This tweet caught my eye:
The tweet included this graph (click link for closer view):
In the unlikely event that my math is accurate, I counted 624 high-rises under construction in Canada and 796 in America. But the US has more than 8 times the population of Canada. In addition, we are more densely populated, even if you throw out the vast northern parts of Canada. And the US invented the skyscraper.
I noticed this pattern way back in the 1970s, when I first drove across Canada. I was surprised to see tall residential buildings in some very modest sized Canadian cities, places that in America would be exclusively low rise. Thus Kelowna in central British Columbia has 5 high rises under construction and Halifax has 22, whereas Metro LA has only 9, despite having nearly 100 times the population of Kelowna and 25 times the population of Halifax. What explains this?
1. It’s possible that Canadians prefer living in tall buildings. But why such a large difference? In other respects Canada is quite similar to the US. Canadian areas with single family homes look a lot like the US.
2. It’s possible that Canadians build up because restrictive building regulations make it hard to build enough single family homes. But restrictions are also severe in LA, causing extremely high house prices.
3. There actually seem to be three regimes. Places with extremely high volume of high rise construction relative to population (i.e., Canada.) Places with a medium level such as New York, Atlanta, Boston and Miami. Even my home town of Madison. And places with a very low level of high rise construction relative to population—notably California, but also in less dynamic cities in the middle of the country.
4. It seems likely that the low construction rate in California is due to regulation. Even big cities like LA have far more empty lots than New York, places where it would be technically easy to erect high-rises. I suspect that it’s a mixture of zoning rules that restrict where you can build, and other regulations that make it much more costly when you do get permission to build (such as requirements to use union labor.)
If any readers are familiar with the construction industry, I’d like to hear your thoughts on why you see far more such buildings in some cities than others. I couldn’t even tell you why my hometown has as many high-rises under construction (seven) as the entire state of Michigan, with a far larger population. Or why Tampa has 23 while Jacksonville has zero.
Today, the San Jose metro area is perhaps the most economically dynamic place the world has ever seen, at least in terms of creating wealth. And yet even very depressed cities like Detroit and Cleveland are currently building more high-rises.
PS. Some people argue that single family homes are better than high-rises for solving the fertility crisis. But even if that were true, it would help to build more high rises for single people and childless couples in places like LA, in order to to free up more single family homes for families with kids.
