Interesting assumptions underlie the belief that a city is “too expensive.” Too expensive for whom? First to mind come minimum wage workers and those who work jobs in essential domains like healthcare and education. These are people we rely on for the functioning of our city. That they must every day commute into it from without because the cost of living is too high is an ugly notion. It disquiets the conscience. It feels wrong.

Here already we are at a point of divergence. Not everyone will agree that those whose work sustains city life should have option of sustainable life in the city themselves. Only the most individualistic and privileged would dismiss this concern outright. Many more would say that yes, ideally, the city should be affordable to those who keep it running. But many of these people then balk when the proposed solution involves new apartment buildings near their single family home.

In Vancouver this cohort is consistently represented at public hearings by a small group of locals who decry towers and “all the misery [they rain down] on neighborhoods.” It doesn’t matter if the towers are proposed at the site of a bustling transit station or if they are proposed wholly for the benefit of low income seniors and families. They hate them, and don’t want any new ones where they might notice them. To this end they deploy arguments with as much moral thrust as they can muster. Towers inflate property value. Their rent is too high. They block views and cast shadows. They are a bad fit for the neighborhood, a violation of its character. They belong downtown.

But how else are we to make the city affordable to more people? The proposed towers are part of a longterm vision to extend Vancouver’s downtown two kilometers south, a plan underpinned by the ongoing construction of the Broadway subway. Accordingly, housing density in the area must rise drastically from its glaringly outdated levels. How else can that be achieved if not with towers? Would these defenders of neighborhood disruption suggest that density be realized horizontally by evicting contiguous rows of single family homes? Of course not.

The highest ideal held by this group – the ideal they don’t just claim, but actually try to effect – is conservatism. They may sympathize with those who are priced out, but this conviction figures low in their esteem compared to their self-interest. Some of them call themselves “urbanists” and extol all the wonders of city life and yet they rage against the metamorphic growth essential to a vibrant city. If they are so averse to change, maybe the city just isn’t for them.