Brian Crombie Radio Hour - Epi 1425 - Canada's Future Growth with Murtaza Haider

Tonight on The Brian Crombie Hour, Brian interviews Murtaza Haider who is the executive director of the newly established Cities Institute at The University of Alberta’s School of Business. Murtaza was at Toronto Metropolitan University and has spent 30-plus years “studying cities, building bridges, working with industry, and being an engineer who researches real estate markets, bringing together disciplines, engineers, planners, computer scientists, people who specialize in machine learning. Murtaza discusses the need to focus on Calgary and Edmonton as key cities for Canada's future growth, highlighting their affordability and potential for expansion compared to Toronto and Vancouver. He emphasizes that building affordable housing in high-cost areas like downtown Toronto is ineffective and suggested developing new cities or populating underutilized areas. Murtaza also notes that Calgary's successful conversion of office buildings to residential units was a result of city planning and incentives, contrasting with other cities' inaction.  Additionally, Murtaza covers the decline in single-family home construction in Canada, attributing it to urban planners' preference for high-density developments and the high cost of building and land for single-family homes. He highlights the need for Canada to grow its population to 60-80 million to enhance economic prosperity and resilience, particularly in light of trade challenges with the United States. He suggests reducing reliance on trade with the U.S., which currently accounts for 80% of exports, by increasing domestic consumption and exploring new trade opportunities with Europe, China, and Asia.