Today
 

I never really thought of how impactful the density crawl would be on Yonge south of Eglinton…..the Yonge canyon continues in pockets...with the midtown stretch becoming pretty fair now, today:
[IMG]https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1777/...eea2401d_b.jpgTJ092399 by Josh Kenn Photographics, on Flickr[url=https://flic.kr/p/29TUbsN][img][/IMG]

Was out taking pics of the growing Metrotown Skyline.

Kingsway now has the first hints of a canyon forming.

Obviously is will still take a good decade or two of continued growth to fully bulk up to a true canyon.

https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1835/...689e90a2_b.jpgGrowing Kingsway Canyon by Ian, on Flickr

[IMG]https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1774/...e7969508_k.jpgToronto by Stephan Zieger, on Flickr[/IMG]

[IMG]https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1780/...1d7f6504_k.jpgToronto by Stephan Zieger, on Flickr[/IMG]

[IMG]https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1774/...4c2594f6_k.jpgToronto by Stephan Zieger, on Flickr[/IMG]

[IMG]https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1771/...fbc1c5e3_k.jpgToronto by Stephan Zieger, on Flickr[/IMG]

[IMG]https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1775/...3521a43d_k.jpgToronto by Stephan Zieger, on Flickr[/IMG]

Notre-Dame street, Old Montreal.

https://instagram.fymy1-1.fna.fbcdn....34778880_n.jpg
Credit photo: arman_ayva on Instagram

N-D is my favourite canyon in Canada, period. It will be that much better once the Victoria and BNC towers (200m) both rise up.

[IMG]https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4561/...9d2aa3aa_h.jpgAdelaide by Eric H, on Flickr[/IMG]

[IMG]https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7361/...2492035b_h.jpgYonge & Richmond Streets, Toronto 2015 by Jim Cagney, on Flickr[/IMG]

[IMG]https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1873/...3200ffcf_h.jpgreposted from reddit: King Street. Toronto [OC] [4288 x 2848] (source in description) by Patrick Lawe, on Flickr[/IMG]

This picture only captures part of the canyon-like stretch but here's Hollis Street in Halifax:

https://scontent-sea1-1.cdninstagram...30592241_n.jpg
Source

Calgary 5th Avenue SW looking east with permission from and taken be Reddit user alternatethinking...

https://i.redd.it/0ylc4r4i35u11.jpg

Sackville Street, Halifax

https://scontent-sea1-1.cdninstagram...ninstagram.com
Source

Nice vista although my eye is immediately drawn to that ghastly 4 floor brick residential.

It is not a great building although it seemed only mildly worse than average back when it was built, maybe in 2006 or so. This area has completely changed over the past couple of years. When the building was approved nobody would have predicted that a decade later it would be surrounded by glass towers.

It's actually 7 floors on the Argyle side due to the steep hill. It also has weirdly short floor heights because it is under a height restriction and the developer tried to pack as much square footage in as possible.

It's a common theme that Canadian cities build sub par buildings arguing that it's good enough. It speaks to the culture; Canadians have never been very sophisticated when it comes to design. Can you imagine a French city of 400,000 building that in their downtown? I doubt they'd even contemplate it in some poor neighbourhood on the outskirts. Can you even buy ugly brick like that in France? It's hideous.

The boom in downtown Halifax was unforeseen but that's not what's at play here. We're just awful at this for the most part. We put vinyl siding on our houses, install concrete sidewalks, buy ugly recliners with beer cup holders in them, put up insanely tacky Christmas decorations, and it just goes on and on in every corner of our society. One only has to compare Nuuk, Greenland to Yellowknife to see the stark difference in design standards between Canada and Europe. (I know Greenland is technically North America but it's Danish design.)

When this was proposed there were barely even any renderings of the buildings produced, and the cladding was described as "brick and sandstone". The developer-funded city councillors that voted in favour of it basically thought it would look the same as the historic brick and stone buildings in the area, or thought that the design was equivalent. They were not really literate at all in terms of architecture or urban design.

In those days the planning rules were the same as in 1980 and they mostly dealt with quantitative aspects of the development like building height, square footage, and of course parking. The rules were put in place to keep population densities low (the idea was that this would avoid slums) and to ensure that traffic and parking worked well (everybody will get around by car, even downtown). There was nothing in the planning rules that ensured that buildings would look good and many of the rules were actively harmful.

Since then the planning rules have changed somewhat. A bunch of the 70's-era parking/density stuff is gone and there are some more requirements in terms of design and materials (rules like "thou shalt not use vinyl siding"). There is also a design review committee, and the approval process is normally handled by the bureaucracy instead of politicians (if you follow the rules you get approved). It is still far from perfect but the quality has gone way up and lots of new buildings are quite nice.

Ghastly? I honestly don't see what's even wrong with it. It may not be an exceptional landmark-quality masterpiece, but it seems nice enough to me. Then again, it's hard to get worked up about a normal looking building like that given what's across the street. Now that I really can get worked up over.

https://i.imgur.com/gKQ5D66.jpg

Yeah, that brick building is fine, and there is plenty of crap built in Europe too. For example, I just plopped down on the first street I could find in Nice, and it is this:

https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.69281...7i13312!8i6656

It all looks fairly new, and none of it is particularly nice (no pun intended). But I'm sure it's a fine place to live.

Almost none of that looks new. The newest buildings visible here are probably from the 60s or 70s, and aside from the colours (the south of France has a climate that keeps concrete shiny for decades, instead of getting dirty and grey like in Halifax) they aren't that much better than what was getting built in Canada at the time.

This is my point. I'm not one to defend poor buildings, but there is plenty of dross built in Europe too.

Yeah, I feel that Europe (especially contemporary) is often way over romanticized on this forum.

Been to most countries in Europe, and every city I was in had a healthy mix of plain and downright ugly urban spaces among the charming postcard streets / structures.

Lots of minimalistic structures (especially in Northern Europe) and newer housing projects that looked as if they were prefabricate. Also lots of ugly as sin commie blocks.

Nuuk doesn’t look any better than Yellowknife to me (on a whole, it has a few aspects that are nicer, but on the flip side Yellowknife actually looks grander to me). It is just different styles.

Japan and Asia can be over romanticized this way too. Tourists see all the cute shrines, grand castles, ancient temples, soaring landmark towers, but they overlook / don’t see the cheap track housing, the big box stores, and the ugly seas of cookie cutter towers that make Yaletown look fantastic in design.