CBBarnett
Senior Member
Prolonged highest-in-nation wages combined with highest growth rates occurring during the sprawl-favouring post-war period are the main drivers of high home ownership rates in Calgary. Houses were/are relatively cheap so that a larger-than-average amount of the population could afford them, combined apartment buildings continuing to be discouraged in most parts of the city (through policy and/or economics) helped inflate home-ownership rates and single-family home rates. Older cities (Montreal most obviously, but also Toronto and Quebec City) havesuch a large stock of pre-war walk-ups and a very different income spectrum that their household statistics tend to be very different.
Interestingly, the big Canadian cities are all also different from each other. While suburbanization of single-family/owner occupied homes occurred on an enormous scale everywhere post-war, what really affects the proportion is the scale of what was there before:
Montreal has 2x the amount of renters as the average (with Calgary falling well below average), as well as limited high-rise living options. Slower growth in Montreal during the past 30 years restricted a redevelopment boom of high-rises on a scale that Vancouver and Toronto had witnessed, while preserving the enormous stock of pre-war walk-ups where a large proportion of Montrealers continue to live. Having hundreds of thousands of units dating before cars existed is a good way to always have a high rental/apartment living share.
Toronto's early planning policies made the type of mid-rise walk-up common in Montreal very rare in the city, resulting in the row-house development being more likely. Apartment towers were never shunned and blossomed in wide areas of the city post-war, on a scale an prevalence unseen in other Canadian cities. It's high rate of apartment-style living is more thanks to the hundreds of thousands of suburban apartment units built post-war, than their recent boom (although, of course, the scale of the current 30-year boom is continuing to shift that balance by the day).
Vancouver while older than Calgary, and therefore with a larger pre-war stock of apartments, row-houses, and rentals, was still no Toronto or Montreal. They probably have the best argument for how more recent planning interventions to promote condo/tower development influenced housing choice (helped by restricted land supply/continued cost and growth pressures).
Its fascinating seeing which forces effect all cities fairly equally (suburbanization, favourable mortgage rules, disinvestment by government in social housing etc.) while which forces clearly impacted development in one place specifically more than others (Montreal's enormous old stock of housing, Calgary's long-run, much higher than average incomes etc.)
/EndPlanningNerdRant/
So, should we be considering Romans a visible minority? Maybe we should ask Giannis Antetokounmpo?
