The Fraser Institute is once again having fun with numbers with its latest study that looks at the population densities of major cities in North America and beyond.
The conclusion of Room To Grow: Comparing Urban Density in Canada and Abroad is that Canadian cities could comfortably add more people, although the underlying theme, that doing so could help the affordability crisis, is completely absent from the study itself. The eight-paragraph press release that accompanied the email launch of the study this week makes two mentions of housing affordability, or lack thereof, but the study prefers to look at how increased density doesn’t negatively impact quality of life.
The fun with numbers starts with this cherry-picked assertion: “Even Vancouver — Canada’s densest major city with 5,493 people per square kilometre — ranks 13th out of 30, and is significantly less dense than San Francisco (7,171 people per square kilometre), a comparable West Coast city.”
That’s true, but what the study also found is that Vancouver is considerably denser than the comparable West Coast cities of Seattle and Portland, about three times denser than Oregon’s largest city. Vancouver is also denser than Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia and a host of other large U.S. cities. It’s more than three times as dense as Dallas and four times as dense as Houston.
In fact, of the 19 North American cities on the list, only two — New York and the aforementioned San Francisco — are actually denser than Vancouver. And come to think of it, aren’t those two of the most unaffordable cities on the planet?
I can buy the study’s argument that adding density doesn’t necessarily harm a city’s quality of life given that location, climate, economic opportunities, amenities and a host of other factors contribute to livability. Is the quality of life less in Vancouver than in Toronto simply because it’s denser? Hardly.
I’m having a harder time, however, buying the idea that increased density would help with affordability, given the study fails to tackle that crucial issue. Adding more people might not harm a city, but if it doesn’t help its inhabitants (make it more affordable), then who benefits, other than the developers building all that extra housing?
