Many urban planners feel like they have to limit “Missing Middle Housing” (MMH) development to narrowly-defined transit station areas. It turns out that the simpler approach – just allowing MMH everywhere – works perfectly well at focusing new houses near transit.
The city of Edmonton in Alberta, Canada broadly legalized up to eight units per lot in 2025. The graph above, created from city permit data by local housing advocate Jacob Dawang, shows the “cumulative distribution” of new houses built in Edmonton by year, measured by distance from high-quality transit (either a light rail station or a bus stop with frequent service). Before 2025, when most new houses were detached, the median new house (at the 50% number on the Y axis) was about 3km (1.86 miles) away from frequent transit, and only about 20% of new houses were within 800 meters (half a mile).
