#urban-density

#urban-density

The new city will be laid out on a compact grid, with interlocking streets, rapid-transit routes and greenways for pedestrians and cyclists. The city's least dense residential neighborhoods will be zoned for 85-foot apartment buildings, taller than essentially every apartment building erected before 1880. House hunters will be able to purchase row houses as if they were shopping for real estate in 19th century Brooklyn, not in cookie-cutter suburban sprawl.

This has been a generational mistake. Transit makes it possible to capture the benefits of density - a diversified economy and thriving neighborhoods - while mitigating the bad stuff, namely congestion and its attendant maladies: pollution, car crashes, injuries, fatalities, property damage, noise, road repairs, and more. Any city that hopes to grow its tax base by adding population and jobs without expanding its physical footprint needs a high-capacity transit system that enables anywhere-to-anywhere connectivity without succumbing to density's negative attributes.

"We must build more housing, faster, because building more homes means life can be more affordable," said Mayor Olivia Chow at a news conference announcing details of the plan Thursday. The plan, which would require council to approve bylaw changes, could lead to the building of about 1.5 million homes, according to the province. That could include 53,000 affordable homes, Chow said.

The province has approved a plan for Toronto to allow higher and denser buildings near transit stations, which will enable the creation of 1.5 million homes over 25 years.