Edmonton is one of the most progressive cities on the continent for housing reform and deserves more recognition. Luckily, Canadian gems @ohtheurbanity.bsky.social cover it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lobl... And @nerd4cities.bsky.social profiles the city here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlAV...

NEW BLOG POST There's been a lot of speculation as to how much MLI select has been driving small-scale infill in Edmonton. With an ATIP request, here is a good guess. 👇 www.jacobdawang.com/blog/2026/ml... #yeg #yegcc #yimby

Edmonton is the most affordable major city in Canada and we are continuing to make progress. The City has accelerated permitting, reduced approval timelines, expanded services, and simplified processes so builders can move from application to construction quickly. https://bit.ly/4ttrlfn

Interesting how the "neighbourhood character" argument never comes up with some of these rebuilds. #yeg

Mark Carney came into power with a promise that he was going to build homes at levels not seen in decades, and so far what we've gotten is his government refusing to hold some of our largest cities accountable for deliberately breaking agreements they signed on regulatory reform.

If the mayor’s framing is true this marks the end of the HAF as a way to encourage zoning change In a meaningful way. Feds just completely caved

Fire Gregor Robertson.

At least it was all done for an understandable policy reason: keeping other people from living where they want because I personally don't like the type of building they would have chosen to live in.

RIP Housing Accelerator Fund, 2023-2026.

Throwing good money after bad

This completely defeats the purpose of the HAF. The cash incentive was a carrot to get the city to address the highly-restrictive zoning laws that got us into this mess in the first place.

Oh my god. The success of the housing accelerator fund depended on the federal government holding municipalities to their word. Gregor Robertson has singlehandedly destroyed this policy initiatives if this is true. 🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦

Kandavel keeps saying he supports housing in the abstract but then it turns out he opposes every actual proposal in his ward. Who could have foreseen?

I feel like the abolition of parking requirements is a really instructive example of why developers often aren't all that useful for identifying pro-growth reform. 🧵

Unfunded IZ presupposes a permenant housing shortage: the moment rents fall too low to cross-subsidize the unfunded mandate, development stops until rents rise again. It's housing policy pseudoscience.

Toronto, as always, ruined this for everyone by asking for a bunch of extra tax powers, getting them, promptly cancelling the vehicle registration tax, then taking in money the land transfer tax in good times before complaining about its volatility when tides turned. Then asking for more tax powers.

It’s wild how the G&M’s position on housing has shifted even in the past five years. And Holly’s right, we will regret this…

Edmonton's status as Canada's YIMBY capital remains rock solid

I'd be very curious to know how Regina compares to these numbers coming out of Edmonton. jacobdawang.com/blog/2026/q1... #yqrcc

This small, old, rotten single-family home is going to be replaced with 9 brand new ones. Steps from NAIT, two schools, a hospital, Kingsway mall, LRT, and the restaurants on 118 avenue. What a huge win for Edmonton!

Great analysis from Jacob (as usual) on the continuing success of Edmonton to create an environment where it’s easy to build the housing people want.

Looking at Edmontons continued success in ramping up missing middle and think about how Halifax could’ve done more

Jacob is extremely good on this beat, and I believe instituting Edmonton reforms in the suburbs of the GTA (Toronto probably needs more ambition) would alleviate pressures on the entire country. High prices in Halifax are partly a result of NIMBYism in Markham.

Edmonton, like Auckland, seems to be proving that in many North American/Australasian contexts if you legalize townhouses in lots of places, they will meet a lot of housing demand. Dispersed rowhomes reduce pressure on how much housing you need to get out of larger apartment buildings

#Edmonton is getting some things completely right, in spite of the loudly right... #yegcc #yeg

"All this infill is monstrous and ruining our perfect little neighbourhood 😡" you'll hear yelled by the loud NIMBYs online in the comments yet reality and data don't even remotely back them up. Wow, what a concept, the loud minority is telling lies 🤥 on the internet! 🤯 #yeg #infill

Sensible, forward thinking policy works. Who'd'a thunk it.

yeeessss

“New housing doesn’t help affordability because it all gets put on AirBnB.” Do people think old buildings are somehow immune to AirBnB? I’d say most AirBnB listings I’ve seen have *not* been new builds.

Land use policy is climate policy.

The Zoning Bylaw Renewal has legalized building rowhomes in central neighbourhoods near transit. We are building more homes near transit than ever before, enabling families to live in a place where a car is not needed for many trips. More homes means more housing and transportation choice

Wow. Didn't even make a bedroom cap? Good luck. I assume the end is near for Edmonton

At a certain point here in Toronto we need to be asking ourselves why Edmonton is producing more than 10x as many multiplex units as us per year. (It's zoning and DCs/taxes).

The success of legalizing small-scale density is amazing. We are enabling people to live in the places with better transit, more opportunity - and in the places they want!

NEW BLOG POST Edmonton's housing momentum didn't stop at the end of 2025. Q1 2026 data is in and Edmonton is on track for another strong year of homebuilding in the places people want to live. The rowhome revolution continues. 🧵 #yeg #yegcc #yimby jacobdawang.com/blog/2026/q1-building-permits/

The actual reason to be upset about tree equity is that the city totally ignores its supposed goal when revising its land use policies and tree bylaws. We made an EHON program to let more people live near trees and then almost immediately launched a "Growing Space for Trees" item that limits that.

Reminder that this “glut” of small units was approved under a planning process that took ~2.5 years to complete. Almost like that process is designed to allay the concerns of people who already own homes and has zero to do with the new homes themselves. www.thestar.com/real-estate/...

Reading Reddit threads on proposed housing developments in Montreal: “All we want is smaller buildings, bigger units, and cheaper prices. Is that too much to ask?”

Calgary housing advocates call on city council to replace citywide rezoning with new plan globalnews.ca/news/1179933...

Steps from the west LRT and Jasper Place transit centre. 4 x 8 townhouse complex. This is density “where it makes sense”. This is affordability and climate action enabling car—light or car-free living.

Read my lips: no new roads. We must focus on renewal this four year budget. edmontonjournal.com/opinion/colu...

"Last night, City Council: -Made it harder to build homes -Added red tape -Removed a way for donut communities to grow the tax base -Encouraged sprawl -Told new arrivals to bring a car. Or 2. 3 maybe? -REPEALED a bylaw but REPLACED it with nothing, reneging on campaign promises. ONWARD!" #yyccc

Happy to see the TTC itself starting to do international comparison. Their list of items is good, lots of very low hanging fruit. I just hope they realize the difference between us and central European trams isn't just stop spacing. It's dozens of things.

Wow, Toronto acknowledging other places exist and do things better!

And now four families have a home instead of just one, the bungalow’s owner netted a profit and less pressure on the overall market 🥲

An astonishing admission of economic illiteracy, very unbecoming of a mayor.

What if instead we trash the bungalow and bury some toxic waste in the backyard. That turns the $600k bungalow into at $500k bungalow and voila - it’s more affordable. And if we do that at scale the whole city becomes affordable!

Municipal politicians are routinely extremely destructive and bad faith with no consequences, because their voters bear none of the consequences