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It probably has more to do with Canadian cities being more mono-centric with large downtowns that account for an out-sized share of jobs plus higher gas prices.
The thing is many of these high rise apartments are next to mall and no mixed use buildings, no grid system, or modified grid system just crescent and courts, cul-de-sac and streets that loop and turn to other streets and major city blocks away from other city block making walking to it taking a very long time. There is nothing urban about the area at all and just high rise apartments plot down in the suburb car centric area. So city hall and the government did not make an urban area they made a suburb car centric area but just higher dense suburb with houses very close together and high rise apartments.
But the the thing is Canada cities have higher public transit than the US it just the suburbs are more dense than US suburbs.
But the thing is Canadians are more willy to walk 20 minutes from one city block to other city block than wait for a city bus than get off the bus and walk 20 minutes from one city block to other city block than walk into their neighborhoods down crescent and courts, cul-de-sac and streets that turn and loop around to they get to their house.
There is nothing urban about the areas where the high rise apartments are it just car centric suburb but these areas have high public transit unlike the US.
It probably has more to do with Canadian cities being more mono-centric with large downtowns that account for an out-sized share of jobs plus higher gas prices.
You also are missing the point about relationship of public transit and density level.
The thing is this is a US city with grid system and short city blocks making walking much easier but because of only houses and low rise apartments these areas have terrible public transit. So no one really takes public transit.
Here is a city in Canada with crescent and courts, cul-de-sac and streets that loop and turn and city blocks far away, making walking hard but because the houses are close together and there is high rise apartments the city can spend more on public transit than the US.
And so these cities and even the suburbs in Canada have higher public transit because the density is higher and they can spend more on public transit to have better public transit than US cities.
And so these cities and even the suburbs in Canada have higher public transit because the density is higher and they can spend more on public transit to have better public transit than US cities.
But Canadian cities don't actually spend that much money on transit. Calgary with more transit ridership than Dallas and Houston combined spends <$300M net operating on transit, half of DART. Toronto TTC has a net operating budget of around $1.2B but carries >2.5X as many riders as LA Metro which has a net operating budget of nearly $2B.
American transit agencies are well-funded but terrible at turning that into useful transit services.
But Canadian cities don't actually spend that much money on transit. Calgary with more transit ridership than Dallas and Houston combined spends <$300M net operating on transit, half of DART. Toronto TTC has a net operating budget of around $1.2B but carries >2.5X as many riders as LA Metro which has a net operating budget of nearly $2B.
American transit agencies are well-funded but terrible at turning that into useful transit services.
Well the only thing I can think of to explain it.
Not sure about Toronto vs LA why that is the case but there is 7 million people in the Dallas and Fort Worth area and person may live in Fort Worth and work in Arlington or live in Dallas and work in Arlington or Fort Worth where as Calgary and if Edmonton is the same case only having million people you are commuting down town not trying to hop from one city to the next city in different parts of the city that will have terrible public transit service with very long wait times with so many transit lines.
The Toronto go train is design to hull people down town Toronto from the suburbs so is the subway may be in the case of LA there is less of reason to go down town and there is more commuting from one part of the city to other part and bypassing the down town area.
What you would have to do is compare Brampton, Mississauga, Hamilton, Pickering, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Waterloo ,Kitchener and London to Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, San Antonio, Fort Worth, Austin, Denver, EI Paso, Las Vegas, Portland so on.
I find it hard to believe New Orleans, Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, San Antonio, Fort Worth, Austin, Denver, EI Paso, Las Vegas, Portland, Tucson so on spend the same on public transit has Brampton, Mississauga, Hamilton, Pickering, Ottawa, Winnipeg, waterloo ,Kitchener and London. With those Canadian cities having higher ridership.
Has there may be some thing else going on explaining why Toronto has higher ridership than LA if most of the people in the GTA use it only to get down town only and use car to get around the city to other parts of the city where in LA they are commuting to other parts of the city and have no need to go down town.
As an American I can say the thought of having to live in one of those giant apartment blocks would make me feel very bad.
Me too. The American dream is a single family detached house with a 2 car garage on a plot of land of at least 100 feet by 200 feet, and in a good school district. Apartments are generally reserved for the very young, very old, and very poor. Outside of NYC and other extremely large urban areas, it is not common for able-bodied adults to not have a driver's license and a vehicle.
Investors want to maximize returns, and in a place where permitting can take years, houses and high rises offer outsized returns.
If it takes the same amount of time to get a thousand unit building approved as it does a ten unit building, and the fees are high for both, there’s just little incentive to build smaller.
But: Toronto's expanded multiplex era is coming.
In Toronto, multiplexes are defined as low-rise housing containing two to four units within a single building. Until recently, zoning bylaws had restricted their presence in many parts of the city, but that changed after a May 10 council vote.
Council voted 18-7 in favour of legalizing two, three and four-unit multiplexes, which had previously not been allowed in many parts of the city because of restrictive zoning bylaws.
Investors want to maximize returns, and in a place where permitting can take years, houses and high rises offer outsized returns.
If it takes the same amount of time to get a thousand unit building approved as it does a ten unit building, and the fees are high for both, there’s just little incentive to build smaller.
Not sure I understand what you are saying. If it is more profitable for investors and developers to build high rise apartments than low rise apartments they would have well built lots and lots of high rise apartments in the US.
Some one here said those low rise apartments construction was made very cheaply and fire hazard may be that reason city planners in Canada hated low rise apartments where the high rise apartments where built much better and fire safety in mind.
But in the US investors and developers don’t want to build expensive apartments so they build lots of cheaply made low rise apartments but city hall or at federal government level in Canada bans those low rise cheaply made apartments and there is no incentive to build low rise good construction units because of cost for investors and developers to build good low rise apartments with fire safety in mind.
That's a big old city way of building things. Canada doesn't have any big old cities like New York or Paris. Even Montreal was not that big, its population in 1930 was slightly smaller than Cleveland and St Louis (incl inner suburbs) and much smaller than Detroit, Philadelphia and Chicago.
There are new buildings being built in the 3-6 storey range in Toronto, mainly as part of the "Avenues Plan" https://www.google.com/maps/@43.6802...8192?entry=ttu
This plan is to allow midrise buildings along major roads as a way to increase the housing supply. They limit the heights to midrise because they're surrounded by lowrise/SFH neighbourhoods who don't to be in the shadow of a highrise.
Other communities are also building midrises, due to height limits. https://www.google.com/maps/@43.4366...8192?entry=ttu
In the big old cities, you had "height limits" too, but they weren't in the zoning code, but rather limitations caused by lack of elevators.
Look at when population growth occurs vs economic status. When building costs are high and population growth is low, shorter/smaller buildings are built. When building costs are low and population is growing, skyscrapers are built.
For example in the 40s and 50s in the US, building materials were cheap (post-war production surplus) and population growth was huge. This led to taller and bigger buildings being built. But by the 60s, 70s, and 80s, building costs spiked and (particularly in urban centers) population growth slowed. Thus it became more common to see 4-6 story buildings, oftentimes replacing larger buildings that were inefficient and expensive to maintain. Then by the early 2000s, low interest rates made building relatively cheap again and urban populations were growing, so suddenly all kinds of single family houses were coming down in favor of luxury condo buildings, and those ugly squat office buildings (most of which no longer met building code) were being replaced with shiny skyscrapers.
I don't know enough about the economic and population movements of Canada, but likely you can map building sizes to the economy and population patterns.
As for things like parking lots and public transit, that's really just a cultural difference. Canada is a country that has a sense of the collective 'we'. Canada thus prioritizes collective investments like public transit and national healthcare, whereas the US prioritizes individualism like personal vehicles and privatized insurance.
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