New Towns Offer a Solution to Canada's Housing Crisis
Commentary
Prime Minister Mark Carney says his plan to end Canada's interminable housing crisis is to 'Build Baby Build.' We can hope.
Unfortunately, Carney's current plan is little more than a collection of unproven proposals and old policy mistakes including modular homes, boutique tax breaks, billions of taxpayer dollars in loans or subsidies, and a new federal building authority.
The enormity of the task demands much broader thinking. Rather than simply encouraging a stacked townhouse here and a condo there, Canada needs to remember what has worked in the past—and take note of what other countries are doing today. With this in mind, Carney should embrace New Towns.
Also known as
New Towns represent the marriage of inspired utopianism with pragmatic realism. And they can provide the home so many of us crave.
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Originally conceived in Britain during the Industrial Age, Canada witnessed its own New Town building boom during the post-war era. Communities built in the 1950s and 1960s, including Don Mills, Bramalea, and Erin Mills in Ontario, were all designed as separate entities meant to relieve population pressure on nearby Toronto. Other New Towns took advantage of new resource opportunities. Examples include Thompson, Man., which sprang up around a nickel mine, and Kitimat, B.C., which was built to house workers in the aluminum industry.
While New Town development largely died off in the 1970s and 1980s, it is enjoying a revival today in many other countries.
Facing his own country's housing crisis and building on the UK's past experience, British Prime Minister and Labour Party Leader Keir Starmer has established a
On the other side of the Atlantic—and the political spectrum—U.S. President Donald Trump has proposed awarding 10 new city charters for building New Towns on underdeveloped federal land. Meanwhile, several Silicon Valley billionaires are backing
To be fair, not every New Town has been a success. In the late 1960s, Ontario tried to build a brand new city on the shores of Lake Erie known as Townsend. Planned as a home for up to 100,000 people, the project fizzled for a variety of reasons, including a lack of proper transportation links and other important infrastructure, such as schools or a hospital. Today, fewer than 1,000 people live there.
Despite the lessons of the past, there are three compelling reasons why Carney should include New Towns as part of his solution to Canada's housing crisis.
First, by starting with a blank canvas, a New Town offers the chance to avoid the stultifying NIMBYism of existing home owners and municipal officials who often stand in the way of new development. The status quo is one of the biggest obstacles to ending the housing crisis, and New Towns are by their very nature new.
Second, because New Towns are located outside existing urban centres, they offer the promise of delivering ground-level homes with a yard and driveway that so many young Canadians say they want. Focusing growth exclusively in existing urban centres such as Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal—as Carney seems to be doing—will deliver greater density, but not fulfill the housing dreams of Canadian families.
Third, New Towns can herald a more prosperous and unified Canada for the 21st century. New Towns could be built in regions such as Ontario's Ring of Fire, rich with minerals the world demands. New Towns could also tighten the east-west ties that bind the country together. Further, this growth can be focused on areas with marginal farmland, such as the
New Towns are already beginning to pop up in Canada. In 2017, for example, construction began on
Having promised Canadians fast and decisive 'elbows up' leadership, our prime minister should throw his weight behind New Towns. To begin, he could appoint a New Town Taskforce similar to the one in Britain to get to work identifying potential locations. Even better, he could simply say his government thinks New Towns are a good idea and let the private sector do all the heavy lifting.
If the millions of Canadians currently shut out of the housing market are to have any chance at owning the home of their dreams, New Towns need to be in the mix.
John Roe is a Kitchener, Ont., freelance writer and former editorial page editor of the Waterloo Region Record. The original and longer version of this story first appeared at
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
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