Non-Market Housing in Vancouver

Discussion and Problems


Discussion:

The final image was reclassified to designate the best possible areas to develop non-market housing (image).  The areas of priority would be Most Suitable and Very Suitable.  Somewhat Suitable and Least Suitable would not be considered unless there was no available land to develop in the suitable areas, or unless there were other factors not assessed in this analysis that would provide developers adequate reason to develop there.

This analysis answered the question I posed at the beginning of the project.  Upon finding the most suitable areas, a developer would then be required to find vacant land or property for sale to develop.  In Vancouver, vacant land and properties for sale are frequently changing and to find such properties, one would be required to search Real Estate databases and the City of Vancouver Website (link). 


Problems:

The majority of the problems that I encountered had to do with the lack of metadata.  Because I am uncertain of where some of the data came from, the accuracy of the data is not known.  There is also positional accuracy problems with both the data I obtained and with the data I digitized myself.  My Skytrain stations may not be exactly where they should, and this can cause problems when calculating distance from the skytrain to dwellings.  Because my digitized points are very close to their accurate locations, the distance calculations will not be significantly incorrect.

Another error would be temporal change, such as the change in average annual household income over the years (1996 - 2002).  Finally, this analysis would be more complete if it calculated distances based on the actual routes that people would travel by foot, rather than absolute distances.  Also, information such as distances from elementary schools and community centers were not included in this analysis.  Had the information been included, the analysis would be more complete.

Overall, I found my results to be a success.  The suitable areas are clearly shown on the map and make sense.  These areas are within walking distance to important amenities, are located within appropriately zoned land, and are located in areas where the need is greatest.  Hopefully, with more non-market housing projects, Vancouver will be able to reduce the number at-risk families and individuals because they would then be able to afford housing within their budget.

                                 



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