Join us July 9 to understand why “Build Baby Build” is Wrong, Wrong, Wrong, as Patrick Condon discusses his new book in conversation with Village Preservation’s Executive Director Andrew Berman

This is a particularly timely conversation in light of Mayor Adams’ “City of Yes” proposal and other plans from City Hall and Albany to allow for bigger and more expensive market-rate housing development in our city. Condon’s research has shown how upzonings don’t solve inequality or affordability problems in cities, and can in fact exacerbate them.

How can urban housing, and the land underneath, now account for half of all global wealth? According to Patrick Condon in Broken City, the simple answer is that land has become an asset rather than a utility. If the rich only indulged themselves with gold, jewels, and art, we wouldn’t have a global housing crisis. But once global capital markets realized land was a good speculative investment, runaway housing costs ensued. For example, in Vancouver, land prices increased by six hundred percent between 2008 and 2016. How much wealth have investors extracted from urban land? In this engaging, readable, and insightful treatise, Patrick Condon explains how we have let land, our most durable resource, shift away from the common good and proposes bold strategies for how cities in North America can shift it back.

Patrick Condon has over 25 years of experience in sustainable urban design: first as a professional city planner and then as a teacher and researcher. Patrick started his academic career in 1985 at the University of Minnesota before moving to the University of British Columbia in 1992. After acting as the director of the landscape architecture program, he became the James Taylor Chair in Landscape and Liveable Environments. In that capacity, he has worked to advance sustainable urban design in scores of jurisdictions in the US, Canada, and Australia. Patrick has also led the Sustainability by Design project by the Design Centre for Sustainability. For over 20 years, the Design Centre and James Taylor Chair worked on a variety of projects and books to contribute to healthier and more sustainable urban landscapes.