Urban vs Suburban - 2 styles enter, one style leaves!
 

OK kids, here it is. The ultimate "let's stop freeweed polluting the main construction thread" .. thread. Time to have a place solely dedicated to discussing the evil Hummer-driving suburbanites vs the evil communist concrete block urbanists. This way we can keep the main construction thread clean and ready for more re-posting of the same 12 pictures just to say "nice pics!".

Have at 'er.

Not sure if this is the best section but I'm sure the mods will move it before the inevitable locking. :haha:

I'd love better designed suburbs.

I love some aspects of urban living, but overall, it doesn't fit me, nor where I want to be. Of course, price is a huge factor as well, I can't afford to live in a more expensive place, and even if I could afford it, it wouldn't be the best use of my money. I don't really care to be closer to bars, restaurants, and trendy shopping. If I worked downtown, I'd probably want to live closer.

The thing I would like the most right now (other then a little bit more space, is a garage, a place where I could maintain my bike, build things, etc.

Although I am fine with providing you with the reassurance that it is okay for you to enjoy living the said lifestyle, before I do I would like to reiterate that I think it is completely irrelevant as single areas can contain people living different lifestyles who are enjoying their preferred lifestyle to its max. Alas, it is perfectly normal for someone to like, love, and thoroughly enjoy the 'suburbia' lifestyle.



Not to single you out mate but this is what irritates me to no end. Urban living is not confined to dense inner city areas, it can be achieved in less dense outer city areas as well. For instance, last week I lived an amazingly urban lifestyle and I was staying in a 2 storey terraced house in an area that did not have a high-rise in sight.


And you can have that in an urban neighbourhood.

I had two big reasons why we bought a house and not a condo/townhome. The first is that there is only a finite amount of land and it's the land that holds the value. In 30 years, the condo will be worth less (in most cases) or aging and needing updating, whereas my home will most likely be worth more as land values rise.

The second reason we bought a house is because I am in control of pretty much all that happens to it. I can change what I like, and being handy, I can fix what needs fixing. I had friends whose condo needed repairs when I lived in Vancouver. Balconies needed replacing and they were told to cough up $70k for it. They couldn't afford that so they sold and broke even. I have friends with similar stories about roofing that cost WAY too much. I didn't want to be told what I was paying, I'd prefer to be the one fixing it with my Dad and brothers who are all in trades.

I think in many cases people who prefer condos also prefer the lifestyle that comes with it. Many do not want to deal with landscaping or repairs. I, on the other hand, couldn't wait to start improving in my investment and I love fiddling and working with my hands.

I think that right now we have a one or the other thing happening in many cities where someone has to decide between the two lifestyles. That needs to be bridged, but be made affordable at the same time. I think many people want to have the amenities of living in an urban area, but also want the privacy and pride of ownership of a SFH. I know, I was one of them, so we bought in the inner city because we met the right circumstances: basement suite, low interest rates, house was $100k below value.

I think this argument is creating a chasm and forcing people into two extremes. I think in reality, most of us want something in that grey area. Whether that be a condo with some green space in the downtown or a SFH with amenities in walking distance. Some don't care about either, but I think they are the minority.

While I might be a bit of a bear on this point, however I just don't see this argument. First off, we state there is a finite amount of land, when we geographically have have exhausted next to nothing of the land in a global scale. It is something like 2% of the world's land holds 90% of the global population. What I would argue is, while land is not as finite as we like to think, but rather land that has received vast social investment is finite. This is to say land with no investments in such things as roads,schools, rec centers and others. we can discuss what level of public investment should be allotted to create private profits regardless of if we are talking suburban,urban or rural setting.

Second point is more directed at the notion of increased value. The problem that we face this time that we have never faced before is the demographic shift that will take place over the next 35 years. While Canada's population is to set to increase, the top age cohorts in the age-sex structure will also be increasing. This is where I do not see any real growth in the housing prices over the long term, particularly of the single family detached home. Case in point, according to various government agencies, private think tanks there are a rather large portion of Canadians who have failed to save enough for their retirement. This is further burdened by a increase in life expectancy. This naturally will lead to more downsizing as those who are nearing retirement are banking on the increased equity in their residence over the past decade or so.

Where I do see growth is in building forms that we rarely see in Calgary. Such as row housing, and townhouses. These provide stuff such as the backyard, and many of the similarities of a SFD, while tending to be more cost advantageous and naturally less maintence for the homeowner.

Some Examples from my hometown:

Quebec St

Superior St

:previous:

I don't disagree with most of that. I guess my point is that a desirable location will most likely become more desirable in the future, ie. inner city homes, or locations that have limited growth capability where people want to live, etc. Will my inner city house (land) become more valuable with time? Yes. Will a home in Copperfield? Maybe. So I feel that my investment is better placed than in a condo or a home on the outskirts of the city. But, I'm also biased because I prefer everything that goes with owning a SFH. [though I guess this would be a TFH since two couples live here due to my suite] One day when I'm older, I'll most likely prefer to have a condo in a central location as I won't want to deal with the extra work and would like to leave my home for a few months to travel or live elsewhere.

Oh, I realize that, that's why I said that i wished that suburbs were designed better. I don't mind the more urban areas with SFH, but I can't afford to live there.

IMHO, all future suburban neighborhoods of the city should use Garrison Woods as a benchmark or model to follow, which would make them more "walkable"/pedestrian friendly and less reliant on automobiles. Calgary developers have to stop the endless loop de loop-cul-de-sacs and subdivisions with only 1 or 2 entrances. Unless there's big f%$#ing gates and a security guard(s) watching over 5,000+ sq ft homes, your subdivision isn't really that "exclusive" and should have numerous cross streets, entry/exit points and connections to neighboring subdivisions. Bring back the traditional street grid, or slight modifications of it!

While some places designed neighbourhoods like this for the reasons you describe, most limited access neighbourhoods are designed like this these days for traffic purposes. The "arterial road" idea, etc. Gridded streets make a complete mess of having express/freeways anywhere.

The City of Calgary did not close down Rocky Ridge Rd because neighbours asked for even fewer accesses into the community. :rolleyes:

Speaking of Rocky Ridge, whatever has become of that eco community that was to be built in the north end of Rocky Ridge? I haven't been up that way for yonks so have no idea at what stage it is in construction or if it's even gotten underway.

Hmm, I have to admit I have no idea what you're talking about (or it's been so long that I've completely forgotten). Was this something to replace the few remaining acreage holdouts?

It's called Eco Haven.

Edit: And I just answered my own question by googling it: http://www.echohaven.ca :)

I'd like to know how most forumers define "urban" living.

I live in South Calgary which is most definitely "inner-city", but I would be hard pressed to call it very "urban". I can walk to the heart of Marda Loop in less than 5 minutes, but I rarely do, as the the retail mix just isn't that interesting to me. So, despite my inner-city location, I still often drive for my day-to-day needs and general recreation. Other than being a shorter and cheaper cab ride when I'm out on weekends, I don't see how living where I currently do is all that much different than living in some far-flung suburb.

As I see it, the only truly urban living available in Calgary is the Beltline and Kensington. Everything is merely inner-city. To the urbanists on this forum, am I one of you? Is it based on location only?

Wow, I couldn't think of a less dense way to build new suburbs. Well, I guess they could give each house 3 acres of land...

I can't believe the city would allow this. Mind you, it makes my "sprawl" look like inner city London so I guess now I can call myself an urbanist. :haha:

It's funny - on one hand, the side thats for urban dev, argues for a street grid - but on the other hand comes in and starts arguing for "traffic calming" where such neighborhoods exist.

Yeah, there's some irony here. I see a lot of calls for "fixing" 11th/12th Ave in terms of traffic calming. Gridded streets are exactly what cause this problem in the first place. Unless of course we make all streets so unfriendly to vehicles that traffic just crawls or entirely avoids them.

Calgary's residential areas don't have anywhere near the sheer amount of grid that I grew up with in Winnipeg, and boy howdy do people there ever scream for ever more traffic lights, speed humps, and other mechanisms. The streets end up unfriendly to both pedestrians AND vehicular traffic. A real lose-lose.

As much as I think we've gone waaaaaaay overboard with the whole cul-de-sac model, curvilinear design (and limited access neighbourhoods) originated as an attempt to make roads much more pedestrian friendly. It's funny now that some people think they're the least walkable.

This is sort of off topic (haha!) but not completely. I've noticed that other cities just seem to have lots of dedicated bike lines on city streets, actually demarcated lanes, not 'suggestions', yet here sometimes it's like pulling teeth to get this sorts of things established. It occured to me that could our unicity be the issue? The pro being that we don't lose suburban tax dollars, but in many other cities the suburbs are not actually in the city, so the city proper is pretty much all urban, possibly paving the way for urban amenities to appear with little opposition. Curious if there might be any validity to that.

I think curvilinear is fine if it has pedestrian cut-throughs.

My sense is that there will always be both as opposed to an either/or scenario. If you are a construction worker your workplace is always going to be moving, if you work in the financial services in downtown Calgary not so much...

I know some are fans of driving; my personal preference would be either to be either spending time with my family or at work making money. I find time spent travelling between places to be not as productive, so in my situation we had estimated a cost to living far away from where we work at over $10G annually. Of a lesser consideration was parking ($5G) and even less than that was the cost of fuel.

The biggest factor being that there were time-reduced options available to us, and that we think there is more value in living close to where it's convenient for the both of us relative to the incremental cost for living in a more central location. We had calculated a NPV at a 5% discount rate to estimate what the perceived value is of living close to where you work so had estimated that value as being about $300G.

I like that there are more venues from arts to more restraunt choices, but I overall found that as a nice to have, versus a need to have for a shorter commuting time.

My preference is to build fitness into my daily routine by bicycling instead of driving. I found when I lived in the suburbs in Citadel, it was very hard to make time to exercise because it was hard to find a gym with full facilities that was conveniently located.

I like going out on a recreational trip to places like Auburn Bay for a tour this weekend, or the AVX screens at Cross-Iron Mills. I think one of the reasons why cities are great places to live is the diversity and specialization that happens.

Wouldn't curvilinear streets be just as ironic then? Although they tried to slow down traffic in order to provide a better and safer environment for pedestrians, they reduced connectivity and made walking impractical. Neither curvilinear nor grid-iron streets are perfect ideas on their own and need to be part of a multi-step solution. In the case of the former, there needs to be cut-through paths as Dizzy mentioned. In the case of the later, the streets need to be calmed and there needs to be a restriction on how many intersections with main roads will be junctions.

Oh, this is a bare minimum requirement. I'd say Calgary is doing a barely passable job here, at least in the newer areas. It could certainly be better. I've lived in curvilinear with hardly any and yeah, it's a mess. All you can do is walk in great big looping circles.

Part of the problem, at least in the NW, is the natural ravines, retention ponds, and other geographic features which make it harder to design straight through walking paths. Walking is definitely an afterthought in many cases. Plus extra thought needs to be put into large land parcels, whether they're for schools or (especially) large multi-family mega-blocks. I've seen more than a few which you can't just walk through - fences, berms, etc. Not sure why this is, maybe there's a perception that residents don't want pedestrian traffic cutting through their "personal space". :shrug:

In the case of no cut throughs, I'd say even more ironic (or at least, closer to the classic definition of irony). It's reduced some areas to the point where you can only really walk on your own private block.

One of my favourite things to hear from people is folks getting lost while going for a walk in their own neighbourhood. This should never be possible unless you're a complete idiot.

Curvilinear with cut throughs or grid with restricted access into the neighbourhood, ie one way or cul-de-sac'd ends of the grid where it hits a throughfare, with perhaps one traffic calmed route through the area, think Crescent Heights and the 4th st/12 ave cut through.

In addition to restricting access, you could also simply discourage the use of those intersections through design (e.g. narrowing of the carriageway, traffic calming, and/or lowering ballasts) and policy (e.g. no left turns and/or full right-of-way for traffic on the main road). The route I take when I go for my runs takes me along a major road in South London, London Road, and TfL uses a variety of these measures to discourage traffic from using minor intersections as junctions.

I think there are other examples in Calgary as well that are similar to the intersection you mention.

I am amazed at the quality of life in the inner city of Calgary. We only have 1 million people but usually it feels much larger. By the way, it is not just bars and nightclubs down here! There are also hundred of restaurants and shops all within walking distance and getting more diverse every day.

I am never really worried about saving 20 cents on my bread or milk because I save much more on other things. Upkeep (not just gas) is very expensive on an automobile. Because of all of the savings I get from lining inner city, I am able to contribute more to my savings, pay off my mortgage faster, go on vacation, keep my professional wardrobe up to date and blah blah blah.

Anyway, I really cant afford a house right now. I always thought I would want a house and yard, but after being in a condo in the inner city, there is just SO MUCH MORE to see and do.

I also like living in concrete.......noisy neighbors...... what are those? I cant hear a thing from any of them besides the odd party. And hot water radiant heat is the best...... talk about cozy living.

I am truly surprised with the beltline area and condo living in general.

Riise answered it perfectly. The grid is good. It makes connectivity easy for pedestrians. What it needs to properly do is integrate local and arterial roads with pedestrian sidewalks within the same grid pattern. Barcelona's E'ixample district and Diagonal Avenue is a great example of this. It is a perfect square grid, but incorporates arterials streets by widening the ROW to give a few centre lanes in each direction for the arterial traffic with parallel access roads (one ways) separated by medians. I believe they eliminate the number of local roads intersecting with the arterial by having right in, right out only intersections with the parallel access road (but not the arterial) for most local roads and only full intersections for a few. That way all local traffic stays on the access roads, and the arterial is made more free flow. Pedestrian access is barely limited. Most commercial development occurs on these parallel access roads. That way residential areas are buffered from traffic, but do not lose pedestrian connectivity, and commercial uses benefit from being on major traffic roads.

My comment wasn't directed towards pedestrians. The idea is that roads are too congested and that grid network neighborhoods allow for alternative routes for drivers - something preached by urbanists. But then those same people believe that they must constrict vehicles with traffic calming.

I'm actually fine with drivers cutting through, I live right beside an intersection and many people take the shortcut down my street when it's congested. What I dislike is when due to annoyance at the congestion they race down the street at about 60, with cars lining both sides of the street so it's not a wide area.

My family (4 people) absolutely hates everything about living in suburbia, however our budget is little over 400,000...is there any way we could find a comfortable place inner city? My parents aren't especially drooling over the prospect of living in an apartment...perhaps an infill or a condo? What do we need to know? What are condo fees like in the city, and will they be negated by what we save in gas? we live a while north of nose hill.

Why do you keep driving to downtown? We have an excellent public transit system for work commutes, and there's plenty of retail where you live. I just wonder how someone could be burning hundreds of dollars a month (minimum condo fees, if you're not aware) unless you're driving multiple vehicles into downtown every day.

It's a bit of a tongue in cheek way of pointing out that your condo fees will almost certainly be more than your gasoline bill every month.

During rush hour public transit is fine, our daytime service has been neutered though. Getting as far south as Kensington often takes an hour, but yeah, I don't think we're spending an above average amount of money on fuel.

Gas might not be enough but the gap will continue to shrink after you include: insurance, vehicle maintenance, and house maintenance.

many condo fees cover heat, water and upkeep though. We have already been through this! And my electric bill is only 40 dollars.

I think people are very short sighted on the condo fee issue. They think its just a wasted fee that leaves their wallet never to be seen again, with little to no benefit to them. Do SFH owners think they will never have to replace the boiler, or replace roofing components, and repair cracked driveways? And again time is not considered. How many people honestly cant name things they would rather do than maintain their homes on the weekend? I'll never have to clean out gutters, clear snow, repair windows, replace mechanical systems, maintain the landscapping etc.

I never understood the obsession of having a yard. Most people never use it, and spend 90% of their time maintaining it rather than enjoying it (unless of course you consider weeding, and mowing fun). If you have good parks around, they are infinetely better than a yard (I know, a big if). I live in bridgeland, and just outside my door I have the zoo, campbell hill, the soccer fields and surrounding green space, and not to mention the pathways by the river and hill side.

Ultimately, it comes down to personal choice, and we cant tell other people what they prefer, so my philosophy is if you want the SFH, pay for everything it takes to creat the SFH lifestyle.

Condo fees can cover a variety of things; depending on the property. If it's a high end property, more often than not the feel usually covers everything from Electricity, water to property taxes and a security and a door man!

Great point. I wish that the parks department actually understood that urban parks are our backyards and that is what we use them for. Maybe they could put some money into them?:shrug: :shrug:

I've never lived in a house that is older than 15 years. Had I been in a condo for each of those three houses, I would have contributed many thousands for repairs that would not have been required at all within the period of my stay. I did have one hot water tank go on me once - I paid the $800 and moved on.

:previous: That was an amazing post. I am going to take photos of my place and draw a map of nearby amenities too.

But it doesn't matter, because you live where you want to live and I live where I want to live. You would probably never live where I live and the same for me. End of story.

I think we all need a group hug

:grouphug:

Wow, that post is a real breakthrough around here.

Yup, while I do appreciate the debate sometimes, I think at some point we should just let each other live the lives we want to live. Freeweed, for example, would never want to live in my 850 ft2 condo downtown with very little storage space, and I wouldn't want to live anywhere where I can't walk to a ton of shops in 5 minutes. And I have no idea why that is a bad thing.

ewww thats what passes for a house in calgary? vinyl siding and ugly?

I think the point that is lost in these discussions is that we should all pay for the choices we make, and this city provides one type of lifestyle with a subsidy on the backs of people who chose another. Thats simply not fair and should be corrected.

That is not a road that goes where you think it does... the costs of upgrading and maintaining infrastructure in dense urban areas are catastrophic. Running roads and utilities across virgin prairie is a bargain in comparison.

I'm glad you can enjoy the lifestyle you do, but does it have to be subsidized by myself and my neighbours? I accept the higher purchase price of my townhouse and smaller space as the price I have to pay to live where I want to, but i find it obsene that I have to pay 50% more in property tax to someone who takes up three times more space than I do (not necessarily referring to you specifically, more of a generalization).

Actually, I wouldn't mind it if I was 10 years younger, and/or single, and/or didn't have quite the same lifestyle I do right now. 850 sq ft isn't exactly a small condo in my books and back when I wanted to be downtown every evening, it would have been phenomenal.

Unfortunately I could never afford it back then. As they say, youth is wasted on the young, and money is wasted on the old. :(

And you imagine that the perceived discrepancy in your taxes is alone subsidizing sprawl?

Fixed for you.

The costs of maintaining low-density infrastructure just aren't really that burdensome. Once it is there - it is there. Wear and tear is minimal, upgrades are rarely required unless there is an extraordinary change in land-use. When work is required it is a fraction of the trouble relative to a denser area.

Most people don't have a commercial fibreobtic backbone running beneath their street or 750mm water mains that need to be installed or removed with a crane. It just isn't that big of a problem.

for serious? i mean, it's not fine classical architecture by any means, but I thought the house he posted looked quite handsome.

we are reconsidering the idea of condo fees. one point we keep coming back to is that we live in a large house with like three living rooms, two dining rooms, a foyer, four bedrooms, an office, and a family room... we only ever use the family room and one of the dining rooms, even with two dozen guests over, but we're not so sure we could get used to less space.

condos sound nice on paper, but we lived in a tiny bungalow for years that works out to be about the same square footage of many of the condos we are looking at, and we always felt like we were in each others space.... bearing in mind there are no children anymore.

is space less important to more mature families? and how do heating, and other utilities compare when you compare a house to a building of multiple units?