High City Density, High Prices

The fundamental problem with urban growth boundaries … is that they ration land. This, of course, raises land prices and housing prices. A well-governed metropolitan area will have policies that seek to minimize the cost of living, maximize discretionary incomes, minimize traffic congestion and thereby improve economic growth.
— Wendell Cox

You have to admit that whether you agree with him or not, Wendell Cox offers a fresh perspective. It’s long been de rigueur for professional urban planners and left-of-centre middle-class lay-people alike to opine on the benefits of “high density” areas: These concentrations of large groups of people are supposed to be better for the environment, better for the economy and better for society. Residents are said to use cars less, walk more and consume fewer resources. Some even claim they’ll breathe fresher air. But in a commentary released Thursday by the Macdonald-Laurier institute, Mr. Cox — an urban policy authority himself — dares to suggest just the opposite. What “radical densification” has done, he says, is drive down the quality of life for Canadians living in the country’s major cities.

I thought a great deal about Mr. Cox’s commentary as I drove in to work in Toronto Thursday morning, and marvelled at how much faster my commute is on the rare occasions that I take the family minivan instead of public transit (15 minutes vs. 50 minutes). It’s an annoyance I usually keep to myself because I’ve been told so many times how much better transit is for everyone, and how lucky I am to live in a “dense” neighbourhood with a subway station in easy walking distance. I’ve figured the time discrepancy is probably just an anomaly resulting from my particular home and work addresses. Only, Mr. Cox says it isn’t.

Mr. Cox has studied six populous Canadian metro areas (including Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and Calgary) and found that trips to work taken on public transit in these places last more than 50% longer than the same trips taken in cars.

The gist of Mr. Cox’s point is that planners’ obsession with reducing roadway capacity in favour of spending on transit is at odds with the reality that cars still are — and always will be — king in all but a very small core part of high density communities. These planners are therefore causing municipalities to throw good money after bad in an attempt to attain the unattainable: a transit system that is preferable to a car for any trip but one to downtown.

The density-obsessed planners are also, according to Mr. Cox, largely responsible for the lack of affordable housing in Canadian centres. It’s basic economics that when you restrict the supply of a good, its price will increase. So no wonder that housing prices are getting ridiculous in Vancouver, Toronto and even Calgary (which you’d think would have ample land to spare). The governments in all three metro areas have made use of strict urban growth boundaries — forbidding or severely limiting development beyond an imaginary geographic line.

While environmental concerns tend to be at the forefront of arguments in favour of population density, Mr. Cox makes the point that sustainability ain’t going to happen unless Canadian cities actually maintain positive economic growth — and that’s not going to happen if a blind insistence on density makes living in these cities infeasible and unpalatable (heavy traffic, overpriced homes, etc.). That may seem an obvious point, but it’s amazing how often it gets left out of discussions about urban planning.

One of the most satisfying parts of reading Mr. Cox’s commentary is the reminder it serves of the deleterious effects — and unintended consequences — of relying on central (in this case urban) planning over individual free will. For illustrative purposes, Mr. Cox compares Toronto with Dallas-Fort Worth. The two have similar population levels, but the Texas metropolis ends up besting Toronto in commute times, incomes and housing prices. Why? Could be because it also has no urban growth boundary (which has resulted in more voluntary sprawl) and it has not neglected its roads and freeway systems in favour of trying force to residents onto public transit.

If Mr. Cox succeeds in convincing any highly populated Canadian metro area to rethink its slavish adherence to the trendy notions of “smart growth” or “high density,” I will be very surprised: His arguments are a refreshing balm for anyone already skeptical of these movements, but hardly revolutionary enough to convert the “livability” zealots.

But what a relief that someone has finally tried!

National Post
msoupcoff@nationalpost.com

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/...y-high-prices/

zanate · 05-25-2012 09:32 AM

There are (unsurprisingly) a number of points I disagree with about this commentary, but it's a good read because it's a different mindset that produces it from many (but not all) of the people who have congregated on this board, and it is a mindset that we must be able to have a rational discussion with. Cox's own writing should be taken with a major dose of salt, as he attempts to tackle the transportation issue from a hard right, almost libertarian standpoint.

My favourite paragraph:

One of the most satisfying parts of reading Mr. Cox’s commentary is the reminder it serves of the deleterious effects — and unintended consequences — of relying on central (in this case urban) planning over individual free will. For illustrative purposes, Mr. Cox compares Toronto with Dallas-Fort Worth. The two have similar population levels, but the Texas metropolis ends up besting Toronto in commute times, incomes and housing prices. Why? Could be because it also has no urban growth boundary (which has resulted in more voluntary sprawl) and it has not neglected its roads and freeway systems in favour of trying force to residents onto public transit.

Firstly, on comparing Toronto with DFW: The GTA's commuting time has increased greatly, for a number of reasons, not the least of which is Toronto's amazing mismanagement of its own transit... and Ontario's slowness of expanding regional transit. Using Toronto as an example of the failure of transit is a little like using the Soviet Union as an argument for the failure of the free market. DFW has been allowed to sprawl in all directions, whereas Toronto is constrained by a lake. Furthermore, Metropolitan Dallas has hardly increased in population in the last ten years, and is less than half the size of Metropolitan Toronto. (Though both the DFW and GTA areas have experienced very similar high growth rates.)

So perhaps the best argument for DFW's "success" is that they did something and the GTA did, well, very little.

Of greater concern to me is the canard of "individual free will" over planning. The illusion is that by allowing everyone to build where they please in DFW, everything has just worked. And yet, even unrestricted sprawl requires intense planning for roads, sewers, water and electricity. The costs per dwelling of this infrastructure are much higher in low-density sprawl, and while largely they have been paid for by those developments, they add an obligation to their municipal areas for maintenance and eventual replacement or rebuilding of much of that infrastructure, usually on the 30-year timeframe.

Beyond the fact that the viability of low-density development depends on the affordability of personal auto travel, infrastructure costs which must be borne by municipalities scale more by area than by population, and the value of the land being serviced is not generating enough tax revenue to maintain that infrastructure. DFW may be experiencing short-term success, but it's by writing cheques (well, checks) that future DFW won't be able to cash.

This is why a bunch of "livability zealots" are yammering about sustainability. Cox says sustainability "ain't gonna happen" unless Canadian cities maintain positive economic growth. I'd say that sustainability is not even a goal in DFW's growth, and it certainly won't "just happen". The economic viability of the GTA and DFW are still both very dependent on cheap oil. DFW has simply doubled down on that dependence, whereas the GTA has meandered without a visible direction for two decades.

The affordability of downtowns and urban areas is a difficult issue, though. It is a problem in Toronto and in many other cities, and I think we'll see it become a problem in KW. There are strategies to combat it but not much attention is being paid to it right now. But solving it by sprawling outwards in a pattern of paying for the last generation of sprawl in development charges to the next is hardly sustainable affordability. It was been called a massive Ponzi scheme.

BuildingScout · 05-25-2012 09:53 AM

The density-obsessed planners are also, according to Mr. Cox, largely responsible for the lack of affordable housing in Canadian centres.

That is true, but not in the way he thinks. The limited supply is in the form of restrictive low density regulations in the core. I challenge you try to build a high rise in downtown Toronto. Contrary to appearances you will have a very hard time finding land zoned for high density residential.

Closer to home, until recently it was darn nearly impossible to build a high rise infill in KW. Kitchener finally removed its restrictions in downtown only out of desperation, while Waterloo relaxed its laws along very limited nodes and corridors.

That is where your housing shortage comes from.

mpd618 · 05-25-2012 10:06 AM

Given how many ridiculous claims Wendell Cox makes these days, you would think he would bother to get some of them peer-reviewed and published. Of course, he never does. He makes his living as an anti-density contrarian, whether or not that has any relation to the facts. He often goes to great length to make his (likely oil funded) anti-city arguments, including such things as shoving honest-to-god cities into the suburb category in order to bolster his counter-factual claims.

He is good at what he does, but what he does is not in good faith; he's a professional troll. Don't feed the trolls.