer to Ottawa. The federal government is expected to move to new office space nearby light rail stations outside of the downtown core, opening up more space for businesses to move downtown. Most of the outer suburbs (sorry Kanata) will be given a direct connection to the mass transit network, allowing commuters to access the downtown core with ease. It's even energized the proposed movement of the Ottawa Senators to Lebreton Flats, which will be served with a station. All of these changes raise an important question - what will happen to residential property values in Ottawa?

Research has established a fairly strong link between light rail stations and an increase in property value. In Portland homes increased in value $75 for every 100 feet closer they were to a light rail station. In New York, homes decreased in price by $2300 for every 100 feet farther away from the station. A study of light rail in Hamilton found that residential properties close to light rail increased in value by 6%, while commercial properties went up by 14%.

Planned development around light rail stations (Source: The Ottawa Citizen)

According to an LRT economic impact report, Ottawa properties can expect a similar boost from light rail's arrival. All 13 planned stations are expected to boost land values. Land value however will be most immediately impacted in and around the downtown core, where this is already a large concentration of commercial properties. Light rail stations in the east-end of Ottawa are surrounded mostly by greenspace, with residential areas over 600 metres away (a common buffer area when planners talk about the average distance someone will walk for transit).

Planned Light Rail Station and Property Types (Source: Economic Impact Assessment)

(Source: Economic Impact Assessment)

Although the downtown core may feel the impacts of light rail stations first, areas outside of the downtown core could see big impacts if greenfield development takes place. These areas such as Hurdman and Blair would be excellent candidates for Transit-Oriented-Development, an urban planning approach where communities are planned based on their proximity to public transit opportunities. A few years back Tim detailed a great piece of research by a UBC geography student on TOD. Transit-Oriented-Development would help Ottawa intensify, and would bring more access to walkable, public transit-connected neighbourhoods.

(Source: Economic Impact Assessment)

While it's hard to know the exact impact of LRT stations, the economic impact study suggests that for some stations such as the downtown locations, Blair, and St. Laurent, land value could increase between 40-50%. In the most conservative estimates all stations are expected to get a 10% property value bump in their 600 metre radius'. Their final estimates are that neighbourhoods near a LRT station will experience a 15-30% rise in land value. Commercial properties on the other hand will rise in value anywhere from 15-50%.

Source: (www.theredpin.com) Click on the image for the full infographic.

Connecting back to my last post regarding our housing affordability crunch, a rise in land value is not always a win-win scenario. Rapid rises in land value can easily push out residents who can no longer afford the rent. Toronto is a good example - the inner suburbs are large unserved by the subway network while neighbourhoods along subway lines have risen in value and are largely unavailable to many who are forced to live in the highrise landscapes of Toronto's inner suburbs. A Toronto-based real-estate company found that living a 10 minute walk from a Toronto subway station on average increased a house's price by 10%. For condos this figure increased to 25%.

(Source: Economic Impact Assessment)

With the potential for new Transit Oriented Development on greenfield areas around Ottawa light rail stations comes risks and rewards. Planners must balance increasing housing values with comprehensive plans for mixed-income housing. If we are to add in a number of new homes, and in fact build entire communities around these light rail stations, these communities must be accessible for all income ranges in the city. We've argued in the past that a diverse city is a strong city. Light rail can be an important components towards building an inclusive and connected city that works for everyone.

Housing Affordability in the Modern City

noreply@blogger.com (lmcguire) — Tue, 22 Dec 2015 20:05:00 +0000

The Remaking of the City

Over the past couple of decades, cities in North America have experienced a geographical shift in what areas and neighbourhoods make for popular destinations. As early as the 1970's, inner city neighbourhoods long ignored for the suburbs, started to make a comeback. Geographers such as David Ley have noted that this process continued to ramp up with each successive decade.

Centretown's Rebranding (Metronews)

Neighbourhoods in and around the downtown core of cities gentrify as the price for new and renovated housing creeps steadily upwards. This increase in price occurs in tandem with a new invigorated neighbourhood identity. Streets and corners that were once forgotten are now rebranded. Often developers will try to change the name of the place entirely. Even the creators of South Park are tapping into this era of change in the urban landscape.

On one hand, new interest in downtown neighbourhoods brings a lot of opportunity for a city. It creates the chance to promote more density by drawing potential residents from the far-flung suburbs. With this density comes the opportunity for more public transit, a renewed local urban identity, and a boost to local downtown business. It also carries a number of risks that city planners need to carefully mitigate. These downtown neighbourhoods have rapidly become unaffordable for a large proportion of the population, including many who rely on lower-rent housing closer to downtown. The gentrification and general valourization of inner-city neighbourhoods raises an important question: which groups are invited to this reimagining of our cities, and who is excluded? A recent article from the Guardian put this question out to readers. This post will focus primarily on the affordability side of things, however the Guardian touches on crucial elements as well such as the exclusion of groups along gender and race lines. The city of New York presents a prime example of exclusion based on who can pay. Most of it's neighbourhoods are fully gentrified, and the surrounding boroughs are quickly following pace.

The Guardian makes the point that a neighbourhood's rising land value should not be an above all end goal for cities. Neighbourhoods and urban regions are not made strong by their capital value alone. They are made strong through their inclusiveness and diversity. A strong neighbourhood is one where all are welcome, where a real cultural exchange can happen between many groups.

The Importance of Inclusive Neighbourhoods

Housing is at the centre of what makes a strong neighbourhood. The ability to access housing has many multiplier effects that greatly impacts the quality of life for a household. One way to measure the quality of housing in an area is to measure "Core Housing Need." This is the need for a household to have shelter that is:

a) Affordable - mortgage or rent takes up less than 30% of the household's monthly income
b) Adequate - no major repairs are needed to the structure
c) Suitable - there are enough bedrooms for members of the household

In 2011, 12.5% of Canadian households were in a state of core housing need. This represents over 1.5 million people, far more than the entire population of the National Capital Region. With core housing need comes a number of attached barriers. Core housing need is often concentrated in lower-income neighbourhoods, where most residents are tenants and do not have the means to do repairs or attain more suitable housing. Below is a map and table of core housing need across Ottawa. The neighbourhoods with a darker shade of green represent the highest amount of need. This are the most at-risk neighbourhoods in Ottawa, such as Bayshore, Carlington, Banff-Ledbury, West Centretown, and Vanier.

Housing Core Need in Ottawa (Ottawa Neighbourhoods Study)

Within these neighbourhoods, the crush of poverty is compounded due to housing unaffordability across the city. As neighbourhoods greatly impact the health and wellbeing of residents, residents in the low-income bracket are marginalized by the status of their neighbourhood. Children and youth are highly impacted by crime and violence, impacts which include emotional trauma and anxiety. In addition to the mental health outcomes, physical health is also negatively impacted by lack of access to resources or recreational opportunities. Add to this a strong relationship between neighbourhood poverty levels and school readiness and it becomes clear that a perpetual cycle of poverty is reinforced. What this all leads to is that the lack of affordable housing options across the city has created an intense concentration of neighbourhoods where the impact of poverty is high and the opportunities for healthy long-term outcomes low.

The relative affordability for middle-income residents is also a rising issue. Gentrification takes place in "waves." Each successful wave drives out the former group of residents as housing prices climber higher. A neighbourhood that was once a possible option for middle-class home ownership becomes gradually unaffordable, forcing potential home owners to look elsewhere, often in the urban fringe of newer suburban developments. One way to map relative affordability is to map the ratio of income to household value. Check out this link to look up your own city to see how your neighbourhood fairs in local affordability. Within the city of Ottawa, many neighbourhoods within the Greenbelt have, or are quickly becoming unaffordable for all below the upper-middle class income threshold. These include neighbourhoods such as Mechanicsville and Hintonburg that once were largely home to households in the lower-income range. Take a moment to find your affordable housing price using this simple mortgage calculator. Comparing this figure to sample properties in Ottawa provides an idea of what neighbourhoods and types of housing are accessibly affordable, and which are not. In short, neighbourhoods are at a real risk of pricing out all who cannot pay. The risk we face is a loss of diverse neighbourhoods and a landscape of entrenched urban inequity which can only produce deeper income and wellbeing inequalities for generations to come.

Housing's Role

As argued earlier, housing has a major role to play in creating a more equal city through creating more diverse and universally affordable neighbourhoods. The Canadian Government was extremely active during the 20th century in creating affordable housing options. By the dawn of the new millennium, 650,000 public housing units had been built. The creation of affordable housing options has not been maintained however. The federal government began withdrawing from the provision of affordable social housing in the early 1990's, and downloaded this service to provincial governments. The federal government spent $93 dollars per capita on affordable housing in 1993. This dropped to $63 per capita in 2013. Today, the majority of federal government housing support is centred on home ownership through the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), and through tax incentives that favour the creation of homes for purchase rather than rent. The majority of rental units that are built today are mostly for condominiums which are unaffordable for most.

Often affordable housing initiatives will give incentives to developers to provide a proportion of "affordable units" as part of their new development. Unfortunately this definition of affordability is 80% of the local market rent, meaning that these affordable housing units built in gentrifying or higher-income neighbourhoods will be only marginally accessible to those in a slightly lower income bracket. This all adds up to few truly affordable housing units being constructed in inner-city neighbourhoods, both for potential home-owners and renters.

I have to be clear that I am not arguing against any type of change in property value. The value change in neighbourhoods is essentially a given due to our economic structure. What I am arguing for is a structured plan for ensuring that a neighbourhood's reinvigoration does not equal the displacement of one group for the needs of another. Many options are available, and I have tried to condense the recommendations of a few reports below.

Policy Options for Affordable Housing

Affordable Housing in Ottawa's Centretown (CCOC)

Affordable housing is a relative term. It is important to provide affordable housing in a diverse set of forms, for renters and owners as well as a varied set of income groups. A robust affordable housing approach must incorporate housing ownership, rental housing, and social housing (non-market priced housing for households in the lowest income brackets). Some of these proposals below have been promised by the new Liberal Government. Public pressure for more affordable housing in our communities will hopefully lead to more equitable and vibrant neighbourhoods for all of us.

All Housing:

A strong call has existed for a number of years for a centralized national housing strategy. This would ensure that the federal government reengages with providing all types of housing, including rental and social housing.
Housing should be recognized as a basic human right. This would provide more legal leverage to introduce more mixed income housing options to wealthier neighbourhoods that have historically resisted mixed income housing developments.
Housing is a key determinant of long-term wellbeing. As such, it should be linked to other policy strategies in the areas of health, local economy, etc.
More research funding to better explore progressive housing solutions for strong neighbourhoods.

Housing Ownership:

There has been a focus on making housing ownership more affordable, however much can be done to ensure that urban neighbourhoods have a mixed range of housing available for ownership for members of all income ranges.

Rental Housing:

Shift tax incentives for housing construction towards rental units to decrease the pressure of a high rental vacancy rate.
Make secondary (basement) suites legal to increase the housing supply and decrease rental prices.
Increase rental supplements tied to income and family sizes.
Implement a higher minimum wage and move towards a guaranteed annual income.

Social/Public Housing:

Increase federal funding for non-market housing. Move away from centralized public housing communities and look at strategies for mixed-income housing neighbourhood plans.
Move away from providing housing based on number of units available, which has led to a long waiting list for social housing. Provide housing based on income, specifically using the Rent-Geared-to-Income (RGI) model.
Provide federal and provincial funding matched with local municipal and community control to match local need with resources.
Build more housing supply using public land available.
Incorporate non-profit housing and service organizations into housing provision plans.

To read through some of the sources for this post, please see below. This is obviously a huge topic, and as always we'd love to hear your feedback and suggestions.

The Guardian

Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

Renewing Canada's Social Architecture

Federation of Canadian Municipalities

Census Mapper

Ottawa Neighbourhood Study

The Urban Institute

The geography of hunger in Canadian cities

noreply@blogger.com (lmcguire) — Sat, 26 Sep 2015 19:20:00 +0000

Cities are continuously in a state of flux. Neighbourhoods are built, remodeled or even demolished. Value of homes in an area will rise or decline over time, leading to the changing demographic and economic make-up of the community. Follow this link for a primer on the economics behind neighbourhood valuation. Within most Canadian cities an emerging trend is found with older inner-city neighbourhoods gaining value quickly. These neighbourhoods have an older stock of housing, are densely populated, served well by transit, and within striking distance from the commercial core. In the past decades the focus of urban residential expansion had been solely fixed in the suburbs. This meant that the vast majority of private investment in housing took place outside of the urban core. Inner-city neighbourhoods meanwhile were home to lower-income families due to cheaper rent and living costs.

Gentrification Primer. For more, go to:
http://bit.ly/1TxHRb2

With the rise of neighbourhood gentrification this social fabric began to change. In it's most basic definition, gentrification is the process of one income group being displaced by another group of a higher income class. This process does not occur simultaneously but in "waves." For example, a neighbourhood may gradually switch from a community of low-income families to one populated by younger, single professionals. As the neighbourhood identity changes, it becomes more popular and in-demand. Eventually a new wave of a wealthier group of households will replace the former group and the identity will change once more. With these waves the cost of living and rent rises and former groups of a lower-income bracket have little choice but to move. These changes are gradual and slow, but it can be argued that the popularity of the inner-city neighbourhoods began to grow in the 1970's, started a series of gentrifying "waves." To read more about the research behind this, check out this research report from Alan Walks and Richard Maarinen, two leading Canadian researchers on gentrification. Two other urban geographers who have provided critical research on gentrification are David Ley and Elvin Wyly. Look them up to gain more information on gentrification research.

The Three Cities of Toronto.
Source: http://3cities.neighbourhoodchange.ca/

In the context of Canada's biggest city the process of gentrification has been part of a large shift in the urban socio-economic fabric. As detailed by David Hulchanski's well-document study of Toronto's "Three Cities," the urban core of Hogtown has seen a sharp rise in housing prices and average income over the past few decades. In correspondence Toronto's inner-suburbs have seen a rapid decrease in average income. Inner suburbs are communities built directly outside of the urban core in the decades following World War II. By and large they are densely populated and most have decent access to mass transportation. They also contain a mixed bag of housing types, with a diverse stock of single detached, townhouse, and apartment housing. These communities were also constructed during the hey-day of Canada's investment in public housing. A large percentage of these public housing communities were built within the inner-suburbs. Many of the families that are served by the Ottawa non-profit I work for live in these inner-suburban public housing communities. Currently the inner-suburbs of Canadian cities are incredible diverse, and include many new Canadian families, members of the working class, and household that rent rather than own their homes. A few years ago I researched the social fabric of these inner suburbs, which you can find here. This research has laid out the social and economic dynamics of gentrification. New research from the Canadian Food Bank however has added the issue of hunger to this dimension.

Source: Daily Bread Food Bank

The Canadian Food Bank has been producing some excellent public policy research on these urban changes. Through it's work, the Food Bank argues that widening holes in Canadian social supports has left more Canadian families in a precarious state. More households are reliant on part time and temporary, rather than permanent employment, and are living paycheque to paycheque. In addition to this research, the Toronto non-profit organization Daily Bread Food Bank has mapped out the changing geography of food bank usage in the city. Their 2015 Hunger Profile maps the increase use of food banks in Toronto's inner suburbs by 45% since 2008, a clear indicated of heightened struggle in these communities. On the flip side, the largely gentrified inner-core of the city saw a decrease in food bank use.

Both the Canadian and Daily Bread food banks are in agreement: cuts to social services have mixed with a more unequal social and economic fabric to create greater stress on low-income households, creating the dire result of chronic food insecurity. These organizations argue that much is needed to support these communities. Namely, much more needs to be done to strengthen social service supports. Arguably the most important step is housing. Affordable housing is simply running out as neighbourhoods continue to gentrify alongside a widening income gap. All levels of government need to be involved in this process, especially at the federal level (which has largely stepped away from providing affordable housing).

The social fabric of our cities is continually stretching and while gentrification will continue to occur, we can make sure it has a less detrimental effect on the urban poor. This path requires us to put more investment in our social services to ensure that families are able to attain food security. The first step it seems, is to provide more affordable housing solutions. With our national election campaign in full swing, now is a perfect time for that conversation to happen.

The GTA's role in Canada's upcoming election

noreply@blogger.com (lmcguire) — Sun, 30 Aug 2015 16:13:00 +0000

The upcoming federal election on October 19th is shaping up to be the closest race Canada has seen in recent memory. Certainly it is the first time in modern Canadian history that three political parties are so close to one another in the polls. At the time of writing the NDP are leading Canada-wide with 35.5%, followed by the Conservatives at 28.3% and the Liberals at 26.9%. Polls are notoriously tricky and sometimes out-right misleading. These numbers are weighted poll-averages, taken from a number of recent polls and aggregated based on the size of each poll. For updated numbers check out the CBC's poll tracker at: http://www.cbc.ca/news2/interactives/poll-tracker/2015/index.html

Canada-wide Poll Averages as of August 26, 2015 (source: CBC.ca)

Leading in the polls does not always translate to a guaranteed win however. There are a few examples, including Joe Clark's 1979 election victory despite only gaining about 36% of the vote against 40% for the Liberals. Due to Canada's First Past The Post system, parties are most successful when they can spread their votes across many regions, rather than concentrating it in just one riding. And in the upcoming election it is fiercely clear that the Greater Toronto Area will be a key battleground for forming the next government.

In the 2011 election both the Conservatives and NDP made gains in the GTA at cost to the Liberals who traditionally had held many seats in this area. Of the 44 seats up for grabs, the Conservatives took 29, the NDP took 8, and the Liberals were left with 7 in an area where they would regularly sweep the entire region. The Liberals remain second-place contenders in many of suburban Toronto ridings, explaining why the Conservatives continue to launch attack ads aimed at the third place Liberals rather than the NDP.

2011 Federal Election Results in the Greater Toronto Area (source: http://toronto.ctvnews.ca)

In the upcoming election, 55 seats will be up for grabs in the GTA. This area offers up more seats than 8 of the provinces and all 3 territories. It's no surprise then that this makes GTA seats prime territory for forming a government. Currently it's a tight race in Ontario with the parties all within a couple of percentage points of each other (see below). While the parties are all extremely close to one another in the polls, the Conservatives remain ahead in the seat projections for Ontario with 48, compared to 41 for the Liberals and 32 for the NDP (second image below). This seat differential is due to the First Past the Post system, as the Conservative vote is more consistent across more ridings. In contrast the NDP vote in Ontario has historically been focused in urban ridings in the older downtown core of Toronto. This translates to provincial and municipal elections as well. To read more about the division of Toronto's inner-city left and suburban right, click here.

Ontario Poll Averages as of August 26, 2015 (source: CBC.ca)

Ontario Seat Projections as of August 26, 2015 (source: CBC.ca)

With the narrowing of the polls many assumptions of political results are now up in the air. The NDP has been gaining ground in Toronto's suburbs, which has proved in the past to be fertile Conservative ground. A breakthrough for the NDP could provide the Ontario breakthrough that just may elect the first social democratic party in Canada's history. Below is a recent map showing where ridings in the GTA are leaning. As the map shows, much of the suburban belt of Toronto is up for grabs, throwing the Conservative-held riding into competition with NDP and Liberal candidates. The election is still a month-and-a-half out, and with so much time remaining, this Canadian election will prove to be a momentous and unpredictable one. One thing for certain is the Toronto will likely act as kingmaker in deciding the next party to govern Canada.

Projected Seats for 2015 Election (source: http://globalnews.ca/news/2162903/ndp-lead-continues-to-hold-across-canada-according-to-latest-seat-projections/)

Toronto's Gardiner Expressway

noreply@blogger.com (lmcguire) — Sat, 13 Jun 2015 16:40:00 +0000

The Gardiner Expressway

In post-world war 2 Canada, the economy was booming and cities were on the rise. New suburbs on the fringe of urban areas and the expanded buying power of consumers led to more cars on the road and an appetite for a landscape of highways to make cities more car friendly. Over the next few decades, most major Canadian cities would become transformed by these new modern transportation corridors, slicing and redesigning city layouts. This was perhaps most seen in Toronto, a city on its rise to pass Montreal and become the new Canadian metropolis. Flash forward to today, and Toronto's highways are concrete reminders of a past era of urban planning. As urban planning continues to focus on more sustainable forms of transportation, tensions continue to rise regarding how we design our future urban spaces. This debate recently came to a head in the upcoming Toronto City Council decision regarding the Gardiner Expressway, which cuts through Toronto's downtown. Its intention is to carry auto commuters through the bustling downtown, however it is well regarded that the downtown highway has choked the city off from its waterfront. The mass of the City of Toronto runs downhill towards the water, until being blocked by the elevated concrete slabs of this roadway.

City Council Vote

Calls to take down the Gardiner are definitely not new, however groups such as the Council for Canadian Urbanism have recently pushed to have the Gardiner taken down. In a close vote of 24 to 21, the East section of the Gardiner Expressway lived to see another day, with newly minted Mayor John Tory voting to keep the expressway. While the eastern segment of the expressway will stay up, council voted for a "hybrid" approach that will change parts of the elevated roadway to help open up the waterfront.

The Three Options

Council was presented with three options (shown below):

1. Keep the existing roadway
2. Remove a few elevated on/off ramps
3. Remove the entire elevated section

Council's three options (Source: The Toronto Star)

The Third Option

Had Toronto Council voted to remove the entire section, the result would have been a new boulevard leading out of Toronto's downtown East End. While its capacity to carry traffic would have diminished, it would have been a big addition to a more walkable environment. Below is an video portrayal of what could have been.

Source: The Toronto Star

How They Voted

Large Canadian cities have a distinct political rift. Neighbourhoods in the inner city tend to support initiatives that promote density and public transit, while neighbourhoods in suburban areas support initiatives conducive to a more car centric environment. This binary is by no means a general rule however, there are good examples out there of suburbs integrating public transit into their fabric, such as Calgary's light rail system, or high public transit usage in Ottawa's Orleans suburb. In this case however, Toronto reverted back to its two political folds: public transit support in the inner city and car-centric support in the suburbs. The map below shows how City Councillors voted. Always the lone ranger, Rob Ford was the lone vote for keeping the Gardiner East as is.

Source: The Toronto Star

Looking Ahead?

It's no hard argument that highways are a crucial piece of the transportation infrastructure of Canadian cities. They carry thousands of commuters, and without them our very much car-dependent commuting behaviors would lead to congested traffic throughout our cities. There is a slow but definite shift however. Cities are slowly becoming less car dependent, and some (like Vancouver) are moving faster towards this shift than others.

Highways were built when Canadian cities were expanding at a rapid rate, and the real estate they currently occupy presents a huge future opportunity. If Canadian cities can continue to move towards alternative modes of transportation like rapid bus transit and light rail, we may be able to do away with some of our highways completely. This would open up incredible swaths of land in the middle of our cities, and the possibilities are endless. This is a long way off, but it is definitely not a pipe dream. See the link below for how this has worked out in cities like San Francisco and Seoul, where the removal of urban highways has led to a massive rejuvenation of urban space.

Possible some food for thought for the next city council vote.

Former Cheonggyechon Expressway in Seoul (Source: The Star)

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/06/05/san-franciscos-waterfront-freeway-was-removed-25-years-ago-no-one-misses-it.html

To read more about the Gardiner vote, see the links below:

http://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2015/06/11/mayor-john-tory-headed-for-decisive-win-on-gardiner-east.html

http://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2015/06/06/gardiner-hybrid-proposal-risks-provincial-challenge-councillor.html

Are Vancouverites becoming less car dependent?

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Sun, 31 May 2015 20:36:00 +0000

The Urban Scrawl has been a little quieter in 2015. Liam and I have been busy with other personal and professional pursuits but have not, and will not, lose sight of the indispensable role our cities play in our growing and ever changing world. Our curiosity for cities will only continue to grow as we observe many urban changes around us, both in our cities and the places we travel to. We are hoping to continue to share our insights, observations, and analyses on all things cities including the many solutions and challenges that our planners are plagued with on a daily basis - from environmental and social issues, to political and economic ones.

Trolley bus in Vancouver. Source: Wikipedia, 2015

Needless to say, as urban planning wonks and passionate bloggers, we're going to continue to share stories, statistics, and profiles of cities that are making our world a better place.

Speaking of great cities, I came across this quantitatively fascinating article by Todd Litman (Victoria Transport Policy Institute) who shares some encouraging transportation data from the City of Vancouver. An excerpt:

"Recent travel data show that the City of Vancouver's automobile mode share has declined to about half of all trips (most North American cities have about 80% automobile mode share), offset by growth in walking, cycling and public transit trips. Daily automobile trips declined from 980,000 in 2013 to just 918,000 in 2014, while walking, cycling, and public transit trips rose from 893,000 to 905,000. That puts the alternative modes in a statistical dead heat with automobile trips. The city has already surpassed its long-term target to reduce vehicle trips at least 20 percent by 2040."

The first statistic in bold above is particularly significant. In short, driving trips are going down (considerably) as residents' preferences for other transportation modes are changing. That is something to celebrate and seriously promote. Alas, these data are only from the City of Vancouver (not the region as a whole which has much lower densities and more automobile dependent communities). Nonetheless, these data must be promoted, shared, and properly communicated to the public, irrespective of what the results are from region's somewhat polarizing transit plebiscite.

There is much more in Litman's article, but what I wanted to focus on in this post is the importance of transit systems in providing mobility and accessibility for non-drivers in a city. Litman touches on this in his article and I want to emphasize it here. The greatest benefits of expanding transit in Metro Vancouver are not reducing traffic congestion per se (there are still scholarly and policy debates about whether transit actually reduces congestion). The real benefits, in my opinion, are providing service to areas that have poor transit access and also improving the frequency of transit in already served areas to make it more reliable and convenient than driving.

Driving a car in Metro Vancouver can be costly when factoring in parking fees, insurance, and vehicle maintenance costs. Transit, by contrast, is an economical option for many people, especially lower and middle income households. However, these households will still choose to drive if the automobile remains the faster and "easier" option as people need to access their jobs or complete their errands quickly. The current reality across the Canadian urban landscape is that commuting by car is faster than commuting by transit.

All of this is to say that planners need to celebrate these new transportation data in Vancouver which point to a shifting trend in transportation preferences among residents. Clearly, transit demand has increased in the city over the past 10 years. This is a good thing as evidenced by the statistics i.e., less people are driving and using transit. However, many parts of the transit system are too busy (operating at capacity) which requires more service in the form of more frequent buses. This costs money. Moreover, planners also need to highlight how transit expansion can benefit those who are disadvantaged in their accessibility to good, reliable, and frequent transit service.

Irrespective of your transportation mode preference, these new data from Vancouver are encouraging and continue to highlight how transportation is more than just getting from point A to B. Indeed, transportation users think about and value factors like safety, accessibility, quality of life and health, environmental sustainability, and equality, among other things. Well done Vancouver!

PIBC Conference in Seattle

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Wed, 15 Apr 2015 16:20:00 +0000

Seattle. Source: Wikipedia Commons

I'm attending the Planning Institute of British Columbia's (PIBC) annual conference this week and I'm absolutely ecstatic. PIBC is British Columbia's body of professional planners. This year's conference is taking place in Seattle (that's right, not in BC) as the American Planning Association (APA) is having its annual conference in the Emerald City immediately following PIBC's.

This two-day conference is going to be packed and full of exciting and diverse planning topics from re-thinking how we plan public spaces, to incorporating health impacts into transportation and development decisions, to planning for sea-level rise and understanding different elements of First Nations culture when planning for community development.

The second day offers delegates a chance to actually leave the conference centre and explore Seattle's many hip and eclectic neighbourhoods. The conference has organized a series of walking tours around the city to give us planning geeks a chance to learn about its neighbouroods' planning history, its urban design and infrastructure (e.g., bike lanes, public spaces, urban parks), and future development. I'm signed up for the walking tour of South Lake Union where I'll learn about all of the science and technology innovation and development that's transforming the area, thanks to folks like Paul Allen.

What's really got me excited are the keynotes which include Janette Sadik-Khan, who was the renowned Commissioner of the New York City Department of Transportation from 2007-2013. Sadik-Khan led and was part of some major transformational initiatives in NYC including the creation of more pedestrian space in Times Square and bringing about the country's largest bike share program.

Should be a grand time!

Public Mapping and Urban Planning

noreply@blogger.com (lmcguire) — Fri, 03 Apr 2015 18:41:00 +0000

A new public mapping exercise is up and running in the United States, and what it offers could change the way urban planners and the public interact to draw out our cities' blueprints. The program, called Transitmix, offers the ability to analyze and manipulate existing transit routes. Background map data such as income and population is provided. As the route is manipulated, a data dashboard captures the population who would be served by the specific bus or rail line. For example, a route could be diverted through a high-density, lower-income neighbourhood, increasing ridership for households living near the poverty line with no access to private transportation.

This site represents the growing intersection of technology and urban planning. A while back, the City of Ottawa's planning division put out an interactive map to suggest improvements to Ottawa's biking and walking infrastructure. While clunky, this was an important step towards a public-sourced urban planning solution. I've requested a demonstration of this program to test it out with Ottawa's transportation and household data. If the data is available, Transitmix may be an excellent resource for planning Ottawa's transportation future. As light rail replaces bus rapid transit as the spine of Ottawa's mass transportation system, bus lines carrying passengers to light rail stations will need to be planned. These routes will need to serve Ottawa's low-income communities, many of which will not be directly served by light rail lines. See below for a short video on Transitmix, and read more with this article by Atlantic Cities. Keep posted to this blog, if the demonstration is a success, I'll be sharing the results within a few weeks.

Planning for the Millennial generation

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Wed, 25 Feb 2015 00:55:00 +0000

Ren Thomas, an alumnus of UBC's School of Community and Regional Planning, offers this very important piece on why our cities need to better plan, design, and cater to the needs of the Millennial generation. An excerpt:

"While young people have historically shown higher rates of walking, cycling, and public transit use in cities across Canada, transit authorities have typically ignored the travel patterns and needs of those under the age of 25. Teenagers do not vote in elections and young adults often have low rates of voting, so politicians tend to discount their views.

It is assumed that as young adults begin to earn higher incomes and become more settled, including buying a home and raising a family, they will buy homes and cars. But in fact, those 21 kids I spoke to in 2007, and their Millennial peers, have ushered in new lifestyle choices that have perplexed older generations and raised serious questions about the economy, transportation, and community planning."

Check out her full article here. Ren is also publishing an edited volume on Canadian planning for Oxford University Press exploring issues in Canadian cities through a case study approach. The book will be comprised of a number of chapters focused on various planning topics including my own chapter on climate change adaptation planning in British Columbia. Stayed tuned for a blog post about the book -- and my contribution to it -- over the next few months!

Cities...our greenest hope?

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Tue, 24 Feb 2015 05:40:00 +0000

In this TED Talk, Alex Steffen argues that our greatest hope in combating the climate change problem comes from the very way we design our cities. He is clear upfront about the importance of clean energy in our future but reminds us that as our planet continues to urbanize, providing energy -- clean or otherwise -- becomes a more challenging proposition because of the sheer demand for such energy. Can our cities exploit their current advantages to lower existing energy demand, and thereby lower the world's emissions?

Drawing on famous research by Newman and Kenworthy, Steffen clearly articulates the relationship between the density of a city and the amount of carbon it produces. Cities that have much lower densities like Houston tend to consume much larger amounts of transportation energy (i.e., more carbon emissions from driving), whereas higher density cities such as Hong Kong and Stockholm see the opposite with much lower transport-related energy consumption.

Steffen's talk builds nicely on my post from a few weeks ago about how cities in the U.S. tend to have lower carbon emissions compared to their surrounding suburbs which consume much larger amounts of energy. The jury is out on this density-carbon emissions question and the benefits of higher density cities for our global climate are enormously clear.

He also discusses the growing importance of passive houses - buildings that are designed to be extremely energy-efficient capable of reducing energy demand by 90%.

Beyond the carbon reduction benefits of urban density, he puts forward a number of other provocative ideas that are worthy of debate. Enjoy.

The Engagement Gap - Impacts of Inequality and Access to Recreation

noreply@blogger.com (lmcguire) — Sun, 08 Feb 2015 16:27:00 +0000

Economic inequality is a brutal force. Within a single city, it manifests through a wide difference of advantage. While many are able to access a comfortable lifestyle, other households feel the crushing impact of poverty, making it difficult to access suitable housing, healthy food options, safe and accessible neighbourhoods, and access to secure employment. The recent departure of Target is a reminder as to the vulnerabilities that Canada's working poor are exposed to. When children and youth grow up in communities where these crushing effects of inequality are felt, they are exposed to immediate challenges which result in long-term disadvantages later on in life. One quantifiable measure of this is the Early Development Instrument (EDI), developed by Dan Offord and Magdalena Janus. The EDI is a questionnaire that measures skills for senior kindergarten students on five "domains:"

1. Physical health and well-being
2. Communication skills and general knowledge
3. Language and cognitive development
4. Social competence
5. Emotional maturity

EDI Domains (Source: Ottawa Parent Resource Centre, http://bit.ly/1KD6qJO)

Based on the outcome of the questionnaire, children are identified as scoring low on any of these indicators. Children that score low on one of these domains are at risk of facing elevated challenges as they grow-up and into adulthood. Children scoring low on two or more domains are at a significantly higher risk. Even though this survey is done when children are quite young, it holds a powerful predictive force for the life outcomes of participants.

For a number of years EDI results in Ottawa have been compiled and analyzed by the Ottawa Parent Resource Centre. When mapped out, the percentage of children scoring low on the EDI ranges widely from neighbourhood to neighbourhood. Neighbourhoods with a high level of socio-economic advantage (such as the Glebe, Old Ottawa South, and Westboro) have small percentages of children at risk of positive childhood development. The opposite is true for neighbourhoods with high levels of socio-economic disadvantage and child poverty rates. Neighbourhoods such as Carlington, Overbrook, Vanier and West Centretown have very high percentages of child who are facing significant developmental disadvantages entering school. It is important to note that the EDI is not an individual diagnostic tool for each child, or even an indicator of a single school. It is a population tool, meaning that it measures child development and readiness for school at the neighbourhood level. This is key in the understanding that the socio-economic landscape of a neighbourhood has a massive impact on the positive development of a child.

EDI Neighbourhood Results (Source: Ottawa Parent Resource Centre, http://bit.ly/1KD6qJO)

In short, the neighbourhood a child grows up in has an incredible predictive impact on the emotional skills and long-term mental and physical health of a child. Think about the neighbourhood you grew up in. The opportunities and challenges tied into that neighbourhood: the local school, community centre, the housing available, job opportunities...everything down to who your next door neighbour was would have affected your early life. Many of these things likely have some impact on you even today, shaping the person you've become.

Although the map above indicates some heavy pressures on neighbourhoods with higher socioeconomic disadvantages and EDI vulnerabilities, there are interventions that make long-term positive impacts in the life of a child. One intervention is access to social recreational opportunities, such as a sports team, leadership group, or homework club. I've met a large number of young adults who have grown up in these communities with high socioeconomic disadvantage, and have benefitted from social recreational programming. I'm constantly impressed by their resiliency and skills, and continue to constantly learn new things from them. For more in-depth research on the impacts of recreation, click here.

With this in mind, a new publication is troubling. The Engagement Gap, published in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, points to the importance of recreational opportunities. It also presents solid data that rising inequality in the United States is creating a greater number of barriers to recreational opportunities for children and youth. The authors use long range data to argue that recreational participation rates for children in lower socioeconomic groups had been close to those of children growing up in middle class families. Starting in the 90's, this pattern began to change. Recreational participation rates for the middle class stayed the same, while children in lower-income brackets have fallen. The authors point to growing inequality, the outcome of an increasingly skewed distribution of resources and hollowing out of government funded social programs. It's not easy to measure, but you can bet that these lower recreational rates will have severe impacts on children growing up in households with a high amount of socioeconomic disadvantage.

While this study was created based on U.S. data, inequality has been rising in Canada as well. Compiling data for Canadian cities would likely provide both powerful and sobering analysis regarding access to social recreation programs for lower-income youth. It may also spur on more action on providing essential programs to make the race fair for all kids, regardless of their neighbourhood and socioeconomic household status.

EDI statistics compiled by the Ottawa Parent Resource Centre
http://www.parentresource.ca/

Article: The Engagement Gap
http://ann.sagepub.com/content/657/1/194.full

Read more in The Atlantic:
http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/01/the-activity-gap/384961/