Full Comment - April 10, 2023


What the ’15-minute city’ means — and why it’s nonsense


Episode Stats


Length

45 minutes

Words per minute

168.055

Word count

7,653

Sentence count

450

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Toxicity

3

sentences flagged

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Wendell Cox is an urban policy analyst and visiting fellow with the Heritage Institute. He lives and breathes urban planning, and he joins us now from the St. Louis, Missouri area to talk about the 15-minute city.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Ontario, the wait is over. The gold standard of online casinos has arrived. Golden Nugget
00:00:06.000 Online Casino is live, bringing Vegas-style excitement and a world-class gaming experience
00:00:11.040 right to your fingertips. Whether you're a seasoned player or just starting, signing up is fast and
00:00:16.680 simple. And in just a few clicks, you can have access to our exclusive library of the best slots
00:00:21.740 and top-tier table games. Make the most of your downtime with unbeatable promotions and jackpots
00:00:27.220 that can turn any mundane moment into a golden opportunity at Golden Nugget Online Casino.
00:00:32.820 Take a spin on the slots, challenge yourself at the tables, or join a live dealer game to feel the
00:00:37.920 thrill of real-time action, all from the comfort of your own devices. Why settle for less when you
00:00:43.140 can go for the gold at Golden Nugget Online Casino? Gambling problem? Call ConnexOntario
00:00:49.080 1-866-531-2600. 19 and over, physically present in Ontario. Eligibility restrictions apply. See
00:00:56.340 GoldenNuggetCasino.com for details. Please play responsibly.
00:01:02.740 Bank more encores when you switch to a Scotiabank banking package.
00:01:07.240 Learn more at Scotiabank.com slash banking packages. Conditions apply.
00:01:12.740 Scotiabank. You're richer than you think.
00:01:14.460 When you speak about urban planning, it's not something that normally gets people going.
00:01:25.720 Things like the war on the car will upset people when the population feels like they're being told
00:01:30.720 you can't live the way you want to live. Seems to take hold. Well, that will get people worked up.
00:01:37.460 Right now, the latest iteration of this idea of war on the car or urban planners deciding that
00:01:43.520 they're going to socially engineer how we live is something called the 15-minute city. Mention
00:01:49.840 these three words these days and you're sure to get an earful either about how this concept is the
00:01:55.180 savior of our urban future or a global conspiracy to manipulate us. Like many things, the truth is
00:02:01.660 likely somewhere in between. Hi, I'm Brian Lilly, your host for the Full Comment podcast.
00:02:06.440 It's not often, as I said, that urban planning gets people worked up. It's something I say as a
00:02:12.860 journalist who's covered politics across Canada for more than 20 years. I've covered City Hall for
00:02:17.520 various stints in Montreal, Ottawa, and Toronto, three of our biggest cities in the country. I've
00:02:22.800 covered provincial legislatures across the country to varying degrees and spent more than a decade
00:02:27.260 on Parliament Hill. Yet, this issue right now is getting people excited because of that idea that
00:02:36.740 urban planners will tell us how to live. Well, what are the pros? What are the cons? Is this 15-minute
00:02:43.140 city idea just an extension of the war on cars? Our next guest will be able to answer some of those
00:02:48.220 questions, but before I bring them on, I want to remind you, please subscribe to the podcast. Whatever
00:02:52.920 device you're listening on, whatever app, you can just hit subscribe. You can leave a review, hit the
00:02:57.880 share button to let your friends know about all of this. Wendell Cox is an urban policy analyst, a
00:03:04.740 visiting fellow with the Heritage Institute, among many designations that he holds. He's worked on both
00:03:10.300 coasts of the United States on transit in Los Angeles. He replaced former New Jersey Governor
00:03:15.460 Christine Todd Whitman on the Amtrak Reform Council. He lives and breathes urban
00:03:22.540 planning. He's advised around the world, and he joins us now from the St. Louis, Missouri area. Mr.
00:03:27.500 Cox, thanks for the time. Pleasure to be with you. What is it about urban planning over the last
00:03:35.000 several decades that seems to say, we know better than you, we're going to tell you how to live? Because
00:03:42.880 as I said, the general public doesn't always get worked up on this, but when they do, they really do.
00:03:49.740 And when I've been covering it as a journalist, it seems to be this, we know better than you what
00:03:57.000 you need. And sure, you may want a house and a yard and a white picket fence, but we know better.
00:04:03.260 Well, you know, and the fact is, we do know better. People and their households do know better.
00:04:09.300 We have seen urban planners going back to the mid-19th century conduct a war on the suburbs,
00:04:17.900 and it, of course, later became a war on the automobile. And, you know, I'm no great lover of
00:04:23.800 the automobile, but you know what the automobile does? It makes it possible for somebody in an area
00:04:29.360 of about 2,800 square miles in the Toronto Population Center, that goes, you know, all the way
00:04:34.480 from, say, Oakville to Ajax to almost Berry, to just about live wherever they want and work wherever
00:04:44.200 they happen to be able to get a job that suits them and their employer. Works very well. And in
00:04:49.980 fact, modern urban areas are far larger than they ever were before the coming in the automobile and
00:04:55.360 could not be this large, that is, in terms of population, if it had not been about the automobile.
00:05:00.720 And I would say that the point is to look at the revealed preferences of people and where they
00:05:07.400 live. For example, in the Toronto area, you have seen over the years, the city of Toronto has done
00:05:12.340 well in terms of population growth since the amalgamation, but the old city of Toronto actually
00:05:17.960 had lost some population compared, I think, to the 71 census. And the point is that people have been
00:05:25.540 moving to the suburbs. They have moved there to get more space. In the pandemic, they moved there
00:05:31.060 not only to get more space in the yard, but also more space in the house because of all the remote
00:05:36.120 working. And the public has stated its preference very well. You cannot find anywhere where suburban
00:05:43.840 growth is lower than the core city growth. And by the way, it's gone even further because,
00:05:51.200 as I indicated in a recent op-ed published out west, that is in western Canada, the Toronto metropolitan
00:06:02.620 area lost 325,000 net domestic migrants, people moving, more people moving out of the metropolitan
00:06:10.540 area than moving in in the last five years. And where did they go? They went to places like
00:06:15.180 Kitchener-Waterloo, Peterborough, London, etc., where they can get more space and a yard. And it's
00:06:23.420 expensive, but it's a whole lot less expensive than it's become in the Toronto CMA.
00:06:28.800 As I said, we've had this repackaging of all these ideas around urban planning that no, no, no,
00:06:35.840 you shouldn't live in Kitchener-Waterloo. You shouldn't live in the suburbs of Hamilton and
00:06:41.180 then commute in. You shouldn't be living out in Langley and going into Vancouver. You should be
00:06:47.600 living downtown. And if you're not living downtown, you should be living the same downtown lifestyle.
00:06:53.060 In a condo in the sky, in stacked housing of some sort, you should be using public transit.
00:06:59.520 And the repackaging of it is this 15-minute city concept. Can you explain to us the good,
00:07:05.080 the bad, the ugly about what that is? Oh, sure. And let me suggest that this really
00:07:10.360 helps me to make, I think, a really important point. This is not new. We have seen these people,
00:07:17.340 the planning community, declare transit to be the superior mode and try to make everybody who drives
00:07:23.980 a car feel guilty. Yet, what have they done? Has transit share increased? No, of course it has not.
00:07:32.340 You go back to 1950, a lot larger percentage of the people were taking transit. Why are they taking
00:07:38.540 cars? Well, let me tell you why. Let me get off for a minute on the issue of access. There's research
00:07:43.240 that basically suggests if you live anywhere, if the average resident of the city of Toronto,
00:07:48.260 now I'm not talking now about the metro area, the city of Toronto, the average resident of the city
00:07:52.980 of Toronto can get to four times as many jobs by car as by transit. Now that makes the choice real
00:07:59.140 simple. Why do we use cars? Because our lives are far better as a result. And yes, the repackaging
00:08:08.120 in the 15-minute city is interesting. Everybody, even people who basically say it's a bunch of
00:08:13.500 baloney, as it were, are saying, wouldn't it be nice? And in fact, we have a city in the Western
00:08:19.040 world that is sort of a 15-minute city, Paris. Alain Berteau, who is a former principal planner
00:08:26.360 in the World Bank, took a look at the city of Paris, which has fewer people, by the way,
00:08:31.940 than the city of Toronto, at 2.1 million people, and found, yeah, pretty much you can get to anything
00:08:37.380 you need in the city of Paris, except that the, you know, 30% of the people who live in the city
00:08:44.700 of Paris commute to places outside the city of Paris. And when it comes to commuting and jobs,
00:08:52.980 I mean, why, you know, the gas station may very well be within 15 minutes of you, but that isn't
00:08:58.540 where you work if it's the only job available. And so the problem with the 15-minute city is,
00:09:04.340 yes, it makes sense in our minds. It makes sense in what Berteau, Alain Berteau, who I mentioned
00:09:11.620 before, called the ultimate utopia, in the minds of people who think they can figure out how things
00:09:18.720 can work, but they never deliver on the promise. I mean, you think of all the promises that have
00:09:23.560 made by well-meaning, well-intentioned people in the Toronto area or the Vancouver area or the
00:09:29.600 Calgary area about improving transit and getting people out of cars. Has it happened? Not
00:09:34.340 anywhere. You know, look, I grew up in the suburbs and I raised my kids in the suburbs. So we lived
00:09:42.940 in a rural setting for a while. Now I live in the middle of downtown Toronto and most things that I
00:09:47.640 want or need are within a 15-minute walk at most. I got a subway at steps outside my door, but I also
00:09:54.680 have a car in the underground parking for when I need it, when I want to get out. To me, it shouldn't
00:10:01.620 be either or. And yet I look at the new buildings going up around me and I saw one the other day.
00:10:08.340 I'm just trying to remember the exact numbers. It was going to be a 79-story building at Yon and
00:10:14.840 Bloor in Toronto, 1118 residences, plus more than 1.1 million square feet of retail and office space.
00:10:24.220 And for all those residences, more than 1,000 residents, million square feet of retail and
00:10:31.600 office space, just 95 parking spaces for cars. But there would be more than 1,100 bike parking spots.
00:10:40.460 That is urban planners trying to say, whether you work here or live here, you cannot have a car
00:10:46.560 because we're going to make it expensive and impossible for that to happen. Even at Yon and
00:10:51.840 Bloor, people have cars. Well, yes. And at Yon and Bloor, I've talked to people at Toronto
00:10:57.960 Metropolitan University who tell me about the long waits trying to transfer from one line to the other
00:11:02.300 after work. The basic point is that, yes, indeed, you can build those kind of things. A lot of the
00:11:09.160 same kind of development is happening in Los Angeles, which has, of course, a much weaker core than
00:11:16.120 Toronto. And as I look at the new buildings being built in Los Angeles, you're seeing at least one
00:11:21.580 car parking space underground for every new condo. The point is, if that can succeed in the market,
00:11:29.380 that's fine. But as long as you're not forced to do it, I applaud anybody that wants to live at
00:11:34.500 Yon and Bloor and not have a car. That's just fine. I don't think there are any more virtuous than you
00:11:39.060 or I, but they are clearly appropriate in making their choices. But then look at how many people can
00:11:47.560 even afford to live in that kind of a lifestyle. I mean, the point is to recognize that this 15-minute
00:11:53.380 city can be theoretically achieved in some places without talking about commuting, by the way. That's
00:12:00.400 a complete loser. Cannot happen. It can be achieved in the very dense core. So if you talk about 1.00
00:12:07.240 the old Trinity Spadina electoral district there to the east of the core or to the west of the core,
00:12:12.700 yeah, there where you get population densities of 10 or 15,000 people per square kilometer,
00:12:18.660 absolutely, it works just fine, especially if you can walk to work. But the fact is the Toronto CMA
00:12:24.580 is much larger than that. And you cannot make this kind of thing work in the modern urban area. You know,
00:12:32.300 the core of Toronto is not an economic city. In fact, Ed Glazer at Harvard, one of the best
00:12:39.740 urban economists around basically has referred to the 15-minute city as an enclave or a ghetto
00:12:48.700 and basically said that what we need to do is basically show, and I'm paraphrasing him here so 0.96
00:12:54.040 I may be getting it wrong, we need to show what a dumb idea it is. Because our cities do not look 0.86
00:12:59.740 like downtown Toronto. Our cities look like Newmarket or they look like Halton or they look like a lot of
00:13:06.780 other people that maybe a lot of the people downtown have never been to. But that is where most people
00:13:11.640 live. And that's not just Canada. That's Western Europe. You know, that's Japan. That's all over the
00:13:19.800 world. You know an awful lot about Canada and specifically Toronto for a guy that lives in St.
00:13:26.440 Louis. Well, actually, I'm proud to say that as a kid, I lived in Canada for three years, and I've
00:13:33.540 always had a great affection for the country. But I have done work there. And it shows both in your
00:13:40.040 writing and the ease of conversation here. But you mentioned something that I think is key here. You
00:13:46.600 said that people might want to live that lifestyle with no cars in the building and biking and walking
00:13:53.440 everywhere. And look, sometimes, some weeks I don't take the car out. Sometimes I take it out a lot.
00:13:59.400 It depends on what I'm doing. But that's my choice. And that's the choice of the person that decides
00:14:04.700 they don't want a car. And it feels to me seems to me that modern urban planning wants to take away
00:14:13.940 individual choice and say, well, we should all live in these cookie cutter apartments. I mean, 500 square
00:14:22.960 foot and we'll call it a two bedroom. And that's, you know, that's the extent of your choice. I don't
00:14:30.200 think that's where the public is at. Always. They're not even close to being there. I mean, I cannot
00:14:37.160 believe the failure that must, you know, if the planners really looked at how their theories have
00:14:43.460 been implemented, they would have to recognize it's all been an object failure. How can it be that 55%
00:14:49.580 of the population of the CMA is outside the city of Toronto? And indeed, I saw a picture in one of
00:14:56.520 the papers just a couple of days ago, a marvelous aerial view showing what the city looks like
00:15:02.500 with all the single family dwellings in the city covering most of the area. And that's fine because
00:15:07.860 Toronto is a wonderful place to live. But people have got to be allowed to make their choices. And
00:15:12.920 you know what? They're going to make their choices. And we saw that happen in the pandemic around the
00:15:17.600 world. From London to Toronto to San Francisco and Sydney and Tokyo, we basically saw people say,
00:15:23.860 you know what? I can work from home. And you know what? I'm going to move. And so what we have is
00:15:29.100 substantial exoduses from core cities, even more than has occurred in the last 70 years of
00:15:36.660 suburbanization. As people have moved out to do hybrid work, people at Stanford are basically saying
00:15:45.260 that, you know, for a lot of people, like if you're working only one or two days a week,
00:15:50.520 you can easily make a two-hour commute for those few days. So the point is, the people are not in
00:15:57.180 any position, the people are not going to have the urban planners dictating their ways of life. And
00:16:04.160 life is going to become even more difficult for the planners in the years to come because of the fact
00:16:10.240 that all of the advantages that everyone thought were necessary would force people to live in urban
00:16:17.980 areas or in metropolitan areas, you don't have to live there anymore. You can go to the rural areas.
00:16:22.620 And it's happening all over Canada, all over the US, Australia, etc. So it's a new world.
00:16:27.420 I know several people who left the city, were living in the core, pandemic hit, they left the city,
00:16:35.300 and they either left completely, or they downsized what they had in the city, got something out in a
00:16:42.180 rural area or a small town. And for the couple days a week that they come in, they've got a small,
00:16:47.680 either rental or purchased a small apartment with what they had left over from getting rid of their
00:16:54.400 homes. So it's not just anecdotal, your statistics are showing it.
00:17:00.120 Oh, yeah. Well, for example, the whole 15-minute city idea, I mean, who's getting the credit for it,
00:17:06.480 is a gentleman by the name of Carlos Moreno, who is a city of Paris. Actually, he's a professor at the
00:17:13.080 Sorbonne. And what he's basically saying is that there are going to be great difficulties
00:17:23.400 implementing this thing. And, you know, in Paris, for example, I'm trying to remember what it was
00:17:31.920 here. You know, in Paris, for example, the city that he works for, which has 2.1 million people,
00:17:38.380 so it's smaller than Toronto, the city that he works for and has a population density, mind you,
00:17:44.380 about 15 times that of Toronto. Toronto, the core, the city of Toronto has about 4,000 people per
00:17:52.200 square kilometer. Paris has 60,000. That makes it a whole lot easier to do the 15-minute city.
00:17:58.640 But one has to step back and wait and ask, well, now, what is Paris? Paris is an urban agglomeration
00:18:04.780 of 11 million people. Only 2 million of those people live within the boulevard peripherique.
00:18:11.220 And the rest of the place, there isn't any hope whatsoever of getting anything like the 15-minute
00:18:16.720 city for anything. And that's how most of the world is. And, you know, most people, as we can see
00:18:23.600 from their choices, would prefer to live in a place with some room, with yards and so on. And you know
00:18:34.040 what? The transportation is such that, you know, you can live an awful lot of these places with a 30-minute
00:18:40.780 commute. And that's sort of the world standard 30 minutes. And we do very well on that in the United
00:18:46.280 States. Canada does comparatively well, but generally not as well because of your population
00:18:50.880 densities being higher in the urban areas and generally the freeways being less numerous,
00:18:57.320 especially, for example, in the Vancouver area.
00:19:00.100 Yeah, or issues like not having proper rain roads or different things that the American states have
00:19:05.780 embraced. Wendell, we've got to take a quick break, but when I come back, I want to ask you about two
00:19:11.100 other things on the urban planning front. One that I know quite a bit about, green belts, and I think
00:19:17.260 they're a failure. The other one is congestion taxes, which is constantly raised. And I know you've
00:19:23.420 studied that. So urban planners love these things. Are they the right answers? We'll talk to Wendell
00:19:28.860 Cox about that when we come back.
00:19:34.180 Did you lock the front door?
00:19:35.120 Check.
00:19:35.680 Closed the garage door?
00:19:36.840 Yep.
00:19:37.340 Installed window sensors, smoke sensors, and HD cameras with night vision?
00:19:40.840 No.
00:19:41.680 And you set up credit card transaction alerts, a secure VPN for a private connection,
00:19:45.120 and continuous monitoring for our personal info on the dark web?
00:19:48.100 Uh, I'm looking into it?
00:19:50.660 Stress less about security. Choose security solutions from Telus for peace of mind at home
00:19:55.320 and online. Visit telus.com slash total security to learn more. Conditions apply.
00:20:02.180 Wait, I didn't get charged for my donut.
00:20:05.500 It was free with this Tim's Rewards points.
00:20:07.660 I think I just stole it. I'm a donut stealer!
00:20:10.960 Oof.
00:20:11.620 Earn points so fast, it'll seem too good to be true. Plus, join Tim's Rewards today and get enough points
00:20:17.140 for a free donut, drink, or Timbits. With 800 points after registration, activation, and first purchase
00:20:22.320 of a dollar or more. See the Tim's app for details at participating restaurants in Canada for a limited time.
00:20:29.180 The new BMO VI Porter MasterCard
00:20:32.260 is your ticket to more.
00:20:34.740 More perks.
00:20:36.580 More points.
00:20:38.600 More flights.
00:20:40.520 More of all the things you want in a travel rewards card.
00:20:43.860 And then some.
00:20:44.680 Get your ticket to more with the new BMO VI Porter MasterCard
00:20:48.920 and get up to $2,400 in value in your first 13 months.
00:20:53.760 Terms and conditions apply.
00:20:55.240 Visit BMO.com slash VI Porter to learn more.
00:21:00.420 Greenbelt is a major political topic here in Ontario right now.
00:21:05.220 I've lived for years in Ottawa, where we had one, and it is sacrosanct.
00:21:09.700 You can't touch it.
00:21:11.120 People truly believe that it saved the city, that it stopped suburban sprawl, and yet most
00:21:18.240 people in the Ottawa area live outside the Greenbelt and drive into the Greenbelt when
00:21:22.320 they're going to work.
00:21:23.500 They drive across it to afford a home.
00:21:25.680 They drive across it to go to work.
00:21:27.920 It is the same thing in Toronto.
00:21:29.940 It is the same thing everywhere that it's tried.
00:21:31.960 But yet, these ideas keep being proposed.
00:21:35.800 So, Wendell Cox, what's your view of Greenbelts?
00:21:39.980 My personal experience is they lead to more suburban sprawl.
00:21:44.740 They don't stop it.
00:21:46.040 They just make you drive farther for it.
00:21:48.460 But are there studies on it from people that haven't just drunk the Kool-Aid?
00:21:53.960 Well, I do a report every year now in the 18th annual version,
00:21:58.080 the Demographic International Housing Affordability Survey.
00:22:02.880 The biggest problem that I see with Greenbelts is that the limitation on the amount of land
00:22:10.660 that can be developed, and I'm not talking about developing land like Atlanta,
00:22:15.200 where the suburban lot sizes are way too large.
00:22:17.300 I saw a recent picture, an aerial picture of Markham,
00:22:21.780 where the house roofs almost touch one another.
00:22:24.920 They're building them on such small lots in the suburbs there.
00:22:30.160 But the point is, what we have seen happen in Toronto,
00:22:34.180 and this is the Toronto CMA,
00:22:36.440 since 2005, which was our first edition,
00:22:40.100 was that the median house price, resale house price,
00:22:44.020 and this includes apartments and everything, you know, any owned housing,
00:22:48.060 went from 3.9 times the median incomes, median household incomes, to 9.5 times.
00:22:55.620 Now, you want to know why we've got a cost of building crisis?
00:22:58.480 You look at Vancouver, it's 12 times.
00:23:01.340 You look at Dallas, Texas, it's four times.
00:23:04.280 Now, the basic point is, as any,
00:23:06.740 it's sort of like what happens when the oil-producing nations of the world
00:23:10.640 decide that they're going to cut supply.
00:23:12.640 All of a sudden, our prices go up.
00:23:16.460 Well, when urban planners and the people that follow them
00:23:19.560 in the decision-making organizations,
00:23:24.160 like in this case, the province of Ontario,
00:23:27.100 when they decide to ration land for urban development
00:23:30.600 that's well-located for jobs in the Toronto area,
00:23:34.920 it is going to force prices up.
00:23:36.780 And by the way,
00:23:37.220 no one should ever think that downtown Toronto has most of the employment
00:23:40.960 in the Toronto area.
00:23:43.200 The Toronto CMA has got about 500,000 people working downtown,
00:23:46.980 and you've got about 3.5 million people working in the rest,
00:23:49.900 in the CMA in total.
00:23:51.840 The basic issue is,
00:23:53.540 it is destroyed housing affordability
00:23:55.760 just about wherever it has been tried.
00:23:58.300 Whether we talk about London,
00:24:00.160 Sydney, Melbourne,
00:24:01.080 San Francisco,
00:24:03.180 Los Angeles,
00:24:04.020 Denver,
00:24:04.480 Portland,
00:24:05.140 where it has been done,
00:24:06.920 it has been associated with huge increases in house prices,
00:24:11.320 and where it has not been done,
00:24:13.540 we have never seen,
00:24:14.920 in a major metropolitan area,
00:24:16.320 in the eight countries that we cover,
00:24:17.980 we have never seen a major metropolitan area
00:24:20.740 in which the multiple of the income
00:24:24.260 has exceeded five.
00:24:25.900 It should be three,
00:24:26.820 and used to be just about everywhere.
00:24:28.220 That's what I remember growing up,
00:24:33.180 being told,
00:24:33.980 well,
00:24:34.200 you should look for an income that,
00:24:36.100 so three times your income,
00:24:37.700 you can buy a home.
00:24:39.740 And,
00:24:40.380 right now,
00:24:42.580 that makes,
00:24:43.760 whether it's Vancouver or Toronto,
00:24:45.900 increasingly,
00:24:47.000 other centers around the country,
00:24:49.660 it is becoming increasingly difficult to do that.
00:24:51.960 So we've got a provincial government here
00:24:53.960 that says they're going to open up,
00:24:56.100 I think it's about 7,500 acres of green,
00:25:00.580 protected green space.
00:25:02.280 They're going to add in another 9,500 acres elsewhere,
00:25:05.660 and make it protected green space,
00:25:07.940 part of the green belt.
00:25:09.600 But it's,
00:25:10.600 this is not land that you would build a home on.
00:25:13.060 The environmentalists say,
00:25:14.300 that's not good enough.
00:25:15.240 You're just protecting land we wouldn't build on.
00:25:17.480 We want you to protect land that you would build on.
00:25:20.180 Well,
00:25:20.560 one makes sense to build on,
00:25:21.900 because it's close to the urban or suburban areas,
00:25:24.640 and one doesn't.
00:25:26.860 Well,
00:25:27.460 you know,
00:25:28.220 this is,
00:25:28.660 this is a real problem,
00:25:30.100 a real contradiction in policy.
00:25:32.280 You don't have to read the papers very often,
00:25:34.900 to find out that you have a problem of,
00:25:38.420 a very big affordable housing problem.
00:25:42.240 There are,
00:25:43.340 and I don't have the list,
00:25:44.980 but there are,
00:25:45.880 there are cities in the,
00:25:47.220 in Ontario,
00:25:48.020 where the waiting list for subsidized housing is 10 years.
00:25:51.980 Okay.
00:25:52.680 Now,
00:25:53.080 why is subsidized housing so oversubscribed as it were?
00:25:56.600 Well,
00:25:56.760 part of it is because you qualify for subsidized housing by not being able to afford market rate housing.
00:26:04.080 Now,
00:26:04.260 if the median multiple,
00:26:06.000 that's the multiple of the house price over the, 0.91
00:26:08.100 over the,
00:26:08.840 the,
00:26:09.460 the income,
00:26:10.200 if it were still in the range of three,
00:26:12.500 you'd have a lot less call for affordable housing.
00:26:15.080 And so when I hear all of the incredible opposition to the Ford government's proposal to,
00:26:22.320 to loosen up the green belt a bit,
00:26:24.360 a bit and try to improve affordability,
00:26:26.500 it strikes me that the very same people who raised the loudest cries about the lack of affordable housing,
00:26:34.300 don't realize that it is the only way you were ever going to solve the problem.
00:26:38.840 And everything leads me to believe that you can expect that house prices are going to continue to rise.
00:26:44.500 I realize they're down now because of the pandemic demand shock.
00:26:49.780 And the increasing interest rates.
00:26:52.360 Oh yeah.
00:26:52.940 Yeah,
00:26:53.200 of course.
00:26:53.780 Of course.
00:26:54.400 So,
00:26:54.820 so again,
00:26:55.680 green belts,
00:26:57.180 I mean,
00:26:57.820 we have not,
00:26:59.180 the,
00:27:00.580 the impact of green belts is to raise housing prices and reduce the standard of living.
00:27:06.980 And it is going to make a much poorer standard of living in the long run for people in Toronto and Vancouver and San Francisco.
00:27:14.320 And Los Angeles places that have these kinds of policies.
00:27:18.740 My understanding is that there's also been studies in places like Frankfurt in London,
00:27:23.380 England in Seoul that show that the,
00:27:26.580 the rationale behind it,
00:27:29.460 the reasons that these green belts were brought in,
00:27:33.600 that the results didn't live up to the,
00:27:36.280 the expectations.
00:27:37.940 Oh yeah,
00:27:38.360 absolutely.
00:27:39.020 I mean,
00:27:39.680 we were,
00:27:40.160 you go back to the literature at the start of these things.
00:27:42.820 And one of the issues where we were going to make these,
00:27:45.280 it was going to improve housing affordability and all of that never happened.
00:27:49.420 And this is,
00:27:50.300 this is a problem with utopian ideas.
00:27:53.040 I mean,
00:27:53.480 it's a problem with the 15 minute city.
00:27:55.500 I mean,
00:27:56.100 how in the world are you ever going to make this happen?
00:27:59.540 There's no way you can afford to make it happen.
00:28:01.980 So no,
00:28:03.140 it's the,
00:28:05.020 there,
00:28:05.520 these kinds of policies seem to routinely produce only success in the minds of the planners,
00:28:13.100 but never on the ground.
00:28:15.560 Congestion taxes.
00:28:17.060 London,
00:28:17.680 England's had one for,
00:28:19.100 I think a couple of decades now.
00:28:21.180 It doesn't appear that things have gotten better.
00:28:25.100 They've been proposed here in Toronto,
00:28:27.260 thankfully rejected by most of the people in charge,
00:28:30.780 but still pushed by some.
00:28:32.580 They are proposed to varying degrees in,
00:28:35.660 in municipalities elsewhere.
00:28:38.180 You've actually studied this and,
00:28:41.020 and looked at their impact.
00:28:43.120 Do they,
00:28:43.920 do they lessen congestion during the day?
00:28:48.940 Is it just a revenue grab?
00:28:51.180 Do they just divert traffic elsewhere?
00:28:53.720 Well,
00:28:54.300 I'm not sure how much I've studied it.
00:28:56.100 I certainly have views on it and can,
00:28:58.020 can tell you in the,
00:29:00.260 the,
00:29:00.480 the,
00:29:00.840 these kinds of proposals always get,
00:29:03.900 get publicity that is far beyond what their,
00:29:07.060 what their results have been.
00:29:08.360 The London congested taxing system.
00:29:11.620 It begins in the West at Hyde Park.
00:29:15.800 Now you can just,
00:29:16.660 on a good day,
00:29:18.040 you can walk.
00:29:18.680 It's about three miles from the core.
00:29:20.400 The London,
00:29:21.600 the city of London covers about 700 square miles.
00:29:25.080 I'm not sure how big the congestion pricing zone is,
00:29:28.420 but it is very small.
00:29:30.400 Similarly in Stockholm,
00:29:32.160 the congestion,
00:29:33.680 I think the congestion pricing is limited to the Stockholm Island,
00:29:38.320 which is the core of the city.
00:29:39.600 It may very well reduce traffic congestion though,
00:29:44.560 as I think,
00:29:46.280 but there's a bigger issue here.
00:29:50.060 You know,
00:29:50.760 again,
00:29:51.700 you hear,
00:29:52.140 in addition to hearing about affordable housing in Toronto and Vancouver and
00:29:56.580 everybody where else in the world,
00:29:58.000 you're going to hear about inequality.
00:29:59.780 And isn't it funny how no matter what happens,
00:30:03.340 the rich get richer and the poor get poor,
00:30:05.400 especially with respect to government policies.
00:30:07.420 And all of a sudden,
00:30:09.280 now we're going to basically tell poor people,
00:30:11.600 but they're going to have to pay a congestion tax to drive on the freeways.
00:30:16.280 Well,
00:30:16.820 I'll tell you what I think will happen anytime,
00:30:19.080 whenever you get an entire urban area that has decided,
00:30:22.660 an entire metropolitan area,
00:30:23.840 let's say,
00:30:24.540 this decided,
00:30:25.140 you're going to go with a congestion tax.
00:30:26.880 Then you wait to see the growth in Kitsner,
00:30:29.320 Waterloo and Peterborough and Belleville.
00:30:32.700 Yeah,
00:30:33.600 I would imagine because people will say I'm not doing it.
00:30:37.320 The other day I had to drive out to Toronto suburbs to drop something off.
00:30:43.000 And it was right on the border of Northern border of Mississauga,
00:30:45.660 where it meets Brampton.
00:30:46.520 And this is kind of the logistics central for the greater Toronto area.
00:30:55.320 This is where goods come in and goods go out.
00:30:58.580 And in the way that many people who live this downtown urban lifestyle that I do,
00:31:04.980 I'm now one of these downtown urban elitists.
00:31:09.480 An awful lot of people have everything delivered.
00:31:12.460 They order off Amazon,
00:31:13.480 they order online.
00:31:14.340 It goes through the suburban centers where people drive to work,
00:31:17.660 where people drive for work,
00:31:20.260 bringing in congestion taxes,
00:31:22.660 shutting down the roads with,
00:31:24.700 you know,
00:31:25.120 excessive bike lanes.
00:31:27.220 How are your goods getting into the city at the end of the day,
00:31:30.620 whether it's to,
00:31:31.320 you know,
00:31:32.120 stock a store or resupply a restaurant or the goods that you've ordered online?
00:31:38.060 How are they getting in at the end of the day?
00:31:40.200 If you're just constantly shutting down traffic?
00:31:43.280 Well,
00:31:44.520 yeah,
00:31:44.740 I mean,
00:31:45.160 the,
00:31:45.960 the,
00:31:46.240 the big problem here is a failure to understand how important mobility and access are in the economic life of the city.
00:31:54.660 There's good,
00:31:55.580 there's good research that basically suggests that the,
00:31:59.820 the GDP or economic production of a city.
00:32:04.020 And when I talk about a city here,
00:32:05.360 I'm talking about the metropolitan area increases to the extent that commute times are reduced,
00:32:11.340 that you need these kinds of things.
00:32:14.320 And,
00:32:14.600 and unfortunately,
00:32:15.960 you know,
00:32:17.280 the,
00:32:17.420 the whole idea of,
00:32:19.160 of thinking that everywhere can work like downtown is,
00:32:22.980 is not going to work.
00:32:23.820 And by the way,
00:32:24.420 the,
00:32:24.900 the,
00:32:25.000 the Mississauga Brampton area is a good,
00:32:27.080 a good example also because a few years ago,
00:32:29.520 and they may have taken this down off the internet because of the police publicity I made about it in a,
00:32:35.060 in a paper for,
00:32:36.320 for the frontier policy Institute,
00:32:38.040 Institute of public policy in Winnipeg.
00:32:41.600 That area has more jobs or at least 10 years ago had more jobs than downtown Toronto.
00:32:48.180 Now,
00:32:48.320 granted it's a whole lot more spread out,
00:32:50.100 but the,
00:32:50.460 but,
00:32:50.560 but that logistics area around the airport had more jobs than downtown Toronto.
00:32:54.420 And was at that time claiming to be the largest commercial center in Canada,
00:32:59.440 which it was,
00:33:00.140 and probably still is.
00:33:02.520 Well,
00:33:03.060 it was vital during the pandemic.
00:33:04.880 Those were the essential workers that,
00:33:07.080 that kept going when other people were told to stay home.
00:33:10.420 Yep.
00:33:11.780 Where is the line on when investing in transit makes sense and when it doesn't?
00:33:19.460 Because you,
00:33:19.940 you said that,
00:33:20.720 you know,
00:33:21.220 the transit work,
00:33:22.520 sometimes transit doesn't work in other situations.
00:33:25.200 I've used transit my whole life,
00:33:27.320 but had a car and a license since I was 16.
00:33:30.920 I have a bike that I don't ride as much as I should.
00:33:33.840 I walk,
00:33:34.820 I use every mode of train,
00:33:36.380 transportation that there is,
00:33:38.800 but I've also lived in areas where they decide we're going to spend billions on transit.
00:33:42.860 And you look around and you say,
00:33:44.080 why do you need a light rail here?
00:33:46.580 City of Hamilton put in,
00:33:47.860 in a light rail system that will cost $5 billion.
00:33:51.200 At least it's going to go over.
00:33:53.000 I'm sure.
00:33:53.780 And you know,
00:33:54.840 that's my hometown.
00:33:55.960 I know it.
00:33:56.540 Well,
00:33:56.980 I don't think that it needs that sort of transit.
00:33:59.880 I think it could use a better bus system and improve roads,
00:34:03.560 but I don't know that that's the right investment.
00:34:05.720 Is there a population or density tipping point for transit?
00:34:10.520 Because every single municipal council is on the bandwagon of,
00:34:19.020 we need an LRT. 1.00
00:34:20.780 Yeah.
00:34:20.880 Well,
00:34:21.800 the,
00:34:22.520 the,
00:34:22.980 the,
00:34:23.320 the thing about it is no,
00:34:24.660 there's not a population threshold,
00:34:26.700 but there is a downtown threshold.
00:34:28.500 Take a look at the route maps of transit systems around the world,
00:34:32.400 essentially.
00:34:33.040 And you're going to find they generally tend to focus on downtown.
00:34:36.480 And the reason,
00:34:37.240 for example,
00:34:37.680 that they focus in downtown in,
00:34:39.280 in Toronto or in Montreal or in Vancouver is that is the place where the
00:34:44.300 employment density is the highest.
00:34:46.680 I mean,
00:34:46.820 downtown Toronto is like 500,000 employees.
00:34:49.820 As I recall,
00:34:50.800 downtown Toronto is maybe three 50 and downtown Vancouver,
00:34:55.120 maybe,
00:34:55.440 maybe 200,000.
00:34:56.960 That is where transit works in.
00:34:59.900 Again,
00:35:00.180 you think,
00:35:00.560 and I can't remember what the exact figure is in Toronto,
00:35:02.440 but as I recall,
00:35:03.540 60 or 70% of the people who work in downtown Toronto get there by transit.
00:35:10.120 That's pretty good.
00:35:11.680 And we can argue about how much the subsidies would be,
00:35:14.100 but that is the only place transit can serve effectively.
00:35:17.380 Now,
00:35:18.160 the other major point that you want,
00:35:19.960 the other major use of transit is providing mobility to people that,
00:35:25.300 that have low incomes.
00:35:27.360 And this would be for other trips as well as commuting.
00:35:31.020 But for example,
00:35:32.060 in the United States,
00:35:32.940 and I've never looked at the issue in Canada,
00:35:34.720 but in the United States,
00:35:35.880 people in poverty who are working tend to use their cars almost as much as
00:35:41.700 the general public public transit is not that big a deal.
00:35:46.520 It's important,
00:35:47.280 but it's not that big a deal.
00:35:48.440 But the key is a strong downtown area.
00:35:51.040 So if you go to places,
00:35:52.840 you know,
00:35:53.080 like Phoenix,
00:35:53.720 for example,
00:35:54.260 where they don't even have a downtown with all due respect and the money
00:35:57.880 they've put into that,
00:35:58.860 it's never going to make a difference in Phoenix.
00:36:01.560 It's never going to make a difference in Seattle or Portland,
00:36:04.260 even with their strong downtowns.
00:36:06.080 The key though,
00:36:07.460 one must think about the fact that transit is about downtown and that's the
00:36:12.700 end of it.
00:36:15.260 You can,
00:36:16.180 as you said,
00:36:16.960 you know,
00:36:17.200 look after low income people,
00:36:18.900 young people that can't drive students, 0.98
00:36:20.660 what have you,
00:36:21.560 but to have a big investment,
00:36:23.780 you're saying it's got to be a,
00:36:24.980 a,
00:36:25.220 a dense downtown core.
00:36:27.360 Yeah.
00:36:27.540 And let me,
00:36:28.060 I forgot to say just one thing.
00:36:29.300 You think about the Metro link system,
00:36:30.860 you realize that something,
00:36:32.560 and this,
00:36:32.820 this is old data,
00:36:33.920 maybe five years old,
00:36:34.880 so it may not be completely right,
00:36:36.080 but the last time I looked the number of trips that go through union
00:36:41.120 station,
00:36:41.580 that is either get on or get off at union station,
00:36:44.740 which is of course,
00:36:45.520 downtown 95% of the travel.
00:36:49.180 And let's face it.
00:36:49.960 I mean,
00:36:50.180 Metro link goes far out far,
00:36:51.860 much further out than the TTC or the subway or anything like that.
00:36:54.880 That really makes the case very well.
00:36:57.720 And,
00:36:58.160 and so,
00:36:58.660 but that is effectively bringing people in.
00:37:01.980 And at that point,
00:37:03.320 when you're talking about so many people coming into a,
00:37:06.620 a concentrated area for an employment core,
00:37:10.760 then yeah,
00:37:11.680 it makes sense to say,
00:37:12.760 okay,
00:37:12.960 how do we get people off the car?
00:37:14.540 Because I mean,
00:37:15.480 imagine trying to all those trips,
00:37:18.100 trying to build highways to facilitate it without,
00:37:20.980 that's right.
00:37:22.380 Matt,
00:37:22.720 you know,
00:37:23.500 just expanding the highways to 24 lanes each way.
00:37:27.540 That would be insufferable highway congestion and highway traffic at the same time.
00:37:32.720 So at that point,
00:37:33.480 it makes sense.
00:37:34.440 But the war on the car does seem to go everywhere.
00:37:37.620 It does seem to,
00:37:38.800 to be something that while maybe years ago,
00:37:43.080 it was something that downtown urban planners thought about.
00:37:47.380 It seems that it,
00:37:49.200 it is the predominant view.
00:37:51.460 And so maybe 30 years ago,
00:37:53.640 you might have a suburban town with an urban planner that thought differently.
00:37:57.960 They thought we're building a suburb.
00:37:59.780 That's different than,
00:38:00.720 than downtown.
00:38:01.520 Has it changed within the urban planning set where most people are just in,
00:38:08.560 in one mindset and trying to push this idea that,
00:38:12.700 that keeps being repackaged 15 different ways.
00:38:16.260 Is that the dominant view?
00:38:18.840 Are you an odd one out?
00:38:21.400 Oh yeah,
00:38:21.760 no question.
00:38:22.760 But,
00:38:23.000 but believe me,
00:38:23.760 I'm,
00:38:24.080 I'm by no means unique and,
00:38:26.320 and we're getting a lot more publicity,
00:38:28.080 especially as a result of the pandemic and it having proven many of the
00:38:31.500 things we've been saying for a long time.
00:38:34.060 But the,
00:38:34.780 but the point is the,
00:38:35.880 the planners are,
00:38:36.820 you know,
00:38:37.660 they may be being a little more successful in getting their ideology out,
00:38:41.940 but the people aren't listening.
00:38:43.720 You can't wear,
00:38:44.700 you know,
00:38:45.240 I challenge anybody to show me anywhere where there has been any material
00:38:48.640 change as a result of transit.
00:38:50.580 And the reason for that is we're not building new downtown areas.
00:38:54.020 I mean,
00:38:54.580 you know,
00:38:54.940 all of these downtowns we've got,
00:38:56.920 which have huge transit market shares,
00:38:58.840 you know,
00:38:59.060 this is the six places in the United States.
00:39:01.500 And,
00:39:01.940 and certainly the four largest metropolitan,
00:39:03.980 or actually the six largest metropolitan areas,
00:39:05.980 because Edmonton and Calgary do pretty well as well.
00:39:09.120 With the exception of Edmonton and Calgary,
00:39:11.300 all the downtown areas in Canada,
00:39:13.040 the big ones were built before world war two,
00:39:15.080 as was also the case in the United States.
00:39:17.340 Now granted,
00:39:17.800 these downtown areas have had some growth in all of that,
00:39:20.280 but you can go to most of the metropolitan areas of the United States.
00:39:23.240 We've got 56 with more than a million.
00:39:25.080 So we've got 56 that are almost as large as Calgary and Edmonton.
00:39:29.180 And they may have downtowns and they may very well have some impressive buildings,
00:39:33.740 but in none of these urban areas or metropolitan areas,
00:39:36.780 do you find that more than about five to 7% of people that work in the metropolitan area use transit to get to work?
00:39:43.960 And that's because they can get wherever they're going far faster by car.
00:39:48.080 Yeah.
00:39:48.240 When I'm in Dallas,
00:39:49.080 Fort Worth,
00:39:49.840 it it's easy to get around by car.
00:39:53.140 Well,
00:39:53.200 that's right.
00:39:53.640 In fact,
00:39:53.980 I've often used DFW as an example to compare to,
00:39:57.280 to Toronto,
00:39:58.100 because the populations are very similar.
00:40:00.560 The metropolitan areas in the both,
00:40:02.020 in both places.
00:40:02.740 And,
00:40:03.460 you know,
00:40:03.940 you know,
00:40:04.900 the planners always like to talk about how all these cars make a slow down traffic and everything like that.
00:40:10.700 Well,
00:40:10.820 you know what?
00:40:11.280 The average journey to work time in Dallas,
00:40:14.000 Fort Worth is five minutes shorter than in the Toronto CMA.
00:40:18.160 And the fact is the reason the car is dominant is because it meets the needs of the people in a way that transit can't.
00:40:26.740 And by the way,
00:40:27.300 I too was a transit rider for 15 years to downtown Los Angeles and enjoyed it a great deal.
00:40:33.540 But at the same time,
00:40:34.780 I was working downtown.
00:40:36.100 I couldn't have gotten there anywhere to anywhere else in the city on transit in a reasonable period of time.
00:40:42.000 And that is often a big part of the problem is that,
00:40:45.100 as you say,
00:40:45.980 it serves downtowns because it makes sense.
00:40:48.780 I remember in Ottawa trying to get my,
00:40:50.800 my oldest son to army cadets and it was a five minute drive,
00:40:54.700 but it was an hour and a half bus route because of the circuitous route that you had to take in three transfers.
00:41:01.760 It wasn't a system designed in a way that made sense for moving people around,
00:41:07.120 except civil servants going down to the Parliament Hill area.
00:41:10.260 That's all it was there for.
00:41:12.200 So,
00:41:12.600 you know,
00:41:13.300 it,
00:41:14.120 when I was a kid,
00:41:15.260 I,
00:41:15.420 I,
00:41:15.820 I took the bus to army cadets because it made sense.
00:41:18.880 It doesn't always make sense.
00:41:21.040 And,
00:41:21.160 and I think that that's something that the urban planners,
00:41:23.800 I think have to start understanding.
00:41:26.600 And I think our politicians have to start understanding.
00:41:29.440 Have politicians in much of North America been captured by these ideas?
00:41:34.820 They just glom onto the next one.
00:41:36.680 And when 15 minute cities is,
00:41:38.780 is done,
00:41:40.140 it'll be called something else and they'll,
00:41:42.020 they'll still jump on it.
00:41:43.720 Well,
00:41:44.360 you know what you got to,
00:41:45.960 I have a lot of sympathy for,
00:41:48.900 for these elected officials who,
00:41:50.560 the problem is there's a very,
00:41:52.900 very high price to pay on city councils.
00:41:56.540 And I'm not speaking of any in particular here because of quite frankly,
00:42:01.340 the group think that takes over the establishment oriented group think that takes over,
00:42:06.520 especially in a lot,
00:42:07.700 a lot of our larger city councils.
00:42:09.920 And so that a counselor that sort of sees the problems is,
00:42:15.800 is,
00:42:15.840 is liable to be in real trouble with his or her colleagues.
00:42:19.500 And,
00:42:20.120 and you've,
00:42:21.220 you've hired these experts.
00:42:22.760 They claim to be the best.
00:42:24.660 They're,
00:42:25.500 they're,
00:42:25.880 they have the premature,
00:42:28.640 of,
00:42:29.640 of,
00:42:29.700 of the educational credentials on urban planning and so on.
00:42:35.300 And so they're thought of as experts.
00:42:36.720 Well,
00:42:36.820 the fact is that there are,
00:42:39.080 there are a number of us out there,
00:42:40.360 including me who have been working for quite a long time to basically point out the contradictions here that show that,
00:42:45.880 that,
00:42:46.200 that what they are proposing is not feasible.
00:42:49.060 It's utopian and,
00:42:51.400 and cannot occur.
00:42:53.400 So let me ask you,
00:42:54.640 Wendell,
00:42:54.840 as we,
00:42:55.340 we wrap up here then,
00:42:57.140 what is the future in terms of how people want to live?
00:43:01.460 You've,
00:43:02.060 this is what you spend your day looking at.
00:43:04.060 We've had this adjustment during the pandemic.
00:43:07.160 Does that become a new normal?
00:43:09.540 Are we going to go through another shift as people perhaps start going back into,
00:43:14.340 you know,
00:43:15.440 offices and,
00:43:16.240 and downtown employment nodes?
00:43:18.420 Or,
00:43:18.980 or,
00:43:19.220 or is this shift permanent?
00:43:20.540 Are we going to keep seeing a migration outward?
00:43:23.280 Well,
00:43:23.340 my sense is it's at least partially permanent.
00:43:27.640 In,
00:43:28.260 I haven't looked at the Canada statistics from the 21 census on journey to work in the metro areas,
00:43:33.180 but in the United States,
00:43:34.360 we saw an increase of four times in remote work,
00:43:39.840 working at home between 2010 and 2020.
00:43:43.360 This is happening around the world.
00:43:45.080 The world has changed.
00:43:46.900 Artificial intelligence.
00:43:47.840 And hold on.
00:43:48.560 You said 2010 to 2020.
00:43:51.580 Right.
00:43:51.840 That's,
00:43:52.120 that's well before the pandemic.
00:43:53.700 This was happening.
00:43:54.020 Well,
00:43:54.040 no,
00:43:54.220 I guess it would take us.
00:43:56.820 We actually have,
00:43:57.680 we actually have 2021 data.
00:43:59.600 We have an annual survey that's run by the federal government.
00:44:02.360 Sorry about that.
00:44:03.800 But,
00:44:04.280 but yeah,
00:44:04.780 this,
00:44:06.380 this is a,
00:44:07.280 I think it is a permanent change.
00:44:08.740 It doesn't mean downtowns are finished or anything,
00:44:10.680 but it's really interesting.
00:44:12.020 I mean,
00:44:12.680 I,
00:44:13.040 I'm always seeing articles in various publications about how all of a sudden,
00:44:17.240 well,
00:44:17.360 we're going to bring the people back downtown.
00:44:18.880 And then when you read the fine print,
00:44:20.380 you hear that they're,
00:44:21.360 the employers are being asked to come in three days.
00:44:23.560 Well,
00:44:24.320 listen,
00:44:25.200 downtown Toronto that operates essentially Tuesday through Thursday does not need the same level of transit five days a week that it did before.
00:44:36.060 And,
00:44:36.140 and so the world has,
00:44:37.660 has changed.
00:44:38.720 I think the move to sort of the,
00:44:41.060 the more electronic office was way overdue.
00:44:44.020 The technical technology has been there for a long time.
00:44:46.800 And you know,
00:44:50.180 it's,
00:44:50.960 it's where I really don't think building office buildings is a real good investment.
00:44:55.760 And that's not investment advice at this point.
00:44:59.300 All right.
00:45:00.060 Wendell Cox,
00:45:00.760 thanks so much for your time.
00:45:01.840 It's been a fun and an enlightening conversation.
00:45:05.040 Thank you.
00:45:06.220 Full comment is a post-media podcast.
00:45:08.500 My name's Brian Lilly,
00:45:09.480 your host.
00:45:10.440 This episode was produced by Andre Pru with theme music by Bryce Hall.
00:45:14.440 Kevin Levin is the executive producer.
00:45:17.040 Remember you can subscribe on Apple podcasts,
00:45:19.620 Google,
00:45:19.900 Spotify,
00:45:20.540 Amazon music,
00:45:21.700 listen through your app,
00:45:23.600 Alexa enabled devices,
00:45:24.760 and you can help us out by giving us a rating or leaving a review and make sure you tell your friends about us until next time.
00:45:31.360 Thanks for listening.