By Tim Redmond : 48hills – excerpt

Planner and professor says massive increase in density and new housing didn’t bring costs down; in fact, costs are way up

Patrick Condon was once what they now call a Yimby. A landscape architect, urban planner, and professor at the University of British Columbia, he worked with hundreds of others to build a sustainable, affordable city in Vancouver, BC.

For years, Vancouver was a case study for city planning. The San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association used to take local officials on tours of the Canadian city, talking about the “slender towers” and grand amenities that they said come with orderly but aggressive growth.

In fact, Condon told me, Vancouver has allowed and seen built more new housing compared to its population than any other city in North America. And it was all what’s known as “infill housing,” not suburban sprawl.

So, if the Yimby doctrine is right, and removing “obstacles” to growth and adding more infill housing results in prices coming down, Vancouver “ought to be the most affordable city in North America,” Condon said.
Except it’s not; it’s the most expensive. He has 30 years of solid data: The Yimby approach didn’t work. It backfired… (more)