Video of the day: shrinkflation

Why are new apartments in Vancouver so much smaller compared to older ones?

My name’s Russil Wvong. I spend a lot of time reading and writing about why housing in Vancouver is so scarce and expensive, and what we should do about it. Basically, we should make it legal by right to build low-rise apartment buildings.

New apartments in Vancouver are much smaller than apartments built in the 1960s and 70s. The underlying problem is that cost per square foot is so high. Getting approval from the city is incredibly slow and labour-intensive. The city also extracts hundreds of millions of dollars every year in development charges. Somebody has to pay for all this. There’s no free lunch. High costs translate into high prices.

When the cost per square foot goes up, apartment sizes have to shrink, or nobody would be able to afford them.

It’s basically shrinkflation. If we want larger, family-size apartments, we need to bring down the cost per square foot. In 2023, new wood-frame condos in Edmonton were selling for a little over $300 per square foot. In Vancouver, it’s closer to $1000.

If you’d like to know more, take a look at morehousing.ca. Or if you think I’m on the wrong track, let me know in the comments.