Planning Committee

[bravado]

Housing breaks people's brains:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...22/672240/

Build more units, what's the problem? When you've built enough, build some more while you're at it.

Since the worst case scenario is literally happening right now in our city, then I don't care if some developers get rich or some lady has too much shade in her backyard now from an apartment building.

Good article!

And unfortunately urban planning also breaks people’s brains. The most obvious way in which this is true is that the highways always seem to be full. So, by my logic (not mine, of course, but the logic I’m using), we clearly need to build more. Most people on this board know that this is untrue, of course. But what’s wrong with the logic? Of course the highways are effectively free at the point of use, but built on a socialist model. So it’s like there was rent control with rents set at $0, and the government builds all the housing. Also, highways are only one way of getting from one place to another; what is in short supply is transportation, not roads specifically, so the real fix is to build efficient economical transportation, which doesn’t mean using highways for everything. Maybe there is an analogy back to housing: what is in short supply is living space, not single-family houses with a backyard specifically.

I’m worried that eventually we will decide that we do indeed need to build lots of new housing, and will decide that the way to do that is to fill in the greenbelt with cookie cutter subdivisions and more 400-series highways. The current government is already moving in this direction in a small way. Of course, anybody who knows anything about urban planning knows that this will just re-create our current problem on an even grander scale.

If I can be cynical, the provincial government sees 2 choices:
1. Keep expanding SFH and suburbs, citizens/voters seem to accept this in general
2. Have a painful, but financially sound, discussion about increasing density and stopping sprawl

Everything Doug has shown me (and his supporters) is that they like the easy, self-serving option at all times.