Written by: Misha Bereznyak
I’m recently back from a visit to Mexico City, and was wondering what we in Toronto can learn from it.
As the housing shortage in Toronto has reached a crisis level, the question of density and intensification has become more acute than ever.
Of course, Mexico City is so much larger in both area and population than Toronto, that the two are hard to compare. Levels of income make it even harder. But let’s do it anyway.
On the face of it, Mexico City stats are not especially impressive compared to Toronto. It is denser than Toronto with about 6,150 people per square km, compared to Toronto’s 4,150, but Canadians use about 600 SF per person on average compared to 400 SF in Mexico (sorry, no city-specific stats) – so the cities could have similar density of residential floor area.
What is, however, fundamentally different, is the capacity of each city for growth.
In Toronto, most areas are conceived as being in their final form, with only minor changes anticipated. When even relatively small changes happen, they are perceived as dramatic because of this static view.
Now, Mexico City also has a few areas like that, but they are mainly confined to gated communities and public housing, and only comprise a small part of the city’s area.
Rather, most of the neighbourhoods are built incrementally. Almost all of them have planned street and lot networks, but most buildings are built individually and on small lots, and then added-to or rebuilt based on the owners needs and market demand.
In the outlying outskirts of the city, many lots are vacant, and most buildings are between one and two storeys and with small footprints. Closer to the core, all lots are developed, and there are many 5-6 storey buildings, many of which are on a single original lot; wider and taller buildings exist too on assemblies of multiple small lots (and taller buildings do require more effort to permit). But the underlying structure is similar, and both outlying and central areas keep adding housing to match demand.
There are many advantages to the approach, but the most relevant ones for us are that there is incremental growth throughout the entire region, and that the physical structure and the planning regime allow intensification to match local demand.
Mexico City does have a housing problem – and it could definitely improve its planning policies to facilitate more housing – but the root of the housing problem is in broader issues of poverty and inequality rather than a planning framework that does not work for change. We could for sure learn from that.