It feels like Canadian governments have forgotten how to plan. As the op-ed states, we don’t have the sewer/water/road/fire for the 5,800,000 houses we’re building by 2030. And politicians aren’t budgeting for it’s construction.
In the bigger picture, we aren’t training enough nurses and doctors to service our current population, let alone what our population is forecast to become. Similarly, we aren’t funding post-secondary education beyond overcharging students from abroad.
But I digress. On the housing file:
The politicians who are promising action to build the 5.8 million new homes Canada needs by 2030 seem to be forgetting that, unlike that log cabin, the millions of homes that are needed can’t even begin to be built without connection to the world around them, to roads, bridges, clean water, electricity and waste management. They don’t seem to be factoring in that those houses will have people in them, millions of people, who need access to hospitals and schools, to civic and recreational facilities, to public transit, to emergency services. In other words, it is not possible to build so many new homes across Canada without considering essential housing-enabling infrastructure. Yet no one is even talking about that part of the equation, let alone announcing funding for it.
It is a significant oversight. A report by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities estimates that each new housing unit will require $107,000 in public infrastructure investment. This amounts to a total of $620-billion in new public funding needed to produce workable housing, which far outstrips currently projected investments of $245-billion.
A huge part of that is affordability and the availability of services. We started out in a downtown apartment, and it was fine. There were lots of playgrounds for our kids, and we could afford it.
As the playgrounds began to get more and more drug paraphernalia, and we were told we needed two home working spaces, downtown became less workable. A downtown apartment/house with enough room is 500k+ more expensive than one in the burbs.
As our kids are older, there’s less for them to do in downtown neighbourhoods that just have restaurants, coffee shops, gyms, and playgrounds aimed at toddlers. No sports fields, bookshops, swimming pools, comic book shops, bike paths, museums, or other kid -friendly places. Downtown housing that we can afford doesn’t have room for kids’ amenities and work space.
So we need to move. Not because we want to, but because planning has built downtown neighbourhoods that are unfriendly to families.
100% agree and I have been saying this for sometime myself, we need to make north america cities more family focused. COVID made it more visible that no one actually lived in cities.
Most restaurants closed for example, restaurants that you thought were “community focused” were actually only serving commuters into the cities. Nothing was “keeping” people in the surrounding area, no families, no roots.
North america cities for some reason are designed for commuters instead of the people that actually live there. On top of that most new condos and developments are geared to investment properties, meaning small units maybe max 2 bedrooms.
You can’t raise two kids in a two bedroom unit. And if you happen to find a three or four bedroom in the downtown core it’s priced substantially higher for lower square footage than a single family home in the suburbs.
It’s nice to meet a kindred soul.
Is a great example of the problem. We don’t have communities.
Again, this. My desired city has townhouses that cost $1.5 million downtown. They’re nice, but they don’t have the space or amenities that a $900k house in the burbs. I want to live in a dense, walkable community, but I’m priced out.