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Stephen Rouse

@stephenrouse.bsky.social
83 followers 317 following 95 posts

Economist

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Stephen Rouse @stephenrouse.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Together We Can turn our beaches and community centres into Costco parking lots
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Deny Sullivan @denysullivan.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
At some point you need to ask whether the petty complaints of seniors are worthy of publishing. Like, this is fodder for thanksgiving dinner talk, not the CBC, and surely not a pressing matter of government
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Stephen Rouse @stephenrouse.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
This is what 1 month in the Ministry of Health does to someone
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Jens von Bergmann @jensvb.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
One way to understand the restrictiveness of zoning is to look at land price gradients across zone boundaries, @lausterna.bsky.social and check into what that looks like in Vancouver.
doodles.mountainmath.ca
Zoning Constraints and Land Price Gradients – Mountain Doodles
Steep land price gradients across zoning boundaries are an indication of zoning restrictions being binding. We take a look at what this looks like for the City of Vancouver.
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Brendan Dawe @dawe.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
What we’re seeing nation wide is that the events have conspired to give cities “breathing room” on housing and they are going to mostly squander it across all political tendencies
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Ed Burmila @edburmila.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
You don’t have to like this guy‘s politics to recognize that everyone who has insisted for decades that The Issues are almost all too complicated and too nuanced to explain to voters let alone address was lying to you.
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Kevin Wilson @kwilsonhfx.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
This was something a lot of housing advocates saw coming a mile away when the immigration cuts were announced. The fundamental stance of Canadian cities is that they prefer high prices to building housing. They love high prices. Easing off immigration was never going to change that.
Post by me from 7 months ago stating that cities are a bottleneck to growth.
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Jens von Bergmann @jensvb.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
It’s just the infinite planning loop. First we make vibrant commercial uses unviable by taxing them at 4x the residential rate, the market responds by building less commercial and more residential, then we use zoning to force commercial uses in the name of “urbanism”.
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GRIDS Vancouver @grids.reillywood.com · 28/07/2026
Grab bag of thoughts re: the Villages I think the last few years have shown us that the wave of support for more housing was... not illusionary exactly, but people don't feel strongly enough about it to counteract very concrete+organized NIMBY opposition. Grim.
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Stephen Rouse @stephenrouse.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
City Hall's gonna be pissed once they realize how badly ABC beat them here
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Jacob Loo Dawang @jacobdawang.com · 09/07/2026
NEW POST Edmonton's rowhome permits increased in the first half of 2026, despite a general slowdown in permits. Edmonton continues to provide strong proof that missing middle zoning changes can be the main character in the housing supply story. #yegcc www.jacobdawang.com/blog/2026/q2... 🧵
jacobdawang.com
2026 H1 Edmonton building permit report – Jacob Dawang
Edmonton building permits slowed through the first half of 2026, but the RS Zone rowhome keeps setting records.
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Stephen Rouse @stephenrouse.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
Right now cities in MV can't even stomach raising taxes to pay for new infrastructure. I find it hard to believe there's an appetite for building waves of new non-market housing and the infrastructure that comes with it. Maybe the cities can just raise DCCs to $1M/unit?
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Jens von Bergmann @jensvb.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
Give a nerd a chart or a map and they will waste a day. Teach a nerd how to make charts and maps and they will waste the rest of their life.
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Jacob Loo Dawang @jacobdawang.com · 16/04/2026
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/
jacobdawang.com
2026 Q1 Edmonton building permit report – Jacob Dawang
A first look at 2026 building permits through Q1, tracking whether Edmonton will continue the record-breaking momentum of 2025.
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Jens von Bergmann @jensvb.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
Minimum lot size regulations have done a lot of harm. How much harm? @lausterna.bsky.social and I ran estimates for Vancouver and the numbers are staggering.
doodles.mountainmath.ca
Lots of Opportunity: Estimating the Zoning Tax in Vancouver – Mountain Doodles
Zoning bylaws restrict the size and frontage of lots, preventing lots from getting subdivided. The opportunity cost of freezing City of Vancouver land use in RS zoned areas in amber is enormous, it am...
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Stephen Rouse @stephenrouse.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
Calling this "corporate welfare" is lazy. Should we also get rid of food & drug inspections just cause they're subsidized and businesses heavily benefit from them? This topic always attracts people like a lightning rod cause the framing is disingenuous. There are better ways to criticize it
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Jens von Bergmann @jensvb.bsky.social · 27/03/2026
When people say “housing is not affordable” they often don’t mean that they can’t afford their current housing. Instead they mean that they can’t afford to achieve their preferred living arrangements in reasonable proximity to jobs and amenities they value. We need measures that capture that.
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Jens von Bergmann @jensvb.bsky.social · 13/05/2025
I agree that energy performance has an important role to play in Build Canada. But Vancouver provides a stark example where overly focusing on operational emissions at the expense of impacts of policy on land use and economics has dramatically reduced impacts and even had counter-productive effects.
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Schooley @schooley.bsky.social · 27/04/2025
This feels a lot like that early period of Covid when some people were shouting about how bad it was going to be while guys like Trump and Musk were predicting it would be over by April.
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