A new mural is underway at Yonge + St. Clair by the Toronto-based street artist birdO (aka Jerry Rugg ). He started over the weekend and should be finished by next week, depending on the weather. Here is what it looks like so far:
If you'd like to take a look in person, head on over to 1 St. Clair Avenue East . It's the building at the southeast corner of the intersection. And if you'd like to learn more about birdO, here's a short film about some of his work in Detroit. It's really well done.
In this January 2018 report from the Fraser Institute , they pegged the average population density of Paris to be about 21,067 inhabitants per square kilometer (2014 population year). It is the second densest city in their report after Hong Kong, but the densest in Europe . By comparison, Vancouver sits at around 5,493 inhabitants per square kilometer (2016 population year).
Now, these are of course city averages. Some neighborhoods will be higher and some will be lower. According to a January 2018 study by Alasdair Rae -- who is a works in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the University of Sheffield -- these are the most densely populated square kilometers across Europe (or at least within the 39 countries that he looked at).
Paris, once again, comes in near the top with a peak density somewhere around 52,218 inhabitants per 1km square. The square in question is in the neighborhood of Goutte D'Or . And the only square within the study to come in denser is one from the L’Hospitalet de Llobegrat in Greater Barcelona (53,119 inhabitants per square kilometer).
Now let's take a look at how these sorts of densities actually manifest themselves. Below is an aerial capture from Google Maps showing a section of Goutte D'Or in Paris. The buildings are all pretty much 7 storeys (mid-rise), but the blocks are mostly filled in. Lots of interior courtyard apartments. This is one way to get to over 50,000 people per square kilometer.
Returning to Vancouver as a point of comparison, below is an aerial capture from downtown Vancouver at exactly the same scale as the Paris capture . I couldn't find a density map of downtown, but it's probably safe to assume that it's greater than 5,493 and a lot less than 52,218 residents per square kilometer.
What you see here is typical Vancouverism . Lots of slender point towers, careful tower positioning and spacing, and generally low podiums. It is a perfect demonstration that height and density do not necessarily correlate. It is possible to have low buildings and high density, which is something that Europe obviously does very well.
But here's the important question: In which of these two examples would you rather live? Please leave a comment below.
Many, or perhaps most, developers I know have a minimum project size that they will work on. That's why you'll hear people say, "No, that project is too small. I need at least X square feet or Y number of units." Given that smaller scale development such as laneway housing and "the missing middle" are so in vogue today, I thought I would discuss some of the reasons why scale matters.
But first, it's worth mentioning that "laneway suites," as we have structured them here in Toronto, are intended to be built by individual homeowners and not by developers. The lots can't be severed and most lots will yield less than 1,000 square feet. So this is a bit of a unique circumstance. As most of you know, I am a big supporter of this initiative.
When you get into larger developer-led projects, it's a different ball game. For one, it's hard to even find sites. And good luck if you need to deal with multiple owners as part of an assembly. Most landowners have pricing expectations that do not even remotely align with "missing middle" level densities.
But assuming you've been able to find land at a reasonable price, you still have to contend with the fact that projects have a lot of fixed costs, as well as diseconomies of scale. In other words, there are schedule, cost, and resourcing considerations that won't change no matter how big or small you go. It's still going to take this long and cost this much, and you're still going to need a set of humans to manage it through.
This can then create a situation where there's not enough margin for error. The project is simply too small to absorb any shocks, such as an unforeseen delay or an unforeseen groundwater concern that is now adding millions to your project budget. There's a lot of risk with development and it's prudent to have contingency room. That's harder to do with smaller projects.
The other problem developers run into with smaller projects is that the construction subtrades also tend to think of them as smaller projects. They have their own set of fixed costs and margins to worry about. So unless you happen to catch them with an opening in their schedule, you run the risk of them telling you they're too busy or them giving you a stinky price, which is just another way of them saying they don't want the job.
On top of all this, there's minimum project size inflation. If capital is not a constraint, there's a tendency to want to do bigger projects (see above). And because the cost of everything keeps going up, it's simultaneously getting harder and harder to make smaller projects pencil; unless you, maybe, go ultra luxury and ultra exclusive. But that's kind of the opposite goal of this whole "missing middle" movement, is it not?
