We moved to a house in Vancouver, which is pretty crazy if you know the local real estate market. Never thought I’d be able to afford an actual house in a central neighbourhood.
As is my wont, I think a lot about the history+policy that led us here. I’m in a pocket of East Van that popped up more or less overnight circa 1912 in a speculative building boom. Tons of cookie-cutter houses from Sears catalogs (that have since become quite nice+diverse due to the How Buildings Learn dynamic).
In the 1960s, the area was downzoned to forbid apartments. And so my street is essentially frozen in the same physical shape from a century ago, even though a lot more people want to live here now. I am arguably a winner of this approach to urban planning; I get a house with a backyard in a very central area, at a (relatively) low price because I didn’t have to compete with apartments+condos for the land. It works out a lot worse for the people who are forced out to the ‘burbs.
Our old greyhound had trouble with the stairs, so we had a ramp made for him:
It’s nice to be able to make changes like that without asking permission, because coordination is hard! For example I considered installing a heat pump in our old condo, but never quite got around to seeking permission from the strata council. Here I can just do things.
This is the first time I’ve lived on a quiet side street in Vancouver (because we tend to concentrate multifamily housing on busy arterial roads), and that’s a massive improvement to my quality of life. I’m also loving having windows on all 4 sides. We need to do better at allowing condos+apartments with nicer layouts.
