I’ve heard this type of comment before and always found it inherently cringeworthy. It often relates to a sentimental view of the ‘gold old days’ because homes aren’t ‘built like they used to be’. I’ve torn down enough of these so called jewels of 50’s construction and they are far from wonderful once you see the guts of how they were built. The old house conservation sentiment also can come from a wish to protect history. The problem is the old bungalow doesn’t have any architectural value that couldn’t be easily replaced. We aren’t talking about mid century modern builds from Palm Springs. Just simple boxes with thin walls and site built trusses that need a lot of partition walls to be held up. Often they are plagued with vermiculite and asbestos drywall compound. The plumbing and electrical is completely rotten and would never pass an inspection today. Yet these are considered worthy of protection by the same people that’d never want to live in them without a full renovation. Yet the renovation expense isn’t worth it as the property only can trade at land value and not much more. And the same people that want other people to pay to conserve bungalows would also complain about the cost of suburban sprawl. Replacing the bungalow with a rowhouse project is perhaps the best way to add some density back into older neigbourhoods where the population is dropping because family size is less today. So I was interested in seeing a new map made about the proportion of single zoned land in Calgary. Definitely seems to indicate we aren’t short or detached housing options. What we are really short on is reinvestment in inner city urbanism that’d make more people willing to live in a smaller attached home vs a cheap house in suburbia.
Look at the desperate shortage we have of detached zoned property in Calgary!