Resources
We can all learn more about housing, whether your an expert in the field or are new to the topic. This page will be updated with new material. If you have a recommendation, email info@moreneighbourscalgary.ca
Videos
Cruel musical chairs (or why is rent so hight? )
This two-minute video from the Sightline Institute illustrates the effects of a housing shortage on prices and access to a home.
Suburbia is subsidized: Here’s the math
This 10-minute video shows the economic challenges associated with sprawl, and the benefits of compact mixed-use walkable neighbourhoods.
How the U.S. made affordable homes illegal
This 10-minute video explain the exclusionary zoning and government policies that make it difficult or illegal to build anything other than single-detached homes. Though this video is in an American context, its lessons are relevant to Canada.
Articles
The housing theory of everything
Urban design affects more than just where people live. Housing has far-reaching effects on social inequality, climate change, productivity, economic growth, family composition. It affects everything.
The term ‘neighbourhood character’ is a euphemism for something ugly
Globe and Mail architecture critic Alex Bozikovic writes about how preserving Neighbourhood Character often has less to do with aesthetics or heritage, and more to do with economic segregation.
Cities start to question an American ideal: a house with a yard on every lot
In large parts of most North American cities, it is illegal to build anything other than a single-detached home. Cities are now facing the consequences of this decision.
Podcasts
The Ezra Klein Show: How blue cities became so outrageously unaffordable
This interview with journalist Jerusalem Demsas explores the economic consequences of failure to build adequate housing.
The Weeds: Neighbourhood defenders
Katherine Einstein talks about her research on the unfairness of the public consultation process and how only a small group has a big say in what gets built.
The Sprawl: The battle of Banff Trail
The story of how community-level housing politics turned sour in a Calgary neighbourhood.
Books
Who knew that a book about zoning could make for such an entertaining read? This book offers insights into why zoning was implemented a century ago (hint: racism played a role) and how reforming this land-use tool can make our cities more functional and resilient.
Required reading for anyone wanting to better understand the political roots of the housing crisis, and why it's so difficult to build homes for people. Though it focuses on California, its lessons are applicable elsewhere.
What does parking have to do with housing? Everything according to the author. The supremacy of car storage in North America has compromised our ability to build people-centred cities. You will laugh, you will cry as you explore the history and future of parking policy.
A great introduction to urban economics and the policy failures that have created our unsustainable housing system, as well as practical cross-partisan solutions.