So I’ve been playing around with bedroom data.

Why? Because despite Pierre Trudeau’s famous dictum, “There’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation,” we still collect data on how many bedrooms people have. And I’ve found some interesting stuff going on in peoples’ bedrooms!

Following a theme, one thing that’s really intriguing is comparing housing stock by number of bedrooms across Canada’s Big Three Metropolitan Areas. For a rough bedroom comparison, we can divide up housing stock into “Economy Size” units (studio & 1BR), “Family Size” units (2BR to 4BR), and luxurious “Super Size” units (5 BR+). Let’s look at Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver (and the rest of metropolitan Canada) across the past twenty years, comparing 1991 to 2011.

Most housing stock is clearly in the “Family Size” category, containing 2 to 4 bedrooms. Montreal and Toronto look pretty similar in this regard, with about three quarters of their housing stock stably “Family Sized.” But look at Vancouver! Here only about two thirds of housing stock was “Family Size” in 1991, and as a proportion of housing stock it’s been dropping fast!

When it comes to bedrooms, Vancouver really does have a “missing middle” problem. What’s taking the place of the missing middle? Tiny “Economy Size” shoe box apartments in the sky? Not really. Metro Vancouver has a lot of those, but they’ve also been on the decline as a proportion of housing stock since 1991.

What about that “Super Size” housing? Hold on! That’s where Metro Vancouver’s been growing! In fact, it’s got way more giant mansions than any other metro area in Canada.

But what about the housing crisis? What is Vancouver doing adding all of these crazy giant mansions? Good question!

No surprise, mostly what we’re adding when we’re adding 5+ Bedroom housing units is detached single-family houses. In many cases, especially in the City of Vancouver, these are simply “Super Size” mansions replacing more modest “Family Size” houses. Here are the recently built (and occupied) housing units added in the five years prior to the 2011 Census. Notice nearly all new 5+ Bedroom housing units are single-family detached houses – or houses with a secondary suite (showing up as apartments or flats in a duplex). Why are we adding so many more of these? Effectively, it’s because houses are the only thing builders are allowed to construct on so much of our residential landscape. So big houses are mostly (over 80%) what takes up our residential land base. Welcome to Vancouver’s Great House Reserve!

Of note, there are also a fair number of detached houses being added in “Family Size” housing stock, but overall the “Family Size” category is far more diverse in dwelling type, with lots of row houses and apartments in both low-rise and high-rise buildings (with the latter categories dominating the 2BR category!) In effect, there are LOTS of different structures that can support “Family Size” housing, most cheaper than detached houses because they use less land. But the cheaper kinds tend to be forbidden across the majority of our residential landscape. So relative to other metropolitan areas, we’re replacing “Family Size” with “Super Size.” Why? Because despite the progress Vancouver has made, we’re (still) reserving a whole lot of land for millionaires. So it’s no surprise that their super sized mansions are proliferating.

Are all of our bedrooms getting used? I’ll come back to that in another post.