Spacing Radio

Spacing and Evergreen proudly present The Future Fix: Solutions for Communities Across Canada, a special podcast series.

THIS EPISODE: Experiments in Mobility

It can be hard to convince governments at any level to invest in a new idea. This is especially true with transportation, where breaking away from the status quo can sometimes seem an impossible dream. But when opportunity to explore potential new ways of moving people is granted, on a small scale, and for a brief period of time, that allows us to experiment — to see what works, and what's worth investing in more generally.

Camile Machado is project manager for New Mobility at TransLink, Metro Vancouver's transit network. She tells us about a range of pilot projects and research being to to find new tech and data-driven ways to solve transit issue and improve service.

“The mobility ecosystem is changing really fast, with all these trends of shared mobility, autonomous driving, connectivity, electrification — they're all changing the landscape. So, in response to that, TransLink created what we call TransLink Tomorrow, which is this strategy to really try out all this new technology, all these new concepts.”

Listen to the episode to hear more about TransLink's New Mobility projects.

As Toronto gets ready to vote, we’ll be bringing you regular panel discussions with journalists and experts who will break down the candidates, platforms, and issues that will shape our city for the next four years.

In this episode, we talk to Spacing senior editor Shawn Micallef and Spacing contributor and West End Phoenix associate editor Kunal Chaudhary about how it's too quiet out there, public space, and the divided city.

Spacing and Evergreen proudly present The Future Fix: Solutions for Communities Across Canada, a special podcast series. This is a special, French-language edition.

Spacing et Evergreen présentent ensemble une nouvelle série de podcast, Face au futur : des solutions pour les communautés du Canada, d’une côte à l’autre. 

CET ÉPISODE: La culture de la bicyclette est-elle inclusive?

Si vous vivez à Montréal ou que vous y êtes déjà allé, vous avez certainement remarqué qu’il y a beaucoup de cyclistes. On peut même dire que c'est une ville où la culture de la bicyclette est bien établie. Comment fait-on pour maintenir le statut d'une ville agréable pour les cyclistes et à quels défis la municipalité est-elle confrontée? Marianne Giguère, conseillère à la Ville de Montréal, nous parle de gestion et d'inclusion tandis que Catherine Morency, professeure à Polytechnique Montréal, nous explique comment la technologie peut intervenir pour faciliter la vie des cyclistes, et même, des autres citoyens.

Another election, another surprise announcement from Premier Doug Ford that throws it all into disarray. Ford's proposal for "Strong Mayor" powers for Toronto and Ottawa's next mayors have left many wondering why the Premier is intervening in local-level governance.

One of these people is former Toronto Mayor David Miller. We speak to Miller — currently managing director of C40 Cities, advising municipalities on fighting climate change — about why a Strong Mayor system would be harmful to local democracy, as long as key issues for this elections such as housing, transit, active transportation, and the environment.

We're all used to headlines about impossibly soaring housing prices in Canadian cities: prices that leave many out of the market, and out in the cold. But this model of perpetually increasing home values is the dream for many owners. You buy a home, let it accumulate in value, and do whatever you can to insure that growing value isn't threatened. But this model is unsustainable and leaves many people without proper housing options.

Dr. Paul Kershaw is a University of British Columbia professor, founder of Generation Squeeze, and author of the paper "Wealth and the Problem of Housing Inequity Across Generations." He says these rising home values have changed what it means to be wealthy:

“We have to be cognizant of the fact that there is a cultural and political addiction to high and rising home prices for many in this country, because it makes us better off. And some people will resist that [...] I'll get angry emails: 'I'm not rich!' But what we need to have right now is more and more dialogue about who's affluent and who's not. And the rise in home values is so disrupting and transforming class dynamics.”

PARTNA is a Black-founded, Black-led organization working with multiple levels of government to let owners of detached and semi-detached houses add long-term, affordable units to their properties. Cheryll Case is the planning director  and Jason Allen John is finance director. Cheryll says there are existing homeowners who are ready to break with the status quo and help make a change, and that's where PARTNA comes in:

“There's so many housing owners who are seeing the crisis of housing inaffordability who want to do something. They don't know what to do. No one is reaching out to help them. We come in to help them build affordable housing.”

Can we really change the way we see housing from an asset garnering increasingly high value to a human right everyone should have access to?

The Toronto municipal election is underway, and we'll be spending the summer bringing you coverage, all the way up to E-Day on October 24th.

But how do we get people engaged, and avoid the abysmally low voter turnout we saw in the Ontario provincial election? What does "Ford More Years" of Premier Doug mean for the municipal race, and the next council? What key items should be made election issues? And what does new police data which admits to systemic, racist overpolicing of minorities and use of force mean for the police reform movement?

To answer these and other questions, we've got panel guests John Lorinc (Spacing senior editor) and Jennifer Pagliaro (Toronto Star crime reporter focusing on youth justice, formerly of the City Hall bureau).

The race is on!

The housing market is one everyone's minds these days. It determines who can live where, who can afford to buy a home, or even afford rent. It keeps some people in poverty, while making a small few incredibly rich. Is there a way governments, at various levels, can help bring some stability to an unstable market?

To begin our discussion, we speak to University of British Columbia associate professor Thomas Davidoff, director of the Centre for Economics and Real Estate, who co-authored a revealing study about laneway houses in Vancouver:

“Neighbourhoods that have relatively low prices (and of course it's relative in the City of Vancouver), so the east side of Vancouver, there doesn't seem to be any adverse effect on neighbouring property values. But the effect is bigger on the order of 5 to 7% in the more affluent neighbourhoods.”

On the other side of the country, in Montreal, we talk to McGill University associate professor David Wachsmuth about the outsized influence short term rentals such as AirBnB have on rent prices, and what governments can do to rein thing in.

“AirBnb — now more so than in the past, thankfully — they have some interest in being regarded as a cooperative corporate citizen. So if particularly provinces where the real power here is, they've got a lot of carrots and they've got a lot of sticks, and it's simply just a question of deciding to make this a priority.”

What can these two examples teach us about shaping the housing market and improving affordability?

Spacing and the Balanced Supply of Housing research node proudly present The Overhead: Understanding Canada’s Affordable Housing Crisis, a special podcast series.

THIS EPISODE: Non-market housing solutions

For many housing advocates, part of the solution to providing affordable housing is removing housing from the volatile market. This means finding ways to secure housing ensuring it won't be sold, flipped, or inflated in price. It's something the Better Supply of Housing research node has been examining, as part of a holistic approach to the housing crisis.

Cliff Grant is director of strategic relations at the Aboriginal Housing Management Association in British Columbia, and says non-market housing is part of a that organization's recently published "Urban, Rural, and Northern Indigenous Housing Strategy":

“We're working on both fronts. One, the strategy to maintain current assets, and two, then looking at the data — a lot of which comes out of the municipality's housing needs assessment.”

In Toronto, the Kensington Market Community Land Trust was able to buying a mixed-use building in that area, with the help of the City and donors, including a number of housing units, for the express purpose of maintaining them as affordable rental. Chiyi Tam, Dominique Russell, and Kevin Barrett all spoke on behalf of the land trust, explaining the significance of taking those units off the market. Dominique says:

“Ultimately, it is the best investment for our collective tax dollars to invest in affordability that is forever in the community. The alternative is to invest, short term, in the interest of a few.”

What is the role of non-market housing in addressing the housing crisis?

Listen here for The Overhead:

Urban designers and placemakers often struggle to create cities that work for everyone, including youth. But the youth themselves are often left out of planning and engagement, or aren't being invited to participate in a way they feel comfortable with or excited about.

How do we engage youth in building their cities?  Federico Palacios is a graduate student at X University's (formally Ryerson) School of Urban and Regional Planning. He has developed the Cities for Youth Toolkit: a resource for people to better engage youth in city building.

To help establish the importance of youth engagement and participation, Federico speaks to Gladki Planning Associates planner Lindsay Toth, Urban Minds' outreach coordinator Enosh Chen, and Carizon Family and Community Services youth engagement in systems lead Joana Lincho.

Housing affordability and homelessness in Canada is a national disaster. And while there are many solutions proposed, the crisis likely requires a complete, holistic approach goes beyond just supply. That's the mission of the Balanced Supply of Housing research node, led by Principal Investigator Penny Gurstein. In this episode, we will meet some of the people working with the BSH, and ask them what they're doing to further the cause of a decent housing for all.

Marika Albert and Andrés Peñaloza, for example, provide policy for the BC Non-Profit Housing Association. As Marika says, non-market housing has been de-prioritized for decades:

"In the late '80s/early '90s, we saw a shift at the Federal level where, essentially, investment in social housing programming pretty much came to a grinding halt. And we didn't see investment really at the level that we needed to keep up with population and changing demographics. And so what we're seeing now is a need to catch up."

And McGill University's Nik Luka has both a short term fix for increasing housing supply, by changing restrictive building codes which discourage certain housing types from getting built, as well as tackling restrictive zoning laws in many cities' so-called "stable neighbourhoods."

"There's been such a cultural normalization of single-detached housing as a desirable and stable and good way in which we should be in the world, that there's fear that, if we open up these fabrics, these neighbourhoods, these contexts, everything will go to hell in a handbag."

How do we bring balance to a traditionally turbulent market? How do we make sure everyone has a roof over their head?