Image of the day: Midtown Toronto

Like pushing down on a balloon

By Stephen Velasco (Future Model Toronto).

Future growth projections of Midtown Toronto’s Yonge and Eglinton neighbourhood, where over 25,000 residential units are in development.

Comment by Cameron Murray, a housing skeptic in Australia:

This is another place people complain it is too hard to build.

Yet it is growing like crazy.

A deleted response:

This drawing is the clearest representation imaginable of how zoning restricts growth. A small child could understand it.

It's like pushing down on a balloon. Because it's so difficult and expensive to get permission to build, you get massive economies of scale: it's nearly as difficult to get discretionary permission for a small project as for a large project.

In the small areas where development is allowed, people build as much as they possibly can. What's driving this pattern is all the huge areas where you're not allowed to build more. It's like building on an island.