Dave Thompson 🇨🇦
@davethompsonvic.bsky.social
8.7K followers 620 following 1.9K posts
Housing, climate, urbanism, transportation, communities consulting. Also Victoria BC City Councillor, CRD Director. Civil discourse and good governance. Pragmatic progressive. Punkthäuser fan. My own views only. ☄️⏳yyj 🇨🇦
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Good follows for #urbanism
Word on the street is that there are a bunch of new folks joining Bluesky right now, so it seems like a good time to re-share my first & biggest STARTER PACK of urbanists & city-making organizations from across the world. Hope you’ll consider following the excellent accounts here. And please share!
I don't speak for Shiva Moshtari-Doust, the market analyst with Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation that you quoted, but supply gets absorbed over time. Google "condo absorption rate" for lots of information on this.
Nobody is claiming "affordable housing" (30% of median household income); the literature provides examples of greater affordability, which you can read linked at this CMHC (Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation) report assets.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/sites/cmhc/p...
assets.cmhc-schl.gc.ca
DND should be building affordable housing on bases, which would dramatically reduce commuting costs and support their personnel.
I'm very aware of their contributions. Are you suggesting that there are no posted personnel who want to have the option of moving to the base? It's currently low density and could easily accommodate more people.
I'm not familiar with this transaction but I would hope DND will be building new homes on bases rather than buying up existing homes in cities and removing them from the civilian housing supply. #yyj
Reposted by Dave Thompson 🇨🇦
“It might seem there is an oversupply happening, but it’s not going to last. A surge of new unit completions coming onto the market only lasts for a few years before they are absorbed…if we don’t have…constant addition of units, we are again going to face another housing crisis.”
There are 2 statutes that might have applied here, one of which has significant penalties. The police made the decision to use the one with the smaller penalty.
Reposted by Dave Thompson 🇨🇦
Unregulated drug deaths in Greater Victoria have continued to decline, with the last 4 months (May to August) being down more than 25% compared to the same period in 2024. #yyj
Drug deaths are trending downward. If we stay on track, 2025 could have the fewest deaths in the last five years. More: davethompsonvictoria.ca/unregulated-...
#bcpoli #yyj
Chat from linked article showing decline in drug deaths in BC
For the third year in a row, Victoria has been named the No. 1 Small City in the World
admin.tourismvictoria.com/content/uplo...
#yyj
Infographic from destination greater Victoria showing Victoria named number one small city in the world 3 years in a row
That's a good and tough question. It is dynamic in that population changes, and also household formation changes (if rents go down, more households form), also if property purchase costs or interest rates go down, people buy and leave rentals. So many factors.
This story is heartbreaking.

"Xavier’s Law" petition to "prevent access to the road for dangerous drivers until case conclusion."
c.org/yDhRGbzcjv
#yyj #safety
Have you seen this petition yet?
“Xavier’s Law” Prevent access to the road for dangerous drivers until case conclusion
c.org
Reposted by Dave Thompson 🇨🇦
The following is REAL footage from Portland, 2025. Viewer discretion is advised.
Yup it's not a magic bullet. It's one small piece of the puzzle. We spent so much time talking about it in 2022 and it overshadowed far more important things.
Image of a jigsaw puzzle with many housing initiatives on it
Reposted by Dave Thompson 🇨🇦
Today, @nationalobserver.com is launching a tool to search municipal meeting transcripts across Canada. The tool has already helped us unearth a climate denial network targeting towns and cities, report on AI data centers, measure our impact and more.

Journalists and researchers, sign up for free!
Canada’s National Observer unveils a powerful tool for fighting disinformation
Civic Searchlight brings together municipal meeting transcripts from across Canada into a searchable database for the first time. It has already been used to fight disinformation, report on impact, di...
www.nationalobserver.com