The Missing Middle

Prince Edward County sunset, from the back porch of our Vrbo.

In Toronto, you can build single family dwellings or you can build fifty-plus-storey towers. If you want to build something in between those two extremes, like a three-storey infill, well, best leave those plans to your children in your will, because they'll never see approval in your lifetime.

The extremes in Toronto planning policy - ultra low density on the one hand, ultra high density on the other - has given rise to what is called the "missing middle" -- affordable, mid-density housing -- which, among many other things, is often blamed for the perpetual housing crisis in Toronto.

This is another maddening example of how a public policy problem is well understood, and the solution ridiculously obvious (just repeal antiquated restrictions on mid-density development), and yet, somehow, nothing changes, and the only new development you see is fifty-plus-storey towers.

Toronto planning policies are like contemporary politics. Everything is at one end or the other. People at the extremes dominate the conversation. Any person with a proposal in the middle hasn't got a hope.

The current state of political polarization is, among other things, the excuse used by people who have decided not to vote, to free ride on democracy and let elections be decided by the ones who show up.

This is another maddening example of how an obvious solution seems beyond our grasp.

Speaking of a person in the middle, Dianne Saxe is running for office again, this time as councillor in Ward 11, the same arbitrary set of boundaries on the map that she ran for in the provincial election.

Back then, she was a Green Party candidate. Now she's running on a non-partisan platform, pushing for action on climate change, reconciliation with First Nations and housing. 

I can't vote for her, but I'm volunteering again for her campaign. 

If you're in her ward, check her out. You don't have to vote for her if you don't like, but, wherever you are, vote for somebody for goodness' sake.

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen

  

The frogs of Prince Edward County. All northern leopard frogs, each with its own colour scheme.