The_Cat
Senior Member
There's more housing infill in the older neighbourhoods. Also, newer neighbourhoods have higher density housing.
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- Thread starter Kosy123
- Start date
TAS
Senior Member
Density of housing is increasing but I wonder how density related to population and the size of the city is fairing.
My friend owns a 50s home with a basement suite and he built a garage suite - adding housing density to the city. One person lives in garage suite, one in the basement and a couple on the main floor. That's 4. I don't know the history of that home, but I think it would be reasonable to assume it was a family of 4. And maybe more.
Major difference, that family of 4 probably had one vehicle. Now, this property has 4 vehicles on site and at one time there were 5 when my buddy had 2.
That's putting a strain on our streets like never before.
policyenthusiast
Active Member
I don't think people typically complain about the availability of these three classes of housing, but rather about the lack of "in-between". We have lots of apartments, and we have lots of houses, but not a lot of the building types that are a compromise between separation and price.
thommyjo
Senior Member
Tbh, I don’t think that’s fully accurate. We actually have a ton of 3-4 story low rises, and a LOT of townhomes and duplexes. Better than most North American cities (I might even venture to say our ratio might beat Vancouver proper as it’s more divided between larger homes and then a ton of 6+ story buildings)
policyenthusiast
Active Member
I agree that we have a better mix than Vancouver - but their housing situation is such a disaster that I wouldn't use it as a barometer.
IanO
Superstar
Prices aside, Vancouver has an absolute ton of 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s low-rise product throughout the lower mainland.
David A
Senior Member
I wonder if the density figures for Edmonton are skewed a lot by the fairly large industrial areas we have in the north east, north west and south east, where obviously few or no people live, but many people do work. I believe other cities our size in Canada do not have industrial areas as large. I wonder if you adjust for that, if we would be more comparable. Density does seem to be increasing both in older residential areas and in newer areas.
TAS
Senior Member
A video from urbanist youtubers Oh The Urbanity provides some perspective/insights. They ranked the top 20 cities in North America based on the number of neighbourhoods in a city that meet these two criteria.
Edmonton did not make the top 20 - but Canadian cities that did have more neighbourhoods than us that met those two criteria above were:
#20 - Calgary
#19 - Winnipeg
#15 - Victoria
#14 - Quebec City
#11 - Ottawa
#8 - Vancouver
#4 - Montreal
#3 - Chicago
#2 - Toronto
#1 - New York
Once Toronto did those major amalgamations, they lost significant population density. But they still have a significant number of neighbourhoods that met the above criteria of density and active transportation usage.
Yes, Edmonton may have a large amount of industrial land and our river valley bringing down our overall density, but digging in deeper to specific districts people live in within Edmonton and it appears we don't stack up as well as other Canadian cities on those two important metrics.
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policyenthusiast
Active Member
That's an unusual set of metrics.
First, the measurement of 4,000 people per square kilometer is slightly higher than the equivalent density of 10,000 people per square mile (which is approximately 3,861 people per square kilometer). It's close enough functionally, but I'm not sure why they would round that number. I assume the math behind this is solid though.
Second, the use of alternative/public transportation can be an indicator of infrastructure but it can also (perhaps even more commonly) be an indicator of low affordability.
Lastly, being measured by neighbourhood is a bit of a wildcard because a "neighbourhood" isn't really a regulated term as far as I know. Interesting video for sure, but I would take it with a grain of salt.
TAS
Senior Member
They certainly acknowledge it's not an easy thing to capture - different people have tried to rank cities in terms of urbanism using various metrics and they all have their limitations.
Not sure if you watched the video, but it not really neighbourhoods as opposed to number of pockets in a city meeting that density criteria.
Certainly measuring cities in terms of density using just population and land area has many limitations.
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kcantor
Senior Member
David A
Senior Member
I am sure this is also happening elsewhere, but there are a number of projects now and recently in older neighbourhoods here where several houses or older smaller buildings are being torn down and six story buildings are being built. If they are tucked in the neighbourhood, not on a major road this is not very visible to most people, but still increases the density considerably.
I don't know if this would change our ranking, but I wonder if some of this construction in the last few years is not yet reflected in those figures. The central areas of Edmonton are definitely becoming denser and lot sizes for SFH's in the newer areas are also smaller than in the older areas.
I don't know if this would change our ranking, but I wonder if some of this construction in the last few years is not yet reflected in those figures. The central areas of Edmonton are definitely becoming denser and lot sizes for SFH's in the newer areas are also smaller than in the older areas.
TAS
Senior Member
Captured this from the YYC site - in terms of housing starts in Q2 2024, Edmonton does have the highest percentage as SFH. Given the number of overall apartments and what we see popping up in older neighbouroods though, we are densifying in more areas. We're probably still growing out more, too. Some other cities are limited geographically from that happening.
trevorhayden
Active Member
Our unique dependence on single family homes will be our demise.
