But its not as if a gun is being held to peoples heads and they are being forced to buy there. A major reason they are doing so is because of price.
It has been also already been pointed out a number of times by others that if Blatchford were more price competitive it would do much better.
or our managed growth allows us to maintain affordability? do you think prices will go down if you restricted keswick's development?
My understanding is demand for housing and living in north central Edmonton also is pretty low compared to other parts of the city. It's not like if you suddenly curb sprawl demand spikes at Blatchford. And I'm all for curbing sprawl.
i definitely don’t think it’s a simple 1-2 switch. It’s complex with a lot of factors. But let’s look at some of the top reasons people speak to living in new suburbs and not centrally:
- new homes with modern finishes
- close to quality amenities like rec centres, modern schools, good playgrounds
- access to shopping and retail (windemere currents, winterburn shopping areas, SEC)
- cheaper (artificially so)
- more housing varieties and price points. TONS of townhomes and apartments in new suburbs. Not just large lot homes or high rises, or low quality 70s walkups, or pricey big infills. Way easier to find a home you like in new suburbs vs one off infills or mature neighborhood resales.
And people don’t like central because:
- concerns about safety and crime
- lots of low income housing neighborhoods that have lacked reinvestment - buildings, schools, parks.
- smaller, less modern schools
- lack of rec centres (or just lower quality ones)
- little inventory that’s not pricey or old
- infrastructure quality in central communities vs masterplanned suburbs is less beautiful/attractive
- so-so main streets, downtown, and central attractions.
- lack of highly desirable transit
Now, at a micro scale, stopping 1 new community today, doesn’t fix anything. But for decades we’ve allowed more and more sprawl. And it’s slowly deteriorated our core. Imagine all the money going into rec centres, transit, schools, and retail outside of the henday being reinvested into mature infill and redevelopment projects instead.
And the affordability question is complex. Sprawl likely does keep home prices lower. But it doesn’t keep taxes lower. And it hurts service quality. And it necessitates car ownership for 80% of our city (which over 10 years is 100k per car, or the equivalent to buying a 400k home with 2 cars vs 600k home with 1 car). And it hurts local business success to the advantage of chain/big box corporations. And it detracts from the vibrancy and success of our downtown and main streets, which scares off investments/jobs.
No one wanted to live in the area now called keswick 30 years ago. People only want to live there now because we’ve spent billions on the henday, moved 80,000 people to that area, built schools, allowed a ton of private retail to develop, etc. I bet blatchford would have pretty strong appeal if we put that sort of money in LRT, improving the communities around blatchford, attracting more retail and investment into downtown, Oliver 124,118.
But when people are spending 400k on average quality townhomes, in areas with bad traffic, overflowing schools, and not a lot of culture/unique appeal, I don’t think it’s because those places are inherently the best. I think it’s because 2000 of those homes came up for sale in that community while 20 came up in a central neighborhood. If we stopped building new suburbs and saw 2000 homes built in blatchford, I don’t think people just wouldn’t buy them. We’ve just created the conditions to make blatchford uncompetitive.
Increase the taxes on new homes in new suburbs so those communities stop being tax negative, then we’ll maybe actually see the redevelopment centrally that we need.
