Cities must reduce housing-related emissions while accommodating growing populations, yet for the housing sector efficiency improvements alone are insufficient to meet climate targets. Reducing private dwelling size is a high-impact solution, but it remains socially and politically challenging, as larger homes are associated with comfort and status, creating a persistent gap between environmental goals and housing preferences. A key unanswered question is what makes smaller homes livable and desirable. This research shows that access to social infrastructure, such as parks, cafés, and other shared spaces that support daily life, can help bridge this gap by enabling more compact living. Across Toronto, Vancouver, and Montréal, neighbourhoods with greater access to these amenities consistently have smaller dwellings, independent of income, household size, and density, suggesting that social infrastructure functions as an extension of the home. Higher amenity density is associated with smaller dwelling sizes across urban forms, with particularly strong effects from social businesses and public open spaces, indicating that informal, everyday-use spaces play a critical role. Together, these findings position social infrastructure as a key policy lever to support compact, livable, and sustainable housing.
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