St. Lawrence and Crosbie ParkDylan Reid in his most recent NOW Magazine's article "Car-free Streets may drive out the Poor" describes a process where "pedestrian-oriented street projects promot[e] gentrification, a consequence of foot-friendly zones being almost too successful."

At a session about making the economic case for walking, Adrian Bell of England's Transport for London notes that pedestrian-friendly streets reliably increase property values and rents on shopping streets. The argument is an important one to make to property owners worried about change, but it's a problem for those concerned about maintaining affordable housing and preserving established communities.

Even Shamez Amlani, one of the organizers of Kensington Market's Pedestrian Sundays, admits at a pre-conference workshop that he no longer favours a permanent pedestrian-only zone in the Market, for fear that it would become no more than a hollow tourist attraction.

This particular argument was raised at the recent Walk21 Conference in Toronto. I think it's worthwhile for a moment tackle this argument in support of people like myself who are pushing for pedestrian and bike friendly streets. If someone argues that we shouldn't put in bike lanes or car-free streets because it will exclude the poor you can take their logic to the extreme, much as I do below. (I don't want to make it seem that this is actually Dylan's argument, which isn't clear from the article)

It's a largely pointless argument. In its essence it means any improvement to our neighbourhoods is actually detrimental to the poor because it raises property values and drives the poor out to more affordable, if car-centric, neighbourhoods. Trees, water fountains, narrow streets, working electricity and running water - all of these "amenities" raise property values. The reverse is also true: by making streets more miserable and choked full of cars, stinking garbage and full of potholes, streets become more affordable for the poor.

I'm not sure where urban planners got the idea that they alone had the power to create affordable communities! It seems that co-operative and affordable housing have been largely forgotten. Why can't planners build pedestrian and bike friendly cities and also encourage a healthy profusion of housing co-operatives and public housing? The St. Lawrence Market community is a fine case in point: it is a livable, beautiful streetscape and still eminently affordable simply because there's a mix of co-operatives, public housing and at-market housing (read this interesting report on the St. Lawrence (pdf)).

Things may come to pass that they only way we can have our cake and eat it to is if there is a substantial move away from speculative property values and towards building healthy communities.