{"id":31560,"date":"2018-02-19T10:00:24","date_gmt":"2018-02-19T18:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/vancouver\/?p=31560"},"modified":"2019-02-18T06:33:23","modified_gmt":"2019-02-18T14:33:23","slug":"death-life-single-family-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/vancouver\/2018\/02\/19\/death-life-single-family-house\/","title":{"rendered":"The Death and Life of the Single-Family House"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large\" src=\"http:\/\/spacingmedia.com\/spacingvancouver\/wp-content\/uploads\/features\/indepth_feature-VAN.gif\" width=\"600\" height=\"72\"><\/p>\n<p>When experts try to explain how Vancouver\u2019s history has impacted its housing crisis, they often point to Expo 86 as ground zero. But UBC sociologist <a href=\"https:\/\/soci.ubc.ca\/persons\/nathanael-lauster\/\">Nathan Lauster<\/a> says we really should to go back to the 1920s, when Vancouver\u2014and several other cities across North America\u2014set aside a huge chunk of the land base for single-family homes\u2014what he calls the \u201cGreat House Reserve.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lauster says that regulation initially made city life cleaner, quieter and more liveable. It gave residents greater control over their neighborhoods, and prevented a factory or saloon from moving in next door, or a wealthy neighbour from subdividing their property and turning it into a hotel. But he thinks it&#8217;s clear that&nbsp;it no longer makes sense to preserve 80 percent of residential land base for single-family homes, when detached homes have moved well beyond the means of ordinary Vancouverites. \u201cThese old zoning by-laws keep anyone but multi-millionaires from settling down in these places. I don\u2019t think the city should be doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In his 2016 book <a href=\"http:\/\/www.temple.edu\/tempress\/titles\/2418_reg.html\"><i>The Death and Life of the Single Family House<\/i><\/a>, Lauster made the case that&nbsp;single-family homes don\u2019t just contribute to the affordability crisis, but are also bad for the&nbsp;environment, urban vitality and people\u2019s health. Houses use more energy, make us more reliant&nbsp;on cars, and valorize private space at the cost of public space where people can go out and&nbsp;meet other people who are different than themselves, he argued. Although some houses can be green friendly with the best <a href=\"https:\/\/www.palmbeachroofingexpert.com\/west-palm-beach-roofing\/\">Roofing | Commercial &#038; Residential<\/a> services.<\/p>\n<p>But Lauster also highlighted what he believes are Vancouver\u2019s planning success stories: setting up the Agricultural Land Reserve in the 1970s (which helped curb suburban sprawl), the fight&nbsp;against the freeway, and the reinterpretation of residential zoning to enable secondary suites&nbsp;and laneway houses. Affordability crisis aside, Lauster thinks that Vancouver has many&nbsp;lessons to share with North America on how to build livable cities.<\/p>\n<p>As a sociologist, Lauster is especially interested in how cultural attitudes towards housing are evolving, and how Vancouverites are increasingly making themselves at home without a house. His book features a variety of in-depth interviews with local residents, some who love the sense of community in their Yaletown condos and others who feel they thrive better in low-rise neighbourhoods, with a backyard and porch.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor me, personally, I think I could find a great home in a variety of housing situations,\u201d says Lauster, who lived in a 2-bedroom Kitsilano apartment while finishing his book and recently moved to a townhouse in Arbutus Ridge. \u201cHaving some peace and privacy is important to me &#8211; including an ability to keep my noisy kids from intruding upon others &#8211; &nbsp;and sometimes from intruding upon me! But I also think it&#8217;s important to have good reasons to get out of my housing and good places to walk and bike nearby.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Since the release of his book (which won the best book prize at the Canadian Sociological&nbsp;Association), Vancouver\u2019s housing prices and rents have continued to skyrocket and Lauster&nbsp;says the sense of a housing crisis has only increased.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve seen increasing support for densifying our remaining RS lands, but there\u2019s still plenty of pushback and lots of debate remains over how to do it. We\u2019ve also seen blame cast on foreign&nbsp;money and the enactment of a foreign-buyer tax, the formulation of an empty homes tax, the federal declaration of housing as a human right, and a variety of other policies still being formulated. It\u2019s a fascinating time to be a housing researcher, and quite frankly it\u2019s hard to keep up.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On Thursday, February 22, Lauster will share his insights on how Vancouver\u2019s housing history is impacting its future for the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vancouver-historical-society.ca\/\"><i>Vancouver Historical Society<\/i><\/a><i> <\/i>speaker series at the Museum of Vancouver. The talk is free and open to the public. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/events\/1533542526744363\/\">Click here<\/a> to RSVP on Facebook.<\/p>\n<p>***<\/p>\n<p><em>For more information on the upcoming&nbsp;<strong>Vancouver Historical Society<\/strong>&nbsp;lecture series, click&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.vancouver-historical-society.ca\/\">here.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>**<\/p>\n<p><b><i>Nathanael Lauster <\/i><\/b><i>is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of British Columbia who specializes in housing. His 2016 book, The Death and Life of the Single-Family&nbsp; House: Lessons from Vancouver on Building a Liveable City, won the Canadian Sociological Association&#8217;s John Porter Tradition of Excellence Book Award, 2017.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>*<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Madeleine de Trenqualye<\/strong> is a freelance historical researcher who has worked for Parks Canada, the National Historic Sites and Monuments Board and the Vancouver Heritage Foundation. She has an M.A. in history from McGill University.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When experts try to explain how Vancouver\u2019s history has impacted its housing crisis, they often point to Expo 86 as ground zero. But UBC sociologist Nathan Lauster says we really should to go back to the 1920s, when Vancouver\u2014and several other cities across North America\u2014set aside a huge chunk of the land base for single-family<a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/vancouver\/2018\/02\/19\/death-life-single-family-house\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"sr-only\">&#8220;The Death and Life of the Single-Family House&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8285,"featured_media":31567,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10,20,11233,24,35,11235],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-architecture","category-events","category-history","category-housing","category-spacing","category-urban-design"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Death and Life of the Single-Family House - Spacing Vancouver<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/vancouver\/2018\/02\/19\/death-life-single-family-house\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Death and Life of the Single-Family House - Spacing Vancouver\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When experts try to explain how Vancouver\u2019s history has impacted its housing crisis, they often point to Expo 86 as ground zero. 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Today, it\u2019s 34 per cent. 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