Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 472

I went out this morning to grab coffee from around the corner and, on my way back home, I ran into two people in the elevator that, from what I could glean, had hit the same button in the elevator and then struck up a conversation. He asked if she had just recently moved into the building. She responded with no, and that she usually doesn't see anyone else on their floor. He was surprised by this response and said that he knows everybody on the floor.

Nearly a hundred years ago, architect Le Corbusier, as well as others, had the idea of creating "streets in the sky." Perhaps the most famous example of this concept is his Unité d'Habitation in Marseille (pictured above). Now a UNESCO World Heritage building because of its role in the development of modernist architecture, the building houses five "streets", two of which were intended to be fully-fledged shopping streets. These streets house(d) things like shops, restaurants, galleries, and even a hotel.

Le Corbusier was famous for his desire to create machines for living in. And these streets in the sky were part of this philosophy. The idea was that by having all of the things you needed under one roof, you would then be able to live an efficient, productive, and enjoyable life. Architecture and design could do that for you.

Of course, the other reason for this thinking was that we needed to get people away from cars. As the car became more commonplace in cities, conflicts arose. And architects began to grapple with how best to separate people and cars. One obvious solution was to simply lift people up and off the ground so that the street could be freed up for cars to do their thing. This was going to be the future.

The pitfalls of this line of thinking have since then been widely documented. And today, I think it's pretty clear that most cities are in fact taking the opposite approach. Instead of removing people, they are removing cars through pedestrianization projects. Some of these projects are temporary, but many are also permanent. This happening almost everywhere from Toronto to Sao Paulo .

The other problem is that it's extremely challenging to make retail uses work way up in the sky. And that's why even second floor retail spaces often struggle compared to those on the ground floor. As I understand it , the non-residential tenancies in Marseille's Unité d'Habitation have naturally evolved from being retail-centric to being more office-like. Supposedly you'll now find architects and medical offices, which is not at all surprising.

But that doesn't mean that Le Corbusier's instincts weren't directionally right. We now have lots of examples of tall buildings housing an intense mix of uses and public functions. And in the case of multi-family buildings, the corridors do often serve as a kind of street. I happen to live off of one that houses our building's amenities. And so in addition to just running into neighbors, I'll often run into the odd birthday party or Sunday afternoon sumo-suit party . True story!

It may not be the Champs-Élysées, but it is a kind of street for living.

Photo by  Bernd Dittrich  on  Unsplash

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_UHTgGFTX8

Regular readers of this blog will know that I am huge fan of the YouTube channel Never Too Small . I have seen most of their episodes and I like to tell people about it even when it is only remotely related to the conversation at hand.

I love the urbanity of it all. There is just something so satisfying about turning constrained spaces into homes that are both beautiful and functional. It also makes you question how much space you really need.

But if constraints aren't your thing, and you'd like to see a wider variety of homes, another great channel to check out is The Local Project . The homes -- which are all in Australia and New Zealand -- are equally as beautiful, but tend to be more, uh, extensive. See above video .

What are some other channels worth checking out? It seems to me like Canada needs something similar to The Local Project. Maybe it already exists.

I'm not all that familiar with Stockholm's housing market, but according to this recent article , it would appear that, like most big cities, there isn't enough affordable housing to go around. This is despite the fact that everyone in Sweden is technically entitled to it.

As of December 2021, there were 736,560 people (in Sweden) in the queue for a rent-controlled apartment, resulting in an average wait time of about 9.2 years. So basically what you want to do is put yourself on the list as soon as you turn 18. And then hope that at some point in the future you'll be granted an affordable apartment.

Given this dynamic, it makes sense there would be a long waitlist. If everyone is entitled to a rent-controlled apartment, you are effectively giving people two options: pay the market price or put yourself on this list, wait for a decade, and then pay less than the market price.

Why wouldn't you at least try to pay less?

The problem with this approach is that supply will almost certainly never keep pace with demand. It also appears to be fuelling a robust (and I guess illegal) secondary sublet market. Because if you have a below-market contract that is yours to keep forever and that lots of other people want, you have a valuable asset.

Getting housing right certainly isn't easy.