The housing affordability crisis requires coordinated, evidence-based solutions across all levels of government. We bring together researchers, students, community members and policymakers to examine and debate the causes and consequences of declining housing affordability and the processes and policies needed to bring about necessary change.
Research & Publications
Targeting the Right Housing Supply in Canada
The following set of Housing Supply Mix Strategy briefs are based on research conducted by School of Cities and City Building TMU to inform the Task Force for Housing and Climate regarding Canada’s housing needs.
Neighbourhood Abandonment in the American Rust Belt
Jason Hackworth & Data Viz Lead Jeff Allen examine the factors causing housing lots to be abandoned in American rust belt cities: deindustrialization, taxation & the pressures on Black-majority neighbourhoods.
Tracking Gentle Density in Toronto
Visualizing 10+ years of building permit data to track the uptake of secondary suites and laneway housing in the City of Toronto. Updated January 2024.
Volume 2: Issue 1 | The Community Voices Project: A study into what residents value in Toronto’s inner suburbs
Mapping exclusionary residential zoning in four Canadian cities
Maps of Canadian cities showing how more than 50% of the land zoned for residential development in most cities only allows for single detached homes.
Volume 1: Issue 6 | The Affordable Housing Challenge Project: Community land trusts as a tool for affordable housing provision in Toronto
Volume 1: Issue 2 | Creative Mixed-Use Building: A made-in-Toronto solution
Video
An introduction to co-ownership in Ontario
This video reviews some of the models for co-ownership in Ontario and across Canada and explores their possibilities and limitations.
Preservation of affordable housing
These two videos examine and define existing affordable housing, and look at some of the ways that cities in North America are framing policies and facing challenges to preserve it.
Kensington Market Community Land Trust mini-docuseries
Toronto’s Kensington Market is a hub of culture and activity, its urbanism and diversity defined by the people who have lived and worked there over generations. Like so many neighbourhoods in Toronto, it faces immense economic and development pressures. The Kensington Market Community Land Trust (KMCLT) exists to protect it from some of those pressures by acquiring buildings for community-owned affordable housing.
The Citizen Developer
This 3-part video series looks at how home owners can contribute to the need for more ‘missing little’ housing; partner with friends, family and even strangers in co-purchasing arrangements; and downsize by turning single homes and plots into multiplexes.
The Housing Crisis
This 2-part series explores the complex causes behind the housing crisis and then suggests solutions that go beyond simply building more housing.
How to Put Affordable in the Missing Middle
The School of Cities at the University of Toronto, City Building TMU and ULI Toronto created a four-part “how-to” webinar series with industry experts to trailblaze a renovation revolution across our neighbourhoods and ensure Missing Middle housing gains are affordable and equitable, starting at the smallest scale – single-family properties – the “Missing Little.
News & Media
Richard Florida on the BNN Bloomberg | Toronto’s global talent magnet status at risk due to high housing costs
Karen Chapple & Matti Siemiatycki | Ten big problems define Toronto’s housing crisis. Here’s what every level of government is promising to do about it (and whether it will work)
Karen Chapple and Ahmad Al-Musa in the National Post | Modern living: Going splits
School of Cities in the Globe and Mail | How ‘gentle density’ measures up to the hype as cities tackle Canada’s housing crisis
Sarah Chan and Nigel Carvalho in the Globe and Mail | Op-ed: With retail-owned land, we don’t have to shop around for a housing solution
Affiliated Projects & Websites
Affordable Missing Middle
The School of Cities partners with City Building TMU on the Affordable Missing Middle initiative, which explores and advances ways to add gentle density to our residential neighbourhoods to achieve affordability and equity.
The initiative has recently published a report on their 4-part webinar series ‘How to Put Affordable in the Missing Middle’ – read the report and the audience Q&As.
Affordable Housing Challenge Project
School of Cities also supports the Affordable Housing Challenge Project (AHCP), a collective that brings together scholars from across the University of Toronto, who are researching issues related to housing affordability from different disciplinary perspectives, with the objective of working together to research, discuss and debate the causes, processes, policies and consequences of declining housing affordability.
