For years, Canada’s housing crisis and its productivity slump have been treated as parallel emergencies. One was a matter of affordability and social equity, the other a question of economic competitiveness.
However a growing body of research, and a pair of Canadian experts who have spent years studying both, say that framing has always been wrong. They insist the country is paying a steep price for keeping the two conversations apart.
Researchers from Harvard’s Growth Lab contend Canada’s restrictive urban zoning is short-circuiting the normal mechanism by which productivity gains in major cities become national prosperity.
