This ban was an early version of exclusionary zoning - the kind of residential zoning where large swathes of urban centers are reserved for single family homes, and only single family homes. New multi-unit tenement buildings cropped up to house these new people.īut there was a backlash against these new immigrants, and in 1912, Toronto banned apartment buildings in most of the city. In Toronto there was already an established population of British immigrants, but much of this new wave was eastern European. In the late 1800s, there was a big wave of immigration to North America, and most of these immigrants were moving to cities. Toronto’s missing middle problem is pretty serious, and it can be traced back to early 20th century zoning laws. So it’s easy to see why there’s some conflation between the “missing middle” and a lack of “middle income” housing options – because these two concepts are absolutely related. Meanwhile, cities without middle housing tend to be harder for pretty much everyone except the wealthy - they also tend to be more segregated. Buildings like these have an outsized effect on cities, and cities without enough of these kinds of buildings often suffer from their absence.įor starters, cities with lots of “middle housing” offer more rental options, and tend to be more affordable as well. The “missing middle.” That moniker can be confusing, because it’s not directly about middle class housing - rather, it’s about a specific range of building sizes and typologies, including: duplexes, triplexes, courtyard buildings, multi-story apartment complexes, the list goes on. And this is a big concern for urban planners - so big, there’s a term for it. There just aren’t a lot of these mid-sized rental buildings in the city.Īnd it’s not just Toronto - a similar architectural void can be found in many other North American cities, like Los Angeles, Seattle, Boston and Vancouver. Residents looking for something in between an expensive house and a condo in a tall, generic tower struggle to find places to live. Outside of that, lots short single family homes sprawl out in every direction. Downtown Toronto has a dense core of tall, glassy buildings along the waterfront of Lake Ontario.
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