Archive for planning policy

Think small: A non-market housing supply solution?

January 9, 2010 / Wendy Waters / 6 comments

Planners and politicians in many cities — especially those with high housing costs — face a dilemma when it comes to providing non-market housing (sometimes called social housing).  The most cost effective solutions in terms of dollars per unit can be to build a big apartment block in a struggling area of the city where land is cheaper.

Unfortunately, this can tend to reinforce a poor ghetto’s status, which can make it harder for individuals and families to make those broader connections in a wider community that help break the cycle of poverty, especially for kids.

Better for many people is to be mixed into market-housing neighbourhoods.  In a recent interview, a child who grew up in a smaller Vancouver social housing project located in a generally wealthier area of the city noted how she and her cohorts in the social housing townhouses went to school with the children of successful business people and university professors.  As a result, she argued, the high school performance and university graduation rate of these children from the social housing complex was quite high.  She was very grateful for having had the opportunity to be a part of this high performing peer group as it allowed her to break a cycle of poverty in her family.

Her experience was from the 1970s.  Today, it would can be hard to get a medium-sized non-market housing project approved in an existing neighbourhood.  So what if those seeking to provide non-market housing thought much smaller.

In many cities across North America there is a movement to increase the density of existing and sometimes older areas by allowing duplexes, secondary suites, and laneway houses be added to existing properties.

What if social housing organizations went around existing, and maybe gentrifying, neighbourhoods and bought up suitable existing houses that could be converted into 2 or 3 units.

Those who would benefit from the homes could be invited or required to provide some labor during the renovation. This would keep costs down along with using the existing home’s “solid old bones” as a base.

Buying the occasional fixer-upper house that comes up for sale anywhere in the city would eliminate the social housing ghettos.   The city could even mandate there not be more than one house on any given block.

Surely this has been tried somewhere.  Does it work?  Can it work?

Given the amazing cost overruns at a Vancouver social housing project (I think the units will cost tax payers over $700,000 each), buying up existing houses just seems easier.

Note: by social housing I’m not talking about homeless shelters, but homes for those with jobs, or students with children, for example, who just cannot afford the escalating costs of housing in some of North America’s more dynamic cities.

Category: diversity, planning policy /

Urban scenarios under high oil prices

October 20, 2009 / Wendy Waters / 7 comments

How much will life in the cities change if gasoline costs significantly more than it does today?

Will the city be able to offer the housing, transportation options or amenities that its residents may prefer if fuel becomes a more expensive item relative to the family budget?

These are some questions I’ve been pondering lately and would welcome your input.

Assuming that oil prices over the next 10-20 years reach and surpass the previous high of $147 per barrel, and gasoline prices reach $2 or even $4 per litre, or $5 to $8 per gallon, how will life in cities really change?

Will it make a difference if the price escalation happens quickly or gradually?

Scenario one: new technologies emerge to allow for existing infrastructure to continue working.  One significant obstacle to any change is the existing built infrastructure.  The roads, bridges, freeways, housing stock, schools, office buildings, industrial and retail parks that we will be using for the next 50 years, and beyond, are largely already built.  Retro-fitting rapid transit into this framework tends to be costly and highly disruptive to people’s daily lives. Plus, many people like their suburban lifestyle (even if there is a growing trend toward higher density, inner-urban area living it won’t appeal to everyone).

Therefore, it’s highly possible that in most North American cities, the private automobile will still be dominant 30 years from now.  It may be smaller than the SUVs of today; it may run on electricity, fuel cells, a hybrid of sources, or simply have a much more fuel efficient gasoline engine and/or be less powerful.

Under this scenario, walking, cycling, densification, and transit use may still be gradually increasing in the cities as there are a variety of compelling reasons for people to change their lifestyles, but I’m suggesting that the private automobile and the infrastructure and built environment that supports it will remain a dominant force in urban life.

Scenario two: Strong shift to higher density living, and living close to work

Suppose gasoline costs rise relatively rapidly, and quickly become a significant drag on the living standard and lifestyle of the majority of individuals and families.  Waiting for new automotive technology may not be an option.  Families living in distant suburbs will need to reign in expenses and the fastest way to do it may be to move to a smaller home in a transit oriented neighbourhood closer to the income earner(s) place(s) of work.   This will be a boom to real estate developers — but also a challenge to them, city planners, and an entire construction industry to keep up with demand in order for such housing to remain somewhat affordable to these suburban refugee families.

Will there be a sudden demand for additional schools?  Can public school boards and private education providers manage this?  Will the local transit authority be able to manage a rapid increase in demand for transit from these new hub communities?

This scenario would also likely see a rapid decline in suburban residential real estate prices, trapping some families out there with “under water” mortgages (and in Canada you can’t walk away from these as easily as in the US).   On the plus side, such “stuck families” may see their commutes become less time consuming if fewer people are clogging the roads.

Other Scenarios, briefly:

Is there a larger scale migration from low density metro areas to higher density places?

Does working from home (or satellite offices) become much more viable with the rapid expansion of affordable, high-end video conferencing technology?

Will there be different “winner” and “loser” cities?  Ones that cannot keep talented people because driving is expensive and the built environment isn’t adapting fast enough, or can’t adapt?

None of these are necessarily mutually exclusive.  Thoughts and ideas welcome.

Category: economic development, planning policy, urban history, urban technologies /

Lesson from India on affordable housing

May 23, 2009 / Wendy Waters / 8 comments

In dynamic, popular urban cores there is a constant dilemma about housing affordability.  Because more people want to live in an area than there are homes, rents and sale prices can be high.

One solution is to demand a certain number of rental units or non-market units for sale when developers build out a new area (whether greenfill or brownfill).   But, government agencies involved in decisions often insist that all housing be of a certain size with particular amenities, such that it becomes more expensive to build and thus the city ends up with fewer units, and lower supply with the same demand brings higher prices.

Take this new community in India as an example of what homes need, and what they don’t — brought to you by Tata, the makers of the $1500 car.The development of Shubh Griha offers three home types ranging from 283 square feet to 465 square feet.  They’re basic, but affordable and allow many more units to be built within the same sized apartment building as would be the case in most North American cities.

No, this size and simplicity wouldn’t suit everyone.  But many families long for a well-built, simple and more affordable home in the city and would likely give up size in return for everything else.

In North America more two bedroom units might be appropriate for families who don’t all want to sleep in the same room.  But, why not on the same scale?  a 400 s.f. 2 bedroom place?

Looking ahead to an urban world with high energy prices, maybe there is room for housing that’s simpler, smaller and more ecological.  Plus, more people living in the same area provides a big enough market for frequent mass transit and offers enough customers to support more local businesses, reducing the need to drive.

Smaller homes seem like a good fit.

Category: ecological issues, planning policy, urban technologies /

Car-free communities in the 21st century

May 13, 2009 / Wendy Waters / 6 comments

 Older neighbourhoods in European and some North American cities often work well as pedestrian and cycling zones because they emerged before the automobile existed.   Any new community, by law, typically has to allow for automobiles both in roadway allowances and parking regulations.

But what would happen in the 21st-century if you built a community that deliberately excluded automobiles. In Vauban, Germany, they decided to find out as the New York Times’ Elizabeth Rosenthal describes (via CEOs for Cities):

Street parking, driveways and home garages are generally forbidden in this experimental new district on the outskirts of Freiburg, near the French and Swiss borders. Vauban’s streets are completely “car-free” — except the main thoroughfare, where the tram to downtown Freiburg runs, and a few streets on one edge of the community. Car ownership is allowed, but there are only two places to park — large garages at the edge of the development, where a car-owner buys a space, for $40,000, along with a home.

The community was built in 2006 and has 5,500 residents all living within 1 square mile.

Rosenthal mentions a new community, Quarry Village, is proposed for Oakland California that also limits automobile access.  However, mortgage lenders are reluctant to support the project citing concerns that houses with no parking will not hold their value in car-centric America.

Category: planning policy, residential development, urban history, urban technologies /

Special civic advocates for walking? cycling?

May 10, 2009 / Wendy Waters / 2 comments

Cities need to offer residents and businesses a variety of transportation options to maximize livability.  Only facilitating automobile travel makes for a polluted, congested, and concrete-freeway-based environment.  Only facilitating bikes or walking in 21st century life and you hamper citizens’ ability to go any distance or carry very much while doing it.   As recently discussed, some argue that a plurality of viable transport options are what make a neighbourhood and city more livable.

So, would city benefit from a special advocate for each type of transportation option?

A professor of Urban Studies at Simon Fraser University believes Vancouver needs a pedestrian advocate.  Along with some other dedicated walkers, he’s frustrated by the new bicycle-friendly policy to take over a one vehicle lane and one sidewalk on the Burrard Bridge between downtown and Kitsilano.

Portland Oregon apparently has one (according to the professor) — although in googling to learn more, I could only find out about a paid coordinator for the Willamette Pedestrian Advocacy Committee, which is a volunteer-based community organization to promote pedestrian-friendly policies in greater Portland.

In looking at the dramatic swing to bicycle friendly policy with the new Vancouver city administration (the new mayor is an avid cyclist, commuting by bike to many city events), I’m inclined to think that cities don’t need single-transportation-mode advocates.  Focusing on improving the situation for just one transportation option, can result in ignoring the implications for other users, as the SFU prof notes.

I’d like to see cities embracing a position for balancing citizens’ transportation options.  The holder would be someone knowledgeable and sympathetic to all forms of getting around a city — motor vehicle, bus, metro, street car, bicycle, walking, stroller, wheelchair, etc.  And their role would be to consider the implications of any proposed policies on all of these transportation options.

Cities themselves generate volunteer-based citizen lobby groups for cycling, walking, driving, transit use, etc.  This “transportation advocate” I’m envisioning would also be their liaison to city hall, helping to turn their ideas into workable civic policy proposals that will improve the livability of the region.

Maybe a multi-modal transportation advocate position would be something CEOs for Cities could consider in their efforts to re-envision America’s cities and come up with strategies to help them emerge from this recession or “reset” ready to support 21st century economic, social and ecological needs.

Category: city hall, communities, downtowns, ecological issues, planning policy, revitalization, transportation, urban technologies /

Enough doomsday talk, focus on livability

April 21, 2009 / Wendy Waters / One comment

Almost everyday in the newspaper or the blogosphere some group attempts to make headlines forecasting what we could call “eco-doom” for cities.  Whether the prediction is rising sea levels,  fires, plagues of locusts (or killer bees) the result is misplaced attention.

Here’s an example via Planetizen: Sea Levels are Rising: It’s Time to Decide Which Cities are Worth Saving.  The article goes on to insist that we should be addressing the possibility that rising sea levels will swamp the hospital, schools and other infrastructure of various cities.

Behind this alarmist headline, the article does not discuss a time frame.  Some scientific models suggest such a scenario is at least 100 years away, if it happens.  And given similar forecasting models based on oceans and atmospheric events cannot accurately predict the weather next week or often even the next day in most coastal cities, I’m inherently skeptical of anyone saying they can predict events 50 – 100 years in the future.

Instead of forecasting certain doom, or fretting about the green house gasses that others produce in far off places, what if we focused on making our own cities more livable now?  Designing public policy to plan for a possible — but not at all a certain — event 50-100 years in the future seems a wasted energy when there is so much more we could be doing now.

Air pollution causes asthma and other respiratory disease, thereby reducing the quality of life in cities.  When Atlanta had to restrict automotive use during the 1996 Olympics, hospitalizations for asthma and related ailments declined 41%.

So what if urban public policy was centered around improving air quality:  Make possible more transit and bicycle use as well as walking instead of single-occupant automotive travel.  Preserve and create more green space, that cleans the air and improves livability in cities.

Human beings were built for walking.  When we don’t walk, or get regular moderate exercise, our bodies don’t work right (heart disease, obesity, diabetes, are all signs of this).   Public policy to make walking a more natural part of the day could reduce pollution and health care costs and improve quality of life.

If policy went further and demanded office buildings and other workplaces like hospitals and schools had better air quality and more natural light, it would reduce energy consumption and make people happier, more productive at their jobs — which would boost the economy and reduce pollution in the cities, improving livability.
Instead of discussing hypothetical doom, why don’t we talk about how cities affect the health and well-being of residents now– and do something about it.

Category: ecological issues, planning policy, Uncategorized, urban lifestyles /

Urban Chickens or Pigs Anyone?

March 11, 2009 / Wendy Waters / One comment

It looks like barnyard animals could be making an urban comeback in North America.

The Toronto Star summarized a Dutch  firm’s idea of farming pigs vertically, in multi-storey buildings.  Apparently it’s more ecologically responsible:

Proposed by the Dutch architectural firm MVRDV, the argument is that it’s more efficient to raise swine in highrise farms than on the ground, where they take up a lot of room. According to MVRDV, if pigs in Holland were raised organically – i.e. fed 100 per cent grain – three-quarters of the country would have to be set aside to meet their needs.

By giving these pigs wings and stacking them in the sties in the skies, the land below remains free and transportation and distribution costs can be cut. Each tower could feed 500,000 people annually. The pigs would also get to enjoy well-ventilated spaces with great views.

Meanwhile in Vancouver, chickens are scheduled to make a come back (while in New York, Seattle and Portland apparently they never left).

If barnyard animals can humanely be kept in dense urban spaces, and contribute to increasing urban sustainability, without creating new, more serious problems, then I’d welcome them.

But somehow in Vancouver, which sits right next to thousands of kilometers of wilderness, I can’t help but think that chickens would simply attract and feed more bears, cougars, foxes, coyotes and other animals that really don’t belong in the city.

Do you have your own chickens? would you welcome 40 storeys of pigs moving in down the street?

Category: development conflicts, ecological issues, planning policy, urban lifestyles /

Transit should be an essential service

January 16, 2009 / Wendy Waters / 12 comments

A transit strike has afflicted Ottawa — Canada’s capital city — for over five weeks.   Ottawa usually has a fairly good transit system, relied on by many people who have chosen not to have a car (or a second family vehicle) as well as those who cannot afford one.

People who have made the ecologically and/or economical choice to drive less have been held hostage by the strike, being waged during the height of winter with temperatures around -30.  Seniors, parents with young children, and others who cannot handle time in the bitter cold and use transit are stuck at home.    Presumably many people are struggling to get to work — and they will think that decision not to own a car.  The economy of Ottawa is no doubt suffering because people can’t get out.

In North America many urban planners, leaders, and  everyday citizens have been trying to reduce congestion, pollution and promote transit use.

But, if residents cannot rely on the transit,  they won’t give up their cars.  If oil returns to $137/barrel and gasoline to $1.50/litre in Canada or $4/gallon — or more — in the US, many more people will rely on transit — as will the city’s economy.

City and regional governments need to think ahead here.  Transit should be considered like electricity or fire fighting — an essential service.

Category: ecological issues, economic development, planning policy, transportation, urban technologies /

Not the time for short term thinking

January 6, 2009 / Wendy Waters / 2 comments

Many smart business leaders and investment managers are taking advantage of the economic slow down to stop, think, and put into place the foundations for the next 5 to 10 year business cycle — and even thinking much further ahead than that.

Unfortunately, it seems that many city governments, and those at other levels that impact cities are taking the opposite approach.  Some are even backtracking on progressive, forward-looking plans initiated before the recession hit.

Take San Francisco’s proposed congestion pricing strategy.  The mayor and other urban leaders previously saw reducing congestion as vital to the long term livability of the region and especially the metro core.  Now they are seeing the economic downturn as a reason to backtrack.  From the New York Times (pointer Frances Bula):

During his second inaugural address a year ago, San Francisco’s mayor, Gavin Newsom, called congestion pricing “the single greatest step we can take to protect our environment and improve our quality of life.”

Last week, however, the mayor’s office offered a more tepid endorsement.

“The devil is in the details,” said a spokesman, Nathan Ballard. While Mr. Newsom supports congestion management, Mr. Ballard said, “Given the challenging economic times, we would hate to impose too heavy a burden on commuters.”

Commuters are paying less than half price for gas!  The congestion charge would likely still have the vast majority paying less to commute than they did 6 months ago.

City governments, urban business leaders, and all of us voters and citizens need to be thinking about what we want our cities to be like when the economy is next running at full tilt, and over the next 10-20 years. If we want less congestion, more amenities, more walkability, etc. — and more desirebility as a place to live for talented people (which will attract tax-paying corporate employers)  then now is the time to push forward on projects that enhance this.

This is not the time to prop up an older way of doing things for whatever short term gain may be had.

I am concerned that aspects of the stimulus plans that Obama’s administration is formulating will end up being a waste of money and actually set America’s cities back.  More freeway capacity will tend to prop up suburbia, rather than support the revitalization of downtowns and inner urban neighbourhoods.

Once the economy rebounds, many features seen in 2007 and early 2008 will return: high oil prices; citizen concern for the environment; popular interest in living closer to places of work, entertainment and recreation.

These social and economic features that characterized the end of the last cycle should be kept in mind by everyone from urban residents to urban planners and politicians.

Category: city hall, ecological issues, economic development, national politics, planning policy, resident attitudes /

Cities as places

December 2, 2008 / Wendy Waters / 5 comments

Well-functioning cities are not just collections of people, places for commerce, or even car-tropolis.   They are collections of “places” — that is, networks of people and services interwoven into the lives of residents.  Cafes, doctors offices, grocers and specialty retailers are examples of ingredients to place — they offer services used by residents and supplied by them as well.

In fact, the components of place making are actually now a vital part of urban economies.  According to new research from Land Policy Institute (LPI) at Michigan State University (as reported by the Project for Public Spaces):

Services, which are inherently local and include everything from doctors’ visits to construction projects, now account for a larger share of the economy than goods. … half of total economic losses stemming from drops in population are caused by a loss of service jobs and income. That means when people move they take a piece of the economy with them.

Thinking about cities in this way — as ecosystems fueled by people who in turn provide services to others — could change economic development strategy and even how we think about cities.  It’s possible the days are numbered for the suburban-sprawl based model with generic identical houses served by national chain stores that look the same everywhere.  As the Project for Public Spaces summarizes:

In the past, a vital local economy was based on attracting large companies by offering inexpensive locations and a cheap labor force.  The qualities of a particular place mattered little, and people migrated to where the jobs were. Moreover, much of that economic growth was based on cheap oil, which encouraged people’s work, homes and shopping destinations to be spread far apart.  That’s all changed, and now communities with lively destinations that are easily reached by walking and transit gain distinct advantages.

And, the more people feel apart of their community and a contributor to a place, arguably the less likely they are to move on taking their piece of the economy with them.

There are some intriguing implications of this approach to cities.  Will people move elsewhere for a job if it means leaving a place?  or stay and perhaps create their own job?  Will some people rent forever (because they cannot afford to buy in a particular locale) in order to stay a part of the community they love?

Category: communities, economic development, planning policy /
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