It seems like "guiding growth" mostly consists of building a physical community that no one really wants to live in, while insisting "you're gonna love it - it'll be great".
"...coercive micromanagement of personal life choices to justify the existence of an under-performing transit system" is also a perfect description of Ottawa.
The pathology of seeking control over how others live their lives "correctly" is best discharged in municipal planning where it is a sacred given that urban sprawl (single family dwellings) must be replaced with densification whether popular or not, and the enemy of such central planners is the automobile which is a feature of North American culture more universal than apple pie. In Canada we experience it sooner than most other jurisdictions thanks to feudal land ownership concentrated in the Crown. The 15 minute city is the ultimate barn for human cattle.
It is clear that our worsers [definitely not our betters] have struck again.
They just KNOW, know, I tell you!, what your community should look like and it isn't anything like you want. For that matter, I can't help but wonder just how many of these planners actually themselves live in these urban hells?
I will offer one possibility for those who might choose to oppose such an urban plan.
Research just where each of the planners themselves live and publicize that (community only, no personal addresses) information and ask them to justify their choices.
If people want single family homes, they should pay for it on a free market. It's fundamentally wrong to rig the market in favour of SFHs with zoning laws that ban density. What Toronto is doing here is a small step in the right direction.
I wouldn't say that it's the zoning laws themselves that are the main problem here. I would agree with you that allowing a free market to determine what kinds of housing are built is probably a good thing.
But this initiative looks like paving the way for various layers of government to stack the deck against urban home ownership altogether. Zoning changes on their own are benign. But those changes could be used by activist bureaucrats who control building permit approvals and development fees to make it **practically** impossible to create new owner-occupied housing - or even maintain existing owner-occupied housing.
That would seem to be a direction many or even most Canadians don't want to go.
Great piece
It seems like "guiding growth" mostly consists of building a physical community that no one really wants to live in, while insisting "you're gonna love it - it'll be great".
"...coercive micromanagement of personal life choices to justify the existence of an under-performing transit system" is also a perfect description of Ottawa.
The pathology of seeking control over how others live their lives "correctly" is best discharged in municipal planning where it is a sacred given that urban sprawl (single family dwellings) must be replaced with densification whether popular or not, and the enemy of such central planners is the automobile which is a feature of North American culture more universal than apple pie. In Canada we experience it sooner than most other jurisdictions thanks to feudal land ownership concentrated in the Crown. The 15 minute city is the ultimate barn for human cattle.
Well done, Sir!
It is clear that our worsers [definitely not our betters] have struck again.
They just KNOW, know, I tell you!, what your community should look like and it isn't anything like you want. For that matter, I can't help but wonder just how many of these planners actually themselves live in these urban hells?
I will offer one possibility for those who might choose to oppose such an urban plan.
Research just where each of the planners themselves live and publicize that (community only, no personal addresses) information and ask them to justify their choices.
If people want single family homes, they should pay for it on a free market. It's fundamentally wrong to rig the market in favour of SFHs with zoning laws that ban density. What Toronto is doing here is a small step in the right direction.
I wouldn't say that it's the zoning laws themselves that are the main problem here. I would agree with you that allowing a free market to determine what kinds of housing are built is probably a good thing.
But this initiative looks like paving the way for various layers of government to stack the deck against urban home ownership altogether. Zoning changes on their own are benign. But those changes could be used by activist bureaucrats who control building permit approvals and development fees to make it **practically** impossible to create new owner-occupied housing - or even maintain existing owner-occupied housing.
That would seem to be a direction many or even most Canadians don't want to go.