Mountain Doodles

21 min

Metrics, Mechanisms, and Mismatch: Immigration and other Components of Housing Demand in Canada

affordability

canpumf

cansim

cancensus

cmhc

What’s the housing demand due to immigration and how does this relate to other components of housing demand?

Jun 8, 2025

67 min

Elections fun - 2025 edition

geeky

Playing with Canadian 2025 federal elections data.

Apr 28, 2025

Housing shortage as an explanation for family and household change

affordability

A run down of our recent paper on this topic, and implications for research and policy.

Mar 11, 2025

cansim revamp

cansim

The cansim package got a speed boost. And some new features.

Feb 23, 2025

Homelessness and Rents in Canada

affordability

canpumf

Homelessness rates in Canada relate strongly to market rents suggesting a clear market mechanism that causes homelessness.

Jan 16, 2025

59 min

No spike in “foreign buying”

newsfail

Contrary to news reporting, there is no spike in “foreign buyers” in BC real estate.

Nov 8, 2024

BC Election 2024

geeky

A quick updated on the “land doesn’t vote, people do” theme.

Oct 20, 2024

Distributional effects of adding housing

cansim

cancensus

canpumf

affordability

rental

Vancouver

geeky

We pick up on our post on overall housing targets to estimate distributional effects on housing outcomes if our targets were met.

Aug 14, 2024

120 min

Geocoding errors in aggregate data

cancensus

tongfen

Vancouver

Toronto

geeky

Geocoding errors can become a problem, especially in temporal data where geocoding processes have changed over time. We propose a method to detect and ameliorate geocoding errors in aggregate data.

Jul 26, 2024

28 min

Tenure and Household Independence across the Life Course, 1981-2021

canpumf

affordability

Vancouver

Toronto

We use 1981 through 2021 census data to look at tenure and household formation outcomes in Canada, and develop a metric of “housing frustration”

Jul 11, 2024

31 min

Migration and housing costs do not relate in straight-forward ways. In Vancouver we hear a lot about people considering or actually leaving the region because of housing costs, at the same time data on migration shows that Vancouver has a comparatively low share of people leaving the region.

Jun 11, 2024

32 min

Doubling Up - Distinguishing Families from Households

cansim

cancensus

Households and Families frequently get mixed up in general housing discussions. We explore the difference between the two and interpret it as doubling up, some of which is likely voluntary and some less so.

Jun 4, 2024

23 min

Zoned Capacity - promise and pitfalls

affordability

Vancouver

Looking at zoned capacity, how it might be useful and examining potential pitfalls.

May 31, 2024

33 min

Parental Help in Property Ownership

affordability

PUMF

cancensus

taxes

wealth

A closer look at the strong correlation between parental co-ownership and median housing value across metro areas that has highlighted in a recent CHSP brief.

May 9, 2024

28 min

Population timelines update

Vancouver

Toronto

density

tongfen

A long overdue update on population timelines for Vancouver and Toronto, adding in 2021 data for a 50 year fine geography population change timeline 1971 through 2021.

Apr 23, 2024

Migrating to quarto

geeky

Some overdue housekeeping and a new look for the blog.

Apr 11, 2024

What if recent apartment buildings in Vancouver were 20% taller?

affordability

Vancouver

cmhc

We estimate that planning decisions preventing apartment buildings built in the past 5 years in Metro Vancouver from being on average 20% taller are resulting in an annual redistribution of income from renters to existing landlords on the order of half a billion dollars across the region via higher rents.

Apr 11, 2024

Keith Stewart, Jens von Bergmann

First time buyer Lorenz curves revisited

affordability

cansim

Vancouver

Toronto

PUMF

Taking another look at first time buyer affordability: updating with 2021 data, accounting for property taxes, and introducing a discretized version of the measure.

Jan 16, 2024

33 min

Housing Outcomes

affordability

cansim

cmhc

cancensus

Vancouver

Toronto

Existing households are partially outcomes of our housing pressures, and basing analysis soley on households introduces collider bias. Which is substantial in tight housing markets and this misspecification can lead to misguided analysis and faulty policy recommendations.

Aug 17, 2023

29 min

Housing targets

affordability

Vancouver

zoning

Taking a systematic look at how to set housing targets aimed at counteracting restrictive municipal housing policies, and what that means for Vancouver.

Jun 27, 2023

Metro Vancouver Planning Regimes

cansim

cancensus

affordability

Taking a look at Metro Vancouver planning around housing and population growth.

Jun 20, 2023

27 min

Investing in definitions and framing

cansim

newsfail

Taking a closer look at the CHSP data release and clearing up some misunderstandings.

Feb 20, 2023

24 min

A Brief History of Vancouver Planning & Development Regimes

affordability

cmhc

Vancouver

zoning

rental

Tracking how Vancouver regulations for development have changed over time, illustrated with two examples.

Feb 6, 2023

29 min

Analyzing Ballot Composition in Vancouver

geeky

Vancouver

Breaking down the individual ballot data for the 2022 Vancouver municipal election.

Dec 17, 2022

New Premier New Housing Policy

affordability

Empty Homes

taxes

zoning

rental

Breaking down the housing policy announcements.

Nov 24, 2022

24 min

Still Short: Suppressed Households in 2021

affordability

cansim

cmhc

Vancouver

Toronto

rental

PUMF

Checking in on household suppression in Canada using 2021 data.

Oct 3, 2022

Where did all the cheap rents go?

affordability

cansim

cmhc

rental

An investigation into the 320k “lost” units renting below $750.

Sep 27, 2022

26 min

Rent growth in GDP

affordability

cansim

rental

People in BC spend a lot of money on rent (and imputed rent), and that’s a problem. The way to decrease this “Real Estate Industry” share of GDP is to build more housing.

Sep 12, 2022

25 Years of Structural Change

cancensus

Vancouver

Toronto

land use

density

dotdensity

Taking the long view on changes in our dwelling stock by structural type.

Aug 18, 2022

Tumbling turnover

rental

cmhc

cancensus

cansim

affordability

mobility

PUMF

Digging deeper into Canadian residential mobility, tracking changes in mobility over time, and comparing data sources.

Jul 29, 2022

A brief history of Canadian real estate investors

PUMF

canbank

wealth

Recently has been lots of talk about real estate investors, a good time to look at investors over time.

Jun 30, 2022

Ins and outs of CMHC data

cmhc

CMHC produces and curates important data on housing in Canada. An overview over some of this data, it’s quirks, and how to access it.

Jun 12, 2022

Residential mobility in Canada

cancensus

rental

PUMF

Vancouver

Toronto

Residential mobility is essential for family formation, accommodating life changes, and the economy. A look at residential mobility in Canada over time.

May 27, 2022

Nanaimo Station

zoning

Vancouver

Transportation

cancensus

density

tongfen

Vancouver has been squandering opportunities around existing Skytrain stations. We take a closer look at the Nanaimo Station area.

May 21, 2022

On Broadway

zoning

Vancouver

Transportation

affordability

density

The Broadway Plan is coming before council, time for a review of what’s being proposed, which parts are good and which might need work, and how that fits into the historical context.

May 17, 2022

Children are good, actually

affordability

Vancouver

tongfen

land use

zoning

Assessment Data

CensusMapper

cancensus

cansim

Cities are changing, how do we know if we are headed in the right direction? Looking at the change in children gives us a simple uncontroversial metric to assess that, most people can agree that children are good for cities.

May 11, 2022

Estimating Suppressed Household Formation

affordability

cancensus

cmhc

PUMF

Toronto

Vancouver

Household formation is a complex process that is impacted by many factors. We explore the variation in household maintainer rates across Canada to estimate the CMA-level effects on household maintainer rates and suppressed household formation using Montréal as a counterfactual, paying attention to differences in age structure and cultural aspects.

May 6, 2022

29 min

Planning for scarcity

affordability

Vancouver

zoning

Vancouver’s planning regime is set up to reinforce housing scarcity A closer look how Vancouver plans for growth, what’s wrong with it, and some ideas how to fix it.

Apr 26, 2022

What’s up with Squamish?

affordability

cancensus

CensusMapper

tongfen

Squamish’s dwelling stock grew faster than their population, what does that mean?

Mar 30, 2022

UBCM Shenanigans

affordability

cansim

Vancouver

Taking a look at UBCM’s misguided report.

Mar 29, 2022

Vacancy rates and rent change, 2021 update

affordability

cmhc

Vancouver

rental

The 2021 CMHC Rental Market Survey data finally arrived. Time to do a refresh of our vacancy rate vs rent change analysis. And take a look at where Vancouver is at.

Feb 18, 2022

Census quirks; using UBC area as an example

cansim

CensusMapper

Vancouver

Census data is great. But census data also has lots of little quirks. We take the Point Grey Peninsula as an example to show how census data can go sideways.

Feb 17, 2022

Deadbeat Neighbourhoods

Vancouver

tongfen

cancensus

Population change in Vancouver’s neighbourhoods 2016-2021. A first look.

Feb 15, 2022

Unoccupied Canada

cancensus

Empty Homes

Vancouver

The census ‘unoccupied by usual residents’ metric is often in the news and one of the most frequentliy misrepresnted parts of census data. A quick primer on what does does and does not say.

Feb 14, 2022

Deadbeat zoning

affordability

CensusMapper

tongfen

Vancouver

cancensus

density

With the new 2021 census data out it’s time for some analysis on how Vancouver has grown. For this time we will examine the role of low-density zoning.

Feb 11, 2022

Canada’s 2021 census, part 1

CensusMapper

cancensus

The first tranche of the 2021 census data has arrived. Here is a quick rundown.

Feb 9, 2022

No shortage in Housing BS

affordability

cancensus

cansim

CensusMapper

Empty Homes

newsfail

Vancouver

There is a special brain worm making the rounds that Vancouver supply has been outstripping demand. Which is obvious nonsense, but maybe still deserves a detailed takedown.

Jan 31, 2022

First Peek at Population and Household Data During COVID & Caveats

cancensus

cansim

cmhc

covid-19

geeky

Vancouver

A deeper look at population and hosehold estimates, how thes estimates are made and what early data can tell us about shifts during COVID times.

Nov 28, 2021

Three Years of Speculation & Vacancy Tax Data

cansim

taxes

Empty Homes

We now have three years of SVT data, time to take a look at where things stand, how this fits in with related datasets, and what we can learn.

Nov 21, 2021

Acting locally on housing

cansim

affordability

Housing faces lots of challenges, some of the global. But our policy levers are mostly local, increasing housing supply is the most effective (and ethical) local action we can take.

Nov 20, 2021

CensusMapper (p)review

CensusMapper

CensusMapper is six years old now. A review, and a preview where things could be heading.

Oct 17, 2021

Fixing parking

Vancouver

taxes

Transportation

zoning

cancensus

CensusMapper

affordability

Paving the way for removing minimum parking requirements.

Oct 3, 2021

Elections fun - 2021 edition

geeky

Playing with Canadian 2021 federal elections data.

Sep 25, 2021

Transnational property ownership in Canada

cansim

PUMF

Toronto

Vancouver

We talk a lot about people living abroad owning property in Canada, let’s take a look at Canadians owning property abroad.

Sep 7, 2021

Thoughts on vaccine effectivess estimates

covid-19

We now have some data on vaccination status of COVID cases and hospitalizations in BC. It’s not really enough for robust vaccine effectivness estimates, but given the public interest let’s see how far we can get.

Aug 30, 2021

Satellites, Sprawl, and City Six-Packs

land use

Fun with global satellite-derived land use time series.

Aug 21, 2021

Commodity and Keeping it in the Family

cansim

CensusMapper

A look at non-market transfers of market properties.

Aug 13, 2021

Lots of Opportunity: Estimating the Zoning Tax in Vancouver

affordability

Assessment Data

density

land use

Vancouver

zoning

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 amounts to around $40 billion from preventing 2:1 lots splits, and an additional $100 billion from preventing further subdivision beyond that.

Jul 25, 2021

24 min

Basement Confidential: Vancouver’s Informal Housing Stock

affordability

cancensus

Empty Homes

land use

rental

Vancouver

zoning

Basement suites are the Schrödinger’s cat of dwelling units, they span the space betweem formal and informal housing, viewed by some as the problem of, and by others as the solution to Vancouver’s housing woes.

Jun 8, 2021

Forced Out in Canada: New Data from CHS

affordability

rental

Vancouver

PUMF

Taking a deeper look at forced moves using CHS microdata. And how it changed over time.

Mar 29, 2021

Vaxx vs VOCs

covid-19

Vaccines are here to rescue us, but variants of concern threaten to spoil it. What to expect in BC over the next two months as vaccines and variants of concern battle for dominance.

Mar 10, 2021

Data variants

covid-19

We don’t have data on variants of concern in BC, so let’s take a look at different variants of building proxies.

Mar 4, 2021

On COVID and exponential growth

covid-19

With BC public health officials doubting mathematical modelling it might be time again for an explainer of exponential growth.

Feb 21, 2021

Industrial Strength Zombies: Vancouver Edition

CensusMapper

cancensus

Vancouver

Surrey

What industries are dominant in Vancouver? People throw around all kinds of crazy stories, time take a look at the data and put some zombies to rest. At least for a day or two before someone else digs them up again.

Feb 10, 2021

Bartholomew’s dot destiny

density

dotdensity

Vancouver

zoning

Bartholomew made projections of what a Central Vancouver penninsula (UBC, Musqueam 2, Vancouver, Burnaby, New Westminster) with 1 million people would look like. We no just about hit that number time to compare how his projections stock up.

Feb 3, 2021

On COVID Trend lines

covid-19

geeky

Trend lines help us distinguish noise from the signal in data. COVID-19 case trend lines is an important tool for understanding where we are at, how we got there and which direction we are trending. This deserves more attention than it has been getting.

Jan 30, 2021

Rethinking the “foreignness” of owners living abroad

cansim

Empty Homes

taxes

Vancouver

Comparing CHSP and SVT data we try to tease out how foreign our forein owners really are.

Jan 25, 2021

Capital Gains Income

cansim

Vancouver

cancensus

taxes

Income concepts in Canada generally only include regular income and in particular miss (taxable) capital gains. But capital gains makes up an important income source and we should pay more attention to it.

Jan 15, 2021

Vancouver’s pandemic weather

covid-19

Vancouver

The weather during the 2020 pandemic, especially the fall and winter, has felt worse than usual. How much of that is just perception and how much is real?

Jan 6, 2021

Jens von Bergmann, HsingChi von Bergmann

BC back to (COVID) school

covid-19

School is about to re-start after Christmas break, lots of questions remain.

Jan 2, 2021

Covid testing data in BC

covid-19

Testing data in BC shoud be straighforward to interpret, but it’s surprisingly tricky.

Dec 21, 2020

What to Expect from an Empty Homes Tax

cancensus

Empty Homes

With more Canadian cities announcing their interestest in an Empty Homes Tax, what should they expect?

Dec 7, 2020

TongFen

tongfen

CensusMapper

cancensus

Tongfen is now on CRAN, time for a short overview of what tongfen is and how it aids research on longitudinal spatial data on different yet congruent geographies.

Nov 10, 2020

COVID-19 Data in BC

covid-19

Looking into what’s going wrong with BC Covid data

Oct 22, 2020

CHS Core Housing Need

affordability

cansim

A quick overview over the freshly released Canadian Housing Survey data

Oct 2, 2020

Keith Stewart, Jens von Bergmann

First-time buyer Lorenz curves

geeky

affordability

Taking a look at affordability for first-time buyers, and what useful metrics can be constructed to measure this.

Sep 28, 2020

Income mixing and segregation

cansim

cancensus

geeky

Taking a look at the new StatCan D-index and related income mixing metrics

Sep 21, 2020

21 min

Covid school modelling

covid-19

Looking at the impact of different test, trace and isolation protocols.

Sep 8, 2020

Keeping the Leavers

Vancouver

Empty Homes

Some people have a hard time making room for newcomers, but how about making room for people to stay?

Aug 27, 2020

Covid Series 3 Survey

covid-19

cansim

A quick tour through Covid series 3 survey data.

Aug 25, 2020

Canadian 1996 Census

cancensus

CensusMapper

Expanding timelines, the Canadian 1996 census is now available on CensusMapper and via {cancensus}.

Jul 6, 2020

covid-19

A follow-up on what data we need.

May 13, 2020

Census tract level T1FF tax data

cancensus

cansim

CensusMapper

Canadian T1 taxfiler data 2000 to 2017 on census tracts as open data.

Apr 23, 2020

COVID deaths in context by weeks

covid-19

An updated view at covid-19 mortality and excess mortality.

Apr 19, 2020

Covid-19 data in Canada

covid-19

Covid-19 data for Canada is hard to come by. Where to get the data, what it tells us and what’s missing.

Apr 10, 2020

Context for Covid-19 mortality so far

cansim

covid-19

Covid-19 related deaths are mounting,

Mar 31, 2020

Behaviour change in response to COVID-19

Surrey

covid-19

geeky

Transportation

Looking into real-time metrics to measure behaviour change.

Mar 22, 2020

Knock Knock, Anybody Home?

cancensus

Empty Homes

Empty Homes Taxes can be useful, but let’s keep the numbers and expectations straight.

Mar 9, 2020

Overnight Visitors and Crude Travel Vectors

Vancouver

Transportation

covid-19

geeky

Checking in on Vancouver travel data. And the novel corona virus.

Mar 3, 2020

Wealth vs income

geeky

Wealth and income are not the same thing. And it matters. Especially in BC.

Feb 19, 2020

Vancouver

2019 CMHC Rental Market Survey

cancensus

cansim

cmhc

rental

Vancouver

Checking in with the new Rms data.

Jan 15, 2020

Flow Maps

cancensus

CensusMapper

Transportation

Fun with flow maps.

Jan 6, 2020

Fun with parking tickets

Vancouver

Transportation

Looking for excuses to showcase my {VancouvR} R package to access Vancouver Open Data.

Dec 9, 2019

Property tax snacks

geeky

Vancouver

taxes

A short post munching through some property tax musings.

Nov 26, 2019

Canadian Housing Survey

cansim

rental

Vancouver

Toronto

Taking a first look at the new Canadian Housing Survey data

Nov 23, 2019

Commuter growth

cancensus

CensusMapper

land use

Vancouver

Surrey

Transportation

zoning

As our population and jobs grow, so do commuters. Taking a look how commuters grow.

Oct 29, 2019

Elections fun

geeky

Playing with Canadian 2019 federal elections data.

Oct 22, 2019

Rents and incomes

cansim

cmhc

cancensus

Vancouver

rental

In Vancouver (both City or Metro), median rents have tracked median incomes quite well. (Although some misleading information that is making the rounds suggests otherwise.)

Oct 17, 2019

Rents and vacancy rates

cmhc

rental

Vancouver

Adding some context to vacancy rates by rent segment.

Oct 16, 2019

Spatial autocorrelation & co

geeky

Common (and commonly ignored) problems in spatial analysis.

Oct 7, 2019

Job vacancies

cansim

Vancouver

The missing part of the Labour Force Survey

Sep 6, 2019

Low income vs new dwellings

cancensus

geeky

Vancouver

Toronto

density

Does adding homes decrease the low income population? A look at the Canadian data.

Sep 2, 2019

Running on Empties

cancensus

Vancouver

newsfail

Empty Homes

Putting Canadian empty homes data into context.

Aug 19, 2019

cansim

A quick post on the recent CHSP data release.

Jun 18, 2019

Census custom timelines

CensusMapper

density

land use

Vancouver

Playing with fine geography custom tabulation back to 1971.

Jun 15, 2019

Simple Metrics for Deciding if You Have Enough Housing

How do we know if we have too much, the right amount, or too little housing?

Jun 12, 2019

Stuart Smith, Jens von Bergmann

33 min

Vancouver population density over time

cancensus

CensusMapper

density

Vancouver

zoning

A detailed look at growth in the City of Vancouver

Jun 9, 2019

Multi-Census Tongfen

cancensus

CensusMapper

Comparing multiple censuses across fine geographies.

Jun 4, 2019

2001 Census Data (and TongFen)

cancensus

CensusMapper

Empty Homes

Vancouver

A quick overview over the 2001 Census data newly imported into CensusMapper, as well as how to compare census data across censuses.

Jun 3, 2019

density

Global city density patterns across time.

Mar 27, 2019

City density patterns

density

How do city densities compare around the globe?

Mar 17, 2019

Airbnb updates

Vancouver

rental

Checking in on the state of Airbnb in Vancouver.

Mar 2, 2019

Tax Speculations

cancensus

cansim

CensusMapper

Empty Homes

taxes

Vancouver

Estimating what to expect from the Speculation and Vacancy Tax.

Feb 27, 2019

30 min

Planned displacement

cancensus

CensusMapper

land use

OSM

Transportation

Vancouver

zoning

density

rental

How can we ensure that densifying Vancouver won’t be taken out on the backs of the most vulnerable?

Feb 21, 2019

Vancouver renters

cancensus

cansim

CensusMapper

rental

Vancouver

Understanding renter households in Vancouver

Feb 15, 2019

Vancouver election individual ballots

Vancouver

Individual ballot data is great, let’s put it to work!

Feb 4, 2019

There is no Brain Drain, but there might be Zombies

cancensus

newsfail

Vancouver

Digging into yet another round of claims of some group of people leaving Vancouver.

Feb 3, 2019

The Fleecing of Canadian Millenials

cansim

Income and net worth by age group in Canada.

Jan 31, 2019

High-value homes

cancensus

Vancouver

cansim

Who lives in Metro Vancouver’s high-value homes?

Jan 9, 2019

Jens von Bergmann, Nathanael Lauster, Douglas Harris

How are condos used?

cancensus

cmhc

rental

Vancouver

Toronto

Comparing how condos are used across Canada.

Dec 17, 2018

Vancouver

newsfail

cancensus

Running the numbers on eligible voters by neighbourhood.

Oct 17, 2018

cancensus

CensusMapper

Vancouver

Counting those coming and leaving.

Aug 16, 2018

Taxing property instead of income in B.C.

cancensus

taxes

Assessment Data

What if we were more like Washington and replaced the provinial income tax by a property tax?

Aug 10, 2018

Active Fire

OSM

geeky

Playing with fire data.

Jul 28, 2018

Fact-checking Vancouver’s Swamp Drainers

cancensus

cansim

newsfail

Vancouver

Swampy facts: the dark, broken, and ugly side of housing talk in Vancouver.

Jul 22, 2018

Making Room

cancensus

CensusMapper

density

Vancouver

How is low-density housing currently used?

Jul 17, 2018

Aboriginal overrepresentation in correctional services and police checks

cansim

cancensus

Vancouver

The long legacy of Canadian aboriginal relations

Jul 13, 2018

Skytrain rents

cancensus

rental

Transportation

Vancouver

How much is it to rent a 1 or 2 bedroom near a skytrain station?

Jun 21, 2018

Interprovincial Migration

cansim

Playing with the cansim package to access and process NDM data.

Jun 14, 2018

Vancouver Streets and Lanes

Vancouver

Transportation

land use

How much space is taken up by roads right-of-ways?

Jun 4, 2018

Extra School Tax Calculator

Assessment Data

Vancouver

Apparently 8th grade math ability is inversly proportional to property values, here is a simple calculator for those still suffering from consequences of sub-par math education.

May 28, 2018

Short Term Rental Licenses

Vancouver

A first look at STR license data

May 25, 2018

Teardowns and Emissions

Assessment Data

cancensus

cmhc

cansim

land use

Vancouver

zoning

Analysing the impact of Vancouver’s teardown cycle on carbon emissions.

May 23, 2018

Building Height Profiles

density

land use

Vancouver

Toronto

Building heights by distance from city centre.

May 11, 2018

A modest school-tax proposal

Assessment Data

taxes

Vancouver

Looking into the school tax outrage.

May 1, 2018

Frontage

Assessment Data

Vancouver

zoning

density

Frontages for commercial zoned properties in Vancouver.

Mar 28, 2018

Transit Data

Vancouver

geeky

Transportation

Playing with our new R API wrapper for transit data from Transitland

Mar 12, 2018

Extra School Tax

Assessment Data

taxes

Vancouver

Impacts of the Extra School Tax in City of Vancouver

Feb 28, 2018

Taxable Dwelling Density

Vancouver

Empty Homes

Assessment Data

When density maps mostly just show population density.

Feb 24, 2018

Building Permits

Vancouver

Trawling through permit data.

Feb 22, 2018

Neighbourhood Level Census Data

cancensus

CensusMapper

Vancouver

The value of stable geographies.

Feb 8, 2018

Real Estate Industry

cansim

Digging through NAICS definitions.

Feb 1, 2018

Empty Suites

cancensus

CensusMapper

Empty Homes

Vancouver

What we have learned from the “Supply Myth” debate.

Jan 25, 2018

Pedestrian counts, or when the kindergardener needs to use the bathroom

Surrey

Transportation

Beg buttons.

Jan 12, 2018

Local vs Overseas Investors

Vancouver

cancensus

Creative uses of non-resident owner data.

Jan 11, 2018

School Traffic

Surrey

Transportation

Measuring dropoff and pickup traffic.

Jan 9, 2018

Some Thoughts on the “Supply Myth”

cancensus

CensusMapper

cmhc

Vancouver

Empty Homes

The never ending discussion.

Dec 11, 2017

What’s a Household?

CensusMapper

cancensus

What kind of households does Vancouver have?

Dec 1, 2017

Journey To Work

cancensus

CensusMapper

City of Vancouver commuting and reverse commuting.

Nov 29, 2017

Under Construction

cmhc

We have record under construction, but we also have record length of construction.

Nov 28, 2017

Vancouver

Foreign buyers data is back!

Nov 2, 2017

Playing with Medians

cancensus

CensusMapper

Why overly focussing on medians is dangerous.

Nov 1, 2017

A First Look At Vancouver Housing Data

cancensus

CensusMapper

Vancouver

Making sense of the new census data.

Oct 26, 2017

Trick-or-Treat 2017

CensusMapper

Halloween Mapping Fun.

Oct 23, 2017

Boomer Exodus?

cancensus

CensusMapper

Vancouver

Change in size of age groups vs net migration

Oct 21, 2017

cancensus

CensusMapper

Incomes are complex.

Sep 14, 2017

Rental Data

cancensus

cmhc

Trying to Make Sense of What we Have

Sep 12, 2017

CensusMapper

Millennials are still not fleeing.

Aug 6, 2017

Lifeblood

CensusMapper

Exploring net migration patterns.

May 16, 2017

Surprise Maps

CensusMapper

geeky

Showing only what matters.

Apr 10, 2017

Marine Gateway and Joyce-Collingwood

newsfail

Vancouver

Empty Homes

CensusMapper

Pitfalls in empty condos.

Apr 3, 2017

Jens von Bergmann, Joe Dahmen

Vancouver

teardowns

Assessment Data

zoning

Some more details behind our data story on teardowns.

Feb 21, 2017

5 min

Vancouver

Assessment Data

taxes

density

Updaing our tax density visualizations.

Dec 13, 2016

Character Retention

Vancouver

Abuse of Character.

Nov 26, 2016

Street Networks

OSM

Stymied by Canadian OSM data quality.

Nov 21, 2016

Interactive Isochrones

Mapzen

Isochrones

OSM

Exploring Isochrones.

Nov 18, 2016

Mapzen

Playing with elevation data.

Oct 2, 2016

Measuring Housing Affordability

Vancouver

Affordable for whom?

Sep 14, 2016

zoning

Scraping Mobi data.

Aug 4, 2016

Bike Share Map

OSM

Mapzen

bikes

We weren’t fond of Mobi’s map, so we made our own.

Jul 26, 2016

Mixing Data

Vancouver

Assessment Data

CensusMapper

Mixing datasets allows a deeper view.

Jul 6, 2016

SDH Zoning and Land Use

Vancouver

land use

zoning

density

How much land do single detached and duplex houses consume?

Jun 17, 2016

FSR

Vancouver

density

Using LIDAR data to estimate building floor space?

May 20, 2016

My Global Bike Map

OSM

bikes

Mapzen

The beauty of building things with global datasets.

May 16, 2016

Census Mapping for Everyone

CensusMapper

Opening up StatCan open data, one step at a time.

May 4, 2016

Assessment Data

Visualizing land vs building values.

Apr 1, 2016

On Mixed Use

Vancouver

Assessment Data

taxes

How mixed use redevelopment can lower overall property taxes.

Mar 28, 2016

Surrey Traffic Loop Counts

Surrey

Transportation

Exploring induction loop counter data.

Mar 27, 2016

Unoccupied Dwellings

Vancouver

CensusMapper

Empty Homes

Making sense of the new city data.

Mar 8, 2016

Physical SFH Form Over Time

Vancouver

zoning

Digging into the data of SFH.

Mar 5, 2016

Property Taxes and Land Use

Vancouver

Mapzen

taxes

zoning

land use

Visualizing tax density and land use.

Mar 2, 2016

Land Use, Roads (and Parking)

Vancouver

land use

Transportation

How do we use land in Metro Vancouver?

Feb 29, 2016

On Condos

Vancouver

Assessment Data

geeky

What can open data say about condos?

Feb 10, 2016

Loss of Character

Vancouver

What can open data say about condos?

Feb 1, 2016

Land Use Data

Vancouver

land use

Metro Vancouver Land Use Data

Jan 31, 2016

Work vs Twiddling Thumbs

Vancouver

Assessment Data

CensusMapper

Vancouver land works harder than it’s people

Jan 24, 2016

On Teardowns

Vancouver

zoning

teardowns

geeky

Digging into teardowns

Jan 18, 2016

Updated Vancouver Assessment Data

Vancouver

Assessment Data

VanRE Madness Continues

Jan 17, 2016

Canvas vs SVG

CensusMapper

geeky

Web performance tuning

Dec 27, 2015

Jens von Bergmann, Alejandro Cervantes

CensusMapper

Drilling into census regions

Oct 24, 2015

Jens von Bergmann, Alejandro Cervantes

Census Mapper

CensusMapper

Making StatCan open data more accessible

Sep 28, 2015

The Hidden Mortgage

CensusMapper

Transportation

Housing vs Transportation Costs

Aug 25, 2015

Vancouver 2011 Census Data on Housing

Vancouver

Playing with Census Data

Jun 23, 2015

Tax Density in Vancouver

Vancouver

taxes

density

Investigating taxes and land use

May 31, 2015

Vancouver Bike Paths

Vancouver

bikes

Naked bike maps

Apr 1, 2015

Vancouver Assessment Data

Vancouver

Assessment Data

Mapping Vancouver Assessment Data

Mar 23, 2015

Mapping CACs

Vancouver

CACs

Nov 5, 2014

1 min

Vancouver High Value Improvements Map

Vancouver

Assessment Data

Playing with Assessment Data

Sep 7, 2014

1 min

Vancouver Teardown Map

Vancouver

Assessment Data

teardowns

Playing with Assessment Data

Sep 5, 2014