William Pratt

It's impressive how quickly that difference spikes. They really set themselves up for failure.

I've been thinking, though - voluntary temporary property tax freezes in exchange for upzoning could potentially be an interesting tool for incentivizing infill and retiree downsizing.

Alternatively, your observation might just be a result of berkson's paradox/collider bias.

Worth thinking about. You could still be right.

It might just be that people who work on things like politically-sensitive transit projects are bound to secrecy or at least to not be an activist on things related to their own work, making it appear like no passionate transit activists work in transit.

Well, hopefully Statcan keeps it open like that.

Though, I suppose your tool might in the end reduce the load on Statcan if its caching and data-selection outperforms their websites, though I would expect increased use to outweigh any of those benefits.

Maybe it's just statcan's web interface that's slow for me, then. I'm fascinated that Statcan allows a tool like this on their APIs.

Ah, I see.

(Having spent some time at a Statcan RDC and dealing with their incredibly modest computer systems, I know Statcan is probably hosting all their stuff on the slimmest budget possible, so that may be why I'm baffled at the functionality of this site compared to theirs).

This is beautiful. The R code export function in particular is really useful.

...how expensive is hosting all this data? I'm impressed that all the data seems to download faster than from Statcan's website, not to mention visualizing in browser.

Notably, we already have a huge problem of the burden being pushed from single-residential onto multi-residential, which in Ontario, for example, normally pay double the municipal rate, effectively subsidizing single-residential.

I fear this will just shift the burden even further from single-res.

What an...interesting...figure they have calculated.While I am open to the idea of giving municipalities new revenue tools, the only future I see in it is municipalities using it to reduce the property tax burden on single-residential dwellings without actually improving municipal finance.

If I'm not mistaken, they can change the settings so all comments need approval before showing up.

I've mostly seen people coming against the caps on education - not as much on TFWs.

I think it's a symptom of how much progressive thought is driven by PhDs - not a bad thing, but they are self-interested like any other group.

There are academics' jobs at stake, so they all come to bat.

Most cities also apply higher property tax rates to multi-residential than other types of housing. The subsidization continues long past construction.

As someone who has had their train delayed several times because of people at track level (whether attempted suicides, illegal entry, or otherwise), this was a terrible take.

@jensvb.bsky.social
@lausterna.bsky.social

In case you haven't seen it, you got cited in a C.D. Howe publication in July:

cdhowe.org/publication/...

Project 2025 is clearly an instruction manual written by narcissists that have too much power. It has very few original ideas.

I'm perfectly fine with the original height and size.

However, it's clearly trying to match the style of the ROM just down the street...not a good move.

Unfortunately, Toronto would rather do anything but issue a building permit.

Unfortunately, we do have "pro-housing" people who think we shouldn't upzone because it will elevate land values, which is functionally exactly that.

I have bad (yet surefire) advice for this scenario: congestion pricing. Start charging for meetings.

Please clarify - are you suggesting that the secondary rental market is more responsive to shifts in the market because they aren't using price-fixing software?

Would take maybe an afternoon.

I've made some haphazard Toronto transit maps before - it wouldn't be all that hard to pull off. Metrolinx makes the shapefiles public on their website.

“What worries me is that this is just going to happen without any real thoughtful and nuanced conversation around other forms of housing and scale of development that have served Vancouver very well in the past.”

...does he mean the forms of housing and development that made Vancouver unaffordable?

Well-designed urban spaces are nice - but it is also true that Toronto has one of the longest approval processes in Canada. What are we going to do to shorten it?

They make the case that upfront infrastructure costs of infill aren't that much lower, but make the case for total cost savings. It's not the most quantitatively-backed piece, though.

A Jump Start: Providing Infrastructure for More Housing - Canadian Urban Institute OVERDUE is the outcome of three years of engagement with Canada’s urban public libraries through one of the most extraordinary periods in human history – the COVID-19 pandemic. Released by Canadian Ur...

Unfortunately I think the answer to this question is no.

That said, there is an interesting section in this report on infill development and infrastructure costs: canurb.org/publications...

The World’s Deadliest Infectious Disease Is About to Get Worse By retracting foreign aid, President Trump could make tuberculosis untreatable again.

By retracting foreign aid, President Trump could make the world’s deadliest infectious disease untreatable again, @johngreensbluesky.bsky.social writes.

The ABA rejects efforts to undermine the courts and the legal profession Three weeks ago, the American Bar Association spoke to you about values that guide us. We called upon every lawyer to insist that the government adhere to four major principles of law that have guided...

“Clients have the right to access their lawyer without interference by the government. Lawyers must be free to represent clients and perform their ethical duty without fear of retribution.”

www.americanbar.org/news/abanews...

Joining Sanderson's podcast when?