Demographia International Housing Affordability rates middle-income housing affordability in 94 major housing markets in eight nations: Australia, Canada, China, Ireland, New Zealand, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States. This edition covers the third...
Housing Affordability
The 15 Minute City: An Idiotic Dream
One of the arguments against single-family zoning is that separating housing from other uses forces people to drive to shops, work, and other destinations. Urban planners want to redesign cities so that people can walk to most of those destinations. They even have a...
Canadians on the Move, to Smaller Communities
The Canadian Dream is increasingly being realized in smaller areas For decades, Canadians moved to the larger cities (census metropolitan areas, or CMAs) with their economic opportunities. The latest estimates indicate that CMAs have 72 per cent of the nation’s...
The Rural Character of Canada’s Metropolitan Areas (CMAS)
There is considerable confusion with respect to the terms of urban geography, not only among the population in general, but also among the media, and sadly, among academics. Perhaps the greatest confusion is between the terms “metropolitan area” and “urban area.”...
Featured News
Canadians on the Move, to Smaller Communities
The Canadian Dream is increasingly being realized in smaller areas For decades, Canadians moved to the larger cities (census metropolitan areas, or CMAs) with their economic opportunities. The latest estimates indicate that CMAs have 72 per cent of the nation’s...
Leadership Needed in Canadian Healthcare; Apply Within
When the Premiers were first called to a sit-down lunch to talk about healthcare with Prime Minister Trudeau, there was plenty of talk about the potential for systemic change, innovation and accountability. It seemed that Canadians and their leaders were finally on...
As Canadian cities are plagued by ever-higher home prices, governments look for ways to provide affordable housing for their citizens. They should look to their own ill-advised “urban containment” policies. Urban containment severely restricts or bans development in...
What is Middle-Income Housing Affordability?
Few local or metropolitan issues receive more attention than housing affordability. This article provides a perspective on housing affordability. The focus is on the approach used by the Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey, which I co-author...
Housing Affordability From Vancouver To Sydney To Toronto: Time To Do What Works
The front page of The Wall Street Journal cited the difficulty of cities (Note 1) trying to stop the escalation of house prices “Western Cities Try, and Fail, To Slow Chinese Home Buying.” The more descriptive online headline said: Western Cities Want to Slow Flood of...
Restoring Housing Affordability in Toronto: A Once-in-a-Generation Opportunity
By Wendell Cox May 4, 2018 Recently, Ontario PC leader Doug Ford’s proposed building single-family homes in a large supply of urban fringe (greenbelt) land to address Toronto’s severe housing affordability. This was a unique...
The Urban Containment Effect (Zoning Effect) On Australian House Prices
By: Wendell Cox Originally published: April 5, 2018 Source: newgeography.com In delivering the Annual Report of the Bank to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics, Finance and Public Administration on August 18, 2006, (now...
California’s Dense Suburbs and Urbanization
Many observers think California urban areas are more geographically expansive ("lower density" or to use the pejorative term, more "sprawling") then those elsewhere in the nation, especially the Northeast Corridor, which runs from the Washington DC metropolitan area...
When Property Prices Are a Crime
Everyone knew that Vancouver housing prices were criminal—they just didn’t know by how much. By now, many citizens are aware that offshore money, mostly from China, has been laundered through casinos and invested in properties which have often been flipped through...
Patrik Schumacher, managing partner of Zaha Hadid Architects, and consultant Wendell Cox are both controversial figures in the urbanist world. They joined Aaron M. Renn in conversation to talk about their beliefs and what it's like to challenge the urbanist...
Commuting In Canada: 2016 Census Report
Statistics Canada has just released the employment access data out of the 2016 Census, based on the main mode of commuting. Generally, there is little change between the modes, as Figure 1 indicates, compared to the 2011 Census results. (See: New Data on Commuting in...