Housing Density and the Environment…

“What is the proper density for city dwellings?” This was a question posed by the late renowned urbanist Jane Jacobs. This question is critiqued by Harvard economics professor Edward Glaeser in an insightful post that I encourage you to read. In short, Jacobs (in her active citizenry era) was vocal about the need for density limitations. Density and diversity were two things that she advocated for in the urbanized environment time and time again. But if an area was too dense, Jacobs argued that this would repress diversity and not stimulate it. Thus, she called for density restrictions (usually in dwelling units) so buildings could not grow at extremely tall heights.

Glaeser writes “Jacobs was reacting to the Le Corbusier-inspired public housing passions of the 1950s, when tall structures reflected the passions of planners more than consumer demand. Jacobs was right to emphasize that shorter neighbourhoods also have tremendous virtues”

“But Manhattan’s crime levels have fallen dramatically in recent decades, proving that with sufficient policing, safe streets can be perfectly compatible with tall buildings.”

I’ll touch on the environmental relevance in a bit, but the interesting economics is that restricting new construction and keeping building heights low (because of density maximums) simply means that housing supply cannot satisfy demand. The result is high prices in the city’s core making it only affordable to the wealthy and pushing out the poor. In cities like New York or even Vancouver, the downtown areas or boroughs have really good demand for condos, townhouses and other units because of closeness to work, amenities, the waterfront, public transit etc. Thus by limiting housing supply options, this will immediately force housing development in areas outside of the city in the form of cheaper suburban housing.

I do not have to go at length about the unfortunate (and numerous) ramifications of suburban housing but I want you to think about how your city is growing and what the housing market looks like.

Glaeser says that we should be embracing, not eschewing, densities over 200 units per acre. That’s the safe density number for a place like Manhattan or NYC’s downtown area.

The City of Vancouver (which I’ll blog about at length in the coming months) has not necessarily used density restrictions for urban growth, but has mountains and the ocean to limit housing development in the city. However, the city is all about growing up and not out (an urban planner’s dream) to avoid sprawl. There are many condos and housing units located in the downtown, alas, they are expensive just like Manhattan. So the wealthier class and urban professionals can live and work in the same area. However, the poorer class (with jobs concentrated in the downtown) cannot live there because of housing affordability issues.

Key message: We really need to focus on how we can create affordable spaces in urbanized environments so we don’t see an economic decline that is directly related to the cost of housing. Also, we can make our cities more sustainable and livable this way thereby achieving higher density and creating the impetus for increased public transit use.