> "Making mixed-use neighbourhoods was done with the best of intentions for our health, happiness and the environment, but as communities become more attractive places to live, demand to live there increases costs," said Markus Moos, a professor at Waterloo's School of Planning. "Walking to a nearby fancy coffee shop is nice, but the premium people pay for that luxury means the barista can't afford to live near their job.<p>Feels like clickbait and a statement of the obvious - of course well thought out and walkable developments will attract a premium when compared to less walkable and useful developments. If we want people to not be priced out, we need to build enough to meet the demand and redevelop existing stock to match the current trends.<p>And you know what, we’ll still be rebuilding neighborhoods to match the then current trends 100 years from now. That’s the entire point - if the city doesn’t adapt to what people need/want overtime, areas that reflect those preferences will become unaffordable, whereas areas that do not reflect those preferences will decrease in value.
Isn't this exactly what you would expect from something pleasant and rare? If you just want to make an area more affordable, you should make it less pleasant.<p>The answer is to do this more, until it's not special, and during the process subsidize. In fact, if mixed-use areas are inherently more livable, build more public housing projects around a mixed-use format.<p>> The study of Toronto neighbourhoods found that the increased cost, which was <i>further heightened by the retraction of government support for affordable housing in mixed-use areas</i>[...]
The fantasy is that low income people without cars will be attracted to mixed use developments where all their needs are in one place. But middle and upper income people want that too, and that drives prices up. We own a condo in the Philippines with retail downstairs and a mall next door and prices have tripled in the 6 years since we bought. In traffic congested Manila mixed use is not just a luxury, it's a necessity.
Link to paper: <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01944363.2017.1406315" rel="nofollow">http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01944363.2017.14...</a>