'The missing middle:' How Toronto became the biggest housing bubble in the world
Episode 172 of the Down to Business podcast
Recently, the Swiss investment bank UBS named Toronto as the number one real estate housing bubble in the world — not only above Vancouver, but also above London, Paris, San Francisco, New York, Tokyo, Hong Kong, and so on.
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This week’s Down to Business takes a brief look at what happened to put Canada’s biggest city at the bottom of the housing affordability barrel.
Naama Blonder, co-founder of the urban planning and architecture firm Smart Density, offers her perspective on what’s wrong with the city’s housing system, starting with her own experience hunting for a three-bedroom condo.
Blonder sees housing as primarily a supply issue, and talks often about ‘the missing middle’ — which is to say Toronto build houses, where a single family may live, and it builds gigantic skyscrapers, but it doesn’t construct many new four- to six-level multi unit buildings. She talked about why this is and why it may be too late.
As always, this interview is edited for clarity and brevity.
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• Email: gfriedman@postmedia.com | Twitter: GabeFriedz
