It would be easy to say that it has been a slow news year for real estate and politics in Toronto. Housing prices are only going in one direction and we have a mayor who is competent and calm — he's also not going through a drug-addled, public unraveling. 

As is often the case, there is plenty of nuance to counter that no-news impression. 

These are the six most popular real estate and local politics stories from 2016.

Marijuana is set to be legalized next year, but what's the legal status right now? "Who knows," seems to be the answer that gray-market dispensary owners want to operate under. 

The Eglinton Crosstown LRT runs right through the middle of our growing city and that means some conflict between existing homeowners, those who want to develop condos along the route and planners who just want to see the LRT built as quickly as possible.

I think it's fair to say that 2016 was the year that the issue of dense tower development really came to Richmond Hill and Thornhill. No story touched this nerve as much as our coverage of plans for seven towers near Promenade Mall did.

In spring 2016, we convened our real-estate roundtable for another year of taking the market's temperature and looking forward to the spring and summer listing season. 

As suburban home ownership becomes less practical (and desirable) many younger Torontonians are participating in a different economic model. Bunz is an obvious leader in this cash-free, sharing and trading economy.

As a city like Toronto grows, land-use priorities shift and it no longer makes sense to have a massive midtown plot of land devoted to bus bays. That means that as we grow up and out, we also have the opportunity to go back and make sure we fill the spaces — like the TTC lands at Yonge and Eglinton — with the public spaces that make a city great.