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Or at least, it's not a deal-breaker for them. It's also hard to believe for SSPers but there are tons of non-rubish people for whom suburbia (even commercial strips) is more appealling than dense inner cities. It's not just the practical aspect of being to park easily in front of your destination, they just think it looks nicer than a dense inner city. They like the space and such. Not all suburban strips are as extremely horrid as what people post in the Ugly Canada thread. It may be bad urbanism, but lots of people actually like this: https://www.google.ca/maps/@46.76568...7i13312!8i6656 |
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Urbanism is fine, but most people will tend to use a large backyard more regularly (especially families!) than all the boutique shops and amenities that 'big city' urban environments have to offer. The suburbs offer most things people need most of the time. I've met people who have lived in Markham and go to downtown Toronto once a year, which may be about the same number of times people who live hundreds of kilometers away go there. Everything they need is close to where they live, so unless there's a specific reason to go, why bother with the hassle? Sure, maybe for a night out or something, you'd make the trip. As long as people can make their own choice on the matter, live and let live. |
I always found the "Urban" neighborhoods in Calgary to be so fake and hipster for the sake of being hipster, with Kensignton being the worst and the Beltline being the best.
The Beltline feels organic and exactly how an urban area in Calgary would develop, it's not just over priced boutiques and over priced food. Yes you have that element but you also have normal stores and the area itself doesn't have this pretentious feeling about it. The opposite is true for Kensington. It literally feels like a playground for the 22 year old who is obsessed with Avocado and Bubble tea while they live in a 400 square foot apartment that mom and dad are paying the $1800 a month rent for. In the end most of these neighbourhoods still get their business on the weekends from the people who live in the suburbs and come hangout on a sunny day and promptly return home and complain about the smell of piss and all of the homeless people they just had to put up with. |
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You can forgive a lot of crappy suburban ambience and traffic jams for great Chinese food. |
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Oh wait I lie, yes I do go a few times for Chinese food but I never venture far from the 404. Richmond hill as well. |
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The suburbs offer schools, easier access to health care, better sanitation and less sketchy people (whether it be drunk people partying to drug addicts in the streets), big box chains of every variety, more families for kids to play with, easier transportation for kids activities, lakes, parks, playgrounds and the good ones still have great food and drink options, just less of them. The only thing that I would consider an advantage of living downtown is the short commute IF YOU WORK THERE. That's the key. I am absolutely floored at the prices people pay for this privilege when in most cases there is ZERO guarantee that you will work downtown the entire duration that you live in that place. In my short career I've had 4 office jobs, only one of them was out of DT. I'm sorry but to me it is insane that people are willing to pay double the price of comparable suburban homes just to live in the inner city. Quote:
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I am not sure you necessarily have access to more variety and choices living in the city car-free vs. living in the suburbs with a car. The innermost city is reasonably auto-accessible, and even the inner ring that is fairly dense and urbanized is quite easy to access to by car. I'm not really that big a fan of driving - especially not in metro areas. Just being logical. Also, the definition of "needs" is totally skewed these days. But the suburbs of any major Canadian city offer almost anything that one could qualify as a true "need". And by this I am not just talking about eating fast food all the time and dressing in muscle shirts and flip flops. I might also add that a lot of Canadian inner city dwellers I know (in fact, most of them) occasionally complain loudly about having to go to the suburbs for certain things now. Now, this might be a sign of a failing in terms of how we build cities, but it also is a sign that people's views on the nothingness of the suburbs are tainted by their biases. |
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For people with the money to do that (or who got "in" before prices went sky-high), they're having their cake and eating too. If you can afford it you're not compromising much living in a 1500 sq ft two story house with a small backyard and a single-lane driveway in Parkdale compared to living in a 1500 sq ft two story house with a small backyard and a single-lane driveway in Markham. In most large cities around the world that trade-off doesn't even exist. |
Those inner-city Toronto houses have been huge money makers in the bubbly housing market of the past few years. Maybe they entail financial sacrifice for some but for others they are cash cows. The party seems to be winding down now, however.
It's the same here in Vancouver. The flippers, speculators, and money launderers are a bigger group than those who just love these inner city detached housing neighbourhoods (which aren't that urban anyway). |
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However, I am quite aware of the limitations too. I didn't really visit a lot of the stores, as most of them were of the 'boutique' type. There was the unique individuals who would rifle through my recycling box for empty bottles. My back yard was a concrete slab that also served as a parking spot. The prices of homes could be referred to in exponential notation. I ended up working in the suburbs, which ironically made my commute somewhat long. For those who are single and/or young, hell yes, live in the city. Enjoy the experiences. Life changes though. You meet someone and a family happens. Suddenly, all that disposable income and time you had disappears. The idea of dragging kids onto public transit fills me with the about the same enthusiasm as getting a prostate exam. Sometimes, just letting kids play in the back yard beats having to drag them to a park, as a bonus, I can BBQ while watching them. Like I said, live and let live. |
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I would add another dimension to it, and that is the time that that % of people spend doing activities - not just the amount of time, but the time of day, since we tend to associate evening and night-time activities with big cities. For example, Seville has a nightlife (i.e. activity on the street late at night) on par with New York City. It's better than Toronto or Montreal from my experience in all 3 cities. But it's not because Sevillians are "cooler" than Torontonians or Montrealers, it's because the typical daily schedule of Spaniards is completely different, with dinner at 10pm, and with an emphasis on eating out of the house. It's not uncommon to see families with small children or senior citizens finishing up their meals at 11pm, while that large segment of the North American population would be firmly at home, in bed. Another point I remember someone on the City Discussions forum once mentioned was that European cities seem more busy, if not only for their built form, but because Europeans have a much narrower window of time and places to go shopping. While North Americans are accustomed to driving to the nearest mall or big box store to shop on Sundays until 6, a continental European has to hurry up and get downtown on Saturday unless he wants to be shut out of buying anything until Monday. |
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Living in a place like Phoenix, Houston, Atlanta or even LA, you absolutely have to know where you're going before you make a decision such as to eat food, or buy interesting clothes. You can't just wind up in a neighbourhood and browse around to find something that might interest you. You limit yourself to the 2 drinks that will allow you to drive home sober, so you're much more choosy about what you order. The arrival of SmartPhones and Uber were game changers for younger people in those cities. |
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Of course it might explain why most of these places aren't big tourist destinations. Although the number one tourist destination in the world happens to be a place like this: Orlando. |
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Just thinking of a city like Ottawa, in dense, vibrant, affluent inner city neighbourhoods like New Edinburgh (Beechwood) or Old Ottawa South, which have strong main streets, there isn't anywhere to buy alcohol within walking distance, for example. Even Toronto and Montreal have lots of inner neighbourhoods that while they are very good, still have these "amenity gaps". Just think of how many of them aren't even close to being served by rapid transit. In large cities around the world in Europe and Asia etc you don't generally have as many of these "amenity gaps", and when you book a hotel in a central but non-downtown area you can be reasonably confident to have most of what you need or want. Think about how many secondary or tertiary urban districts in major Canadian cities have a non-mall *department store*. There are virtually none in the entire country. |
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