Downtown Calgary is a big deal (see photo below and photos following the text). Traditional American and Canadian downtown areas (central business districts or CBDs) are a holdover from the pre-auto era. Their geographical limits were largely set by the early Great...
The city of Ottawa is updating its Official Plan. Under consideration are expanding the urban boundary (urban growth boundary) and strengthening of its intensification (densification)policy. These strategies are components of urban containment policy. This report...
How Affordable is Housing in Your City? 2021 Edition of Demographia International Housing Affordability CANADA, February 22, 2021 - The Frontier Centre for Public Policy has just released the 2021 edition of Demographia International Housing Affordability. The survey...
"In today’s media, on our college campuses, and on the streets of our great cities, no cry is more pervasive than the demand for “social justice” for America’s minorities. While much attention is given to athletes, academic pundits, political activists, and media...
It’s a well-known pattern in public policy – profligate politicians damaging their economies with out-of-control spending, massive borrowing and higher taxes – inevitably leading to fiscal crisis, sharp declines in growth and ultimately rapidly falling currency value...
Mass hysteria is the spontaneous manifestation of a particular behaviour by many people. There are numerous historical examples: Middle Age nuns at a convent in France spontaneously began to meow like cats; at another convent, nuns began biting one another. In...
Cities around the country are seeking to improve urban transportation infrastructure. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is committed to spending money on the “right things,” to create jobs and improve the economy. Yet, the productivity of infrastructure...
The Frontier Centre for Public Policy has released the 12th Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey, which is sponsored in Canada by the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. As of the 3rd quarter of 2015, Vancouver’s price-to-income ratio (house...
Rising house prices are a significant concern throughout Alberta, especially among first home buyers, many of whom are aspiring young families. There was, however, some good news out of the provincial budget that was announced at the end of October, as the Notley...
House prices in Canada have risen more than in most other high-income nations. Housing has become severely unaffordable, especially in Vancouver and Toronto. Housing affordability has also deteriorated markedly in London, Sydney, Auckland, San Francisco, Los Angeles...
People have been moving away from Canada’s largest metropolitan areas (Toronto, Montréal and Vancouver) for the last decade, according to Statistics Canada 2004/5 to 2013/4 data. Internal migration includes moving by residents within provinces...
According to The New York Times, Canada now has the most affluent middle-class in the world. This is based on a newspaper study commissioned by LIS, which maintains the Luxembourg Income Study Database. According to The Times “the American middle class, long the...
Vancouver — along with Melbourne and Vienna — ranks at or near the top of The Economist and Mercer lists of the world’s most livable cities almost every year. These ratings are of justifiable pride to public officials and residents. It may be less...
Canada faces a housing affordability crisis. In a number of cities, housing has become so expensive that many middle income households can no longer afford to buy a house. This is not good for people, households or the nation as a whole. Short of rule of law and...
In Canada, growth is moving west, but not all the way. The big growth now is in the Prairies between central Canada and British Columbia, the Canadian part of the Great Plains. Yet you can’t talk about metropolitan Canada without first mentioning the Toronto region....