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Kitsilano in vancouver has undergone an amazing transformation in the last 10 years. |
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Smart Growth everywhere is where we should be aiming for. |
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I'd say it is one of the least changed neighbourhoods in central Vancouver over the past 10 years. SE false creek/Mt Pleasant on the other hand... |
^ He must be referring to the Broadway-Arbutus area. It's not technically Kits but I used to refer to it as that when I was alot younger. Anyway the area has changed drastically and become very urban in the last 15 years with little fanfare.
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-new specialty yoga varieties. -Gordon Campbell constituency office replaced by Christy Clark constituency office. -the peasant bread guy moved from Broadway to 4th. -99 increasingly annoying. |
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I find this thread title misleading
The terms "sprawl" and "suburbs" get thrown around here so frivolously they've lost all meaning Growth in suburbs ≠ sprawl |
I'll give a little bit of leeway for the fact that the multifamily in some communities hasn't started yet, but I fail to see how a handful of condos wedged into a single phase make the rest of the community any less deplorable. Yes, the density will go up overall, but the design is still terrible. Even Walden, which I like a lot more than most new communities (it already has more condos and semi-detached homes in its first few phases than many mature communities) has an awful layout.
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In the Westboro area of Ottawa, we get infill in the form of massive semi-detached houses (ea 2500+ sq.ft.) replacing tiny old cottages and bungalows on 50' lots. Many of these infill semis 'feature' large garages and "ground floor" entrances a full flight of stairs above the street. It's like a physical manifestation to the same non-neighbourly attitude and helps facilitate such attitudes. |
This video embodies much of what this thread is about; so, perfect -
The video is at first glance a somewhat child-like oversimplification, but is produced in such a way that the intended audience will find accessible. It's also not so much just about climate change as about all that's wrong with suburban sprawl. Beyond the cartooned and Sim City-like graphics are many well thought out principles which most forummers here normally embrace as blatantly obvious, but average people aren't aware of or don't care about. If nothing more than a reminder of the indisputable status quo, it's also gratifiably entertaining. Are there any glaringly obvious complications they have left out? |
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Willowgrove is one example: http://www.saskatoon.ca/DEPARTMENTS/...s/default.aspx Evergreen is another example: http://www.saskatoon.ca/DEPARTMENTS/...Evergreen.aspx Having the city as the developer of the community may provide a more balanced focus for how the community is laid out. I think they should be doing more around the concept of an urban village but it is an improvement from what was happening in years past. |
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Unfortunately I don't see things getting better in our cities until we have a strong mandate or push from the provincial government. I think Ontario and BC are miles ahead than Canada's other provinces. The Places to Grow Act is doing some amazing things is Southern Ontario, why don't we introduce similar policy in other parts of Canada? |
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On the prairies the natural boundaries do not exist so what constrains the city is political or land owners. Saskatoon is an odd city, in that a large portion of the land base was endowed to the University and is used as agricultural research land. Having farmland (with research farms) surrounded by the city is a bit odd. There is no questions, having more development in the city centre would be good. That said suburbs are going to be built and I think the ones being built now (in comparison to the ones from 10-20 years ago) are much denser and lower impact. These have a bit more mixed use, smaller lots, some mixed use, back lanes, etc. Is Saskatoon an exception or is the same trend occurring in other parts of the country? |
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That being said, environmentally we are still better off demolishing good standing homes for higher densities. The alternative is to expand the city footprint into further natural areas. The argument for intensification and against peripheral growth expands beyond environment cities. Through higher densities we have the ability for cost savings by utilizing existing infrastructure, we can create exciting and vibrant neighbourhoods, neighbourhoods that are welcoming to people from all walks of life and allow for the provision of effective and efficient transit options. Saskatoon's growth patterns certainly aren't any different than the majority of our Prairie Cities. You find a similar lack of natural barriers in Regina, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton and in cities lower in the urban hierarchy. In the last 5 years, I think there have been some positives steps to neighbourhood design in greenfield developments, but there's still a long ways to go. For the most part commercial nodes are still an absolute failure dominated by big box stores. There has been some attempt to increase densities, but these developments are still struggling to grasp the concept of great urban design. In my opinion that's where these neighbourhoods are still failing. Simple design changes could vastly improve the neighbourhood - but for whatever reason we haven't necessarily embraced these small, yet important concepts relating to design. I can agree with you that there will always be a demand for new peripheral development in cities that are not constrained by natural barriers. That being said, what I am advocating for, is a better balance between intensification within the urban footprint and peripheral growth. In Regina the balance is hoped to be somewhere around 75-25 (peripheral to urban growth). That's simply not good enough. Our cities are facing financial deficits, increasing environmental concerns, longer commute times and a plethora of other critical issues. We are doing absolutely nothing to address said problems by focusing growth at the periphery of the city. In fact it's only further perpetuating the problem. Another aspect to consider is that places like Saskatoon and Regina are attempting to promote downtown revitalization. There's only so much growth in these cities. On a relative scale to Toronto, Vancouver or Montreal, this actual growth is quite small. If we are serious about improving the standing of our downtowns, then we need to focus on that aforementioned balance. With relatively small growth, you can only achieve so many policy objectives. You can't say, we want 5000 new residents in downtown in the next 10 years, but we also want to accommodate 25,000 new residents through peripheral growth. The numbers don't add up, the growth isn't there to satisfy both objectives. As I said, it's about creating a balance between these two contending forms of development. Right now and for the past 60 years, we've been favouring greenfield development. It has created countless issues for our cities and it's time to change the tide to promote growth that can negate these issues and create more livable and attractive cities. |
I'm about to start the process of looking for my first place to live and until someone shows me a condo or townhouse that is affordable and has sound insulation that is good enough to allow me to host a large party or play music really loud, I will only be looking at small single family houses.
Call me greedy, I don't care. I'm paying for it and will continue to pay for it if utility costs rise and I'm not going to be limited by what my neighbors think is acceptable behavior. Plus with some of the condo fees I've seen out there, an increase of those would probably hurt just as bad. |
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This is a long discussion that I can't fully expand on here - but if anyone is truly interested I highly recommend the book "Preverse Cities" by Pamela Blais. It's a real eye opener and just goes to show how much of a failure the structure of our municipal finance system is. |
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I'm also going to re-iterate what CCF said, and that is a lot of detached property owners I are really not paying the full cost of their lifestyle. I'm not going to be some pinko and suggest that we should completely outlaw low-density development, but am going to be an economist and argue that costs need to be internalized through higher property tax rates. In all likelihood, the additional taxes levied against your property to cover the (substantially) more expensive infrastructure would probably outpace any dreaded condo fees. |
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Whether you are servicing a continuation of growth at the periphery of the city or you are servicing a new suburb that is an island in itself, it's still a complete waste of financial resources. You're right, it's not hard to service these areas, but it's not matter of difficulty we should be looking at it from the perspective of resource management as in this case it is extremely taxing and a general waste. The rule of thumb is that it's generally more expensive to expand hard infrastructure horizontally rather than vertically. If you have a low density development, you are going to require considerable horizontal infrastructure to connect each home to sewer, water, electricity, cable, sidewalks, roads, parks, postal service, etc, etc etc. Now take into consideration if you had a higher density development, you are instead providing infrastructure like water, electricity, etc vertically rather than horizontally (which is again cheaper) and you also require substantially less roads, sidewalks, etc. In a low density neighbourhood maybe we can provide 250 houses in 15 km, in higher density maybe we can provide those same 250 units in 5 km (figures aren't accurate but they show the concept of density) - clearly in the lower density neighbourhood we are going to have to allow for a lot more infrastructure. |
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I don't disagree with your points. I understand that it's greedy and uneconomical, but frankly if I'm going to spend the next 15-25 years paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for a home, it better allow me to at least host a birthday party. If condo builders could properly insulate units then I would never even consider a house. |
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