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  #41  
Old Posted Feb 19, 2014, 9:31 PM
ue ue is offline
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Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker View Post
If we continue to sprawl, it doesn't really matter to me how big it gets. Now, if we could have hit 500,000 or 1 million in the early 1900s... then we'd be something to write home about.

But more Mount Pearl? More Markham? Doesn't make the city feel any bigger to me.
Yes and no. I see what you're saying, in that producing more Mount Pearls and Markhams won't allow the creation of new pre-war-esque urban fabric, but continued sprawl (or other forms of growth) do still have an impact on the central city. It would likely allow Downtown St. John's to hold an even higher population as all those suburban youths flock en masse to the city after high school. With a larger population in the area, more cultural amenities, festivals, and events could be made as there is a larger population to support it. Also, if the City of St. John's ensures Downtown remains an important employment area, more suburbs mean more jobs need to be filled, which could be done through new office buildings downtown.

Toronto wouldn't have the AGO, the Raptors, Bay Street, the Hockey Hall of Fame, a subway system, the CN Tower, or its insane condo boom if there weren't places like Mississauga, Scarborough, Richmond Hill, and Ajax supporting it. These things come to be either through larger regional populations supporting it collectively, or the regional population itself making the city worthy of certain things just by virtue of population presence.

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St. John's, today, is a proper city of 40,000 and a North American city of 200,000. That 160,000 difference is completely invisible to me, sprawled outside of Empire Avenue.
Dafuq does that mean? "Proper city"? No, St. John's is a "proper city" (and by that I mean metro area) of 200k, without those suburban regions supporting inner city amenities, the inner city wouldn't have the same amenities and culture it does today. All those kids of George St on the weekend don't all hail from within Empire Avenue, I wouldn't think. Would the Newfoundland government have even bothered with building something like the Rooms if St. John's was a dinky city of 40k (well maybe, if there weren't any larger options)?

The idea that suburban swaths make a city a "North American city" and thus we should separate things between "proper city" and "North American city" negates the fact that pretty much everywhere else in the world sees sprawl, some places even more than us, such as Australia. Maybe we should be equally silly and call St. John's at 200k or Toronto at 6 million the "Australian city" size. You know that that London considers places like Croydon, Pinner, and Romford apart of its "city".
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  #42  
Old Posted Feb 19, 2014, 9:44 PM
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I just don't consider suburbs very urban. The car-dependent lifestyle, to me, is... rural, really. Mount Pearl, Markham, all those types of areas just... don't count to me. They're lost population.

Empire Avenue was the ring road of St. John's in 1949. The entire city's population lived in neighbourhoods with about 5,000 people per km/sq minimum, because that's the density of those districts today. There was none of that North American sprawl. The rowhouses ended, and farmland/farmsteads began.

This, for example, was the extreme west end of St. John's, the edge of the city. Density just ends like a brick wall:



And this is the Little Canada neighbourhood, built immediately after Confederation to showcase our new, improved, superior way of living. And this is actually an especially dense street in the neighbourhood:



To me, it still feels like that. I need the street level density. Towers surrounded by highways, surface parking lots, car-dependent suburbs... all of that might as well be farmland to me. I hate it.

And I find when you visit European cities, their downtowns feel as large as those of North American cities at a fraction of the population.

There are easily towns of 40,000-60,000 in Europe that FEEL as large as St. John's.

A great example, the city most Newfoundlanders came from: Waterford, Ireland.

49,000 people.

Looks and feels exactly like St. John's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterford

And I'm not insulting my city - all of yours are just the same to me.
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Last edited by SignalHillHiker; Feb 19, 2014 at 10:05 PM.
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  #43  
Old Posted Feb 19, 2014, 9:45 PM
saffronleaf saffronleaf is offline
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One thing I would love for the GTHA though would be for Lakeshord Rd from Toronto though to Burlington to be a mostly commercial midrise stretch. Preferable stretching into the Hamilton Beach area. Unfortunately I think there's a few industrial zones in the way.
Definitely. All the municipalities along the lakeshore need to come together and work on making it incredible.
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  #44  
Old Posted Feb 19, 2014, 9:54 PM
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Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker View Post
I just don't consider suburbs very urban. The car-dependent lifestyle, to me, is... rural, really. Mount Pearl, Markham, all those types of areas just... don't count to me. They're lost population.

Empire Avenue was the ring road of St. John's in 1949. The entire city's population lived in neighbourhoods with about 5,000 people per km/sq minimum, because that's the density of those districts today. There was none of that North American sprawl. The rowhouses ended, and farmland/farmsteads began.

To me, it still feels like that. I need the street level density. Towers surrounded by highways, surface parking lots, car-dependent suburbs... all of that might as well be farmland to me. I hate it.

And I find when you visit European cities, their downtowns feel as large as those of North American cities at a fraction of the population.

There are easily towns of 40,000-60,000 in Europe that FEEL as large as St. John's.

A great example, the city most Newfoundlanders came from: Waterford, Ireland.

49,000 people.

Looks and feels exactly like St. John's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterford

And I'm not insulting my city - all of yours are just the same to me.


But it's not rural...or urban. It's suburban!

I get what you're saying though, but you seemed to be insinuating this is only a North American problem. Go look at Melbourne or Johannesburg to see how much this isn't the case. Hell, much of Tokyo is really just townhouses with garages and tiny lanes. A dense version of sprawl.

The suburbs are an extension of the city and rely on it for employment, education, and general amenities. Vice-versa, the city would not have all these employment areas, educational infra, and amenities without being supported by the suburbs, at least not to the same degree.

Now the extent to which the suburbs boost the inner city depends on the suburb and its relationship to the city. Detroit's suburbs all but ignore the city that birthed them. Vancouver's suburbs seem more integrated into a larger regional consciousness.

I will concede that the impact of the regular on-the-urban-fringe suburbanite going to big box stores and going to local hockey games on Saturdays probably isn't contributing much to the central city's cultural amenities the way an uptown condo dweller would, but it still helps boost a city up. Many of those suburbanite kids are going to end up in the city in their 20s and might stay into their 30s and beyond as inner city living continues to grow in popularity. It also contributes to the general economic market of a place. A retail store or sports franchise may choose to open in the city based on the large pool of people in a metropolitan area.
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  #45  
Old Posted Feb 19, 2014, 9:57 PM
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It's probably just that it's the North American style that I hate. Some of Australia's are awful too, but most of what is considered sprawl in the U.K. and continental Europe, Japan, etc., doesn't offend me as much as what we do here. There's still... life there.
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  #46  
Old Posted Feb 19, 2014, 10:06 PM
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^ Have you seen Lakeshore in Oakville or Metrotown in Burnaby? Not everything is vinyl-clad tract housing and Costco.

Lakeshore Oakville

Downtown Oakville by Greg's Southern Ontario (catching Up Slowly), on Flickr


OakvilleDowntown-3105 by NormanMaddeaux, on Flickr


After the rain by Maurice P., on Flickr

Metrotown Burnaby

Metrotown, Burnaby, BC, Canada by Pavel Boiko, on Flickr


Near Metrotown by Lily Zhu, on Flickr


DSC_2197b Reflections at Metrotown sunset_Burnaby BC by sissonenphoto, on Flickr

Last edited by ue; Feb 19, 2014 at 10:20 PM.
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  #47  
Old Posted Feb 19, 2014, 10:08 PM
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Oh, I know. I've seen lots of nice examples. And I hope they become the norm.

I'm not convinced, however, that our suburban sprawl will ever "fill in". People seem to tolerate it because they think, oh, it'll eventually look like a dense neighbourhood as the population grows. But it never seems to, really. You might replace a few houses with apartment buildings, but it still FEELS as empty and deserted as it did before. I've yet to see a city take Commonwealth Avenue and successfully turn it into Water Street.

EDIT: I can see your pics now. Oakville looks great. Metrotown, though, meh... looks very suburban.
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  #48  
Old Posted Feb 19, 2014, 10:12 PM
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Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker View Post
A great example, the city most Newfoundlanders came from: Waterford, Ireland.

49,000 people.

Looks and feels exactly like St. John's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterford

And I'm not insulting my city - all of yours are just the same to me.
A city with 500+ years of history more than St. John's is going to feel more of a thing no matter what the set up. It's more a matter of our culture being young that our cities underpreform on the activity front.

I prefer the pedestrian build form as well, but I realise how much the suburbs increase the amenities available in a core, as well as providing a money boost if there's amalgamation as the richer folks have lived out on the edge since at least the Roman Era.

Also, popping around a few major European cities on streetview Rome was the only one that didn't seem to have it's fair share of suburban sprawl.
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  #49  
Old Posted Feb 19, 2014, 10:16 PM
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A 'dense version of sprawl' is actually more conducive to urbanity than our current sprawl - when a certain density of people exists, it can support everyday services within a walkable radius (shops, schools, transit, etc.) which leads to the street life we commonly associate with urban neighbourhoods.

The problem with the way we currently do sprawl is that the density (and often the lack of direct walking routes) requires everything to be too far for you to walk to. It also means that reliable transit service is difficult to justify. So, the automobile becomes the only real way to get around.
That then leads to lower densities (because of the high space requirements for roads and parking), even less walkability, a breakdown in casual social relationships, a retreat from and the breakdown of the civic sphere, etc. until we end up with the lifeless, dull and isolating fields we call the Automobile Suburb.


The existence of a city doesn't require the existence of this specific kind of suburb. Far from it - their existence puts enormous strain on the city which, by the fact that it is urban, cannot geometrically (or financially) handle the influx of cars from the automobile suburbs. But the best way I could illustrate my point is that cities existed long before there were Pickerings and Lavals and they did quite well for themselves.

That's not to say that you could nuke the 905 tomorrow and Toronto would get along just fine (it wouldn't), but we need to get over this ridiculous fetish for the segregation of uses (like CBD - Bedroom suburb, in this case) and start conceiving of and building our cities with varying levels of urbanity, but with a minimum threshold at which walkability (i.e urbanity) can be achieved.



Leslieville, Toronto. An example of a good 'minimum urban density'
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  #50  
Old Posted Feb 19, 2014, 10:19 PM
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Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker View Post
Oh, I know. I've seen lots of nice examples. And I hope they become the norm.

I'm not convinced, however, that our suburban sprawl will ever "fill in". People seem to tolerate it because they think, oh, it'll eventually look like a dense neighbourhood as the population grows. But it never seems to, really. You might replace a few houses with apartment buildings, but it still FEELS as empty and deserted as it did before. I've yet to see a city take Commonwealth Avenue and successfully turn it into Water Street.
It's probably easier to do in larger cities where there is perhaps more of a necessity for change. Look at various parts of the Yonge corridor in Toronto, or at Vancouver's suburbs (Burnaby's Metrotown isn't the only one). Look at places like MacKenzie Towne in Calgary or Griesbach in Edmonton. The suburbs aren't a guaranteed lost cause.
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  #51  
Old Posted Feb 19, 2014, 10:32 PM
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I was looking at some Cincinnati pics recently, and for some reason I can see Regina or Saskatoon resembling that city a little bit.
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  #52  
Old Posted Feb 19, 2014, 10:33 PM
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  #53  
Old Posted Feb 19, 2014, 11:05 PM
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Originally Posted by Aylmer View Post
That's not to say that you could nuke the 905 tomorrow and Toronto would get along just fine (it wouldn't), but we need to get over this ridiculous fetish for the segregation of uses (like CBD - Bedroom suburb, in this case) and start conceiving of and building our cities with varying levels of urbanity, but with a minimum threshold at which walkability (i.e urbanity) can be achieved.
One problem I have with the way a lot of current planning ideology goes (at least in Calgary) is that the master planning attitude is the same, just on a more micro scale. We go from talking about residential-only communities to residential-only streets. Now, granted that is a big improvement, but the reasoning behind it is hardly any different. I take issue with the type of thinking that states that two streets -- where one is strictly residential and the other is strictly commercial -- is preferable to two streets where the residential and commercial is allowed to fill in organically, simply because the planner is trying to cultivate some sort of aesthetic.
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  #54  
Old Posted Feb 19, 2014, 11:05 PM
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Burlington's developing its own little skyline as well now. Pretty cool view when you're on the Skyway!
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  #55  
Old Posted Feb 19, 2014, 11:17 PM
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Originally Posted by Aylmer View Post
A 'dense version of sprawl' is actually more conducive to urbanity than our current sprawl - when a certain density of people exists, it can support everyday services within a walkable radius (shops, schools, transit, etc.) which leads to the street life we commonly associate with urban neighbourhoods.

The problem with the way we currently do sprawl is that the density (and often the lack of direct walking routes) requires everything to be too far for you to walk to. It also means that reliable transit service is difficult to justify. So, the automobile becomes the only real way to get around.
That then leads to lower densities (because of the high space requirements for roads and parking), even less walkability, a breakdown in casual social relationships, a retreat from and the breakdown of the civic sphere, etc. until we end up with the lifeless, dull and isolating fields we call the Automobile Suburb.


The existence of a city doesn't require the existence of this specific kind of suburb. Far from it - their existence puts enormous strain on the city which, by the fact that it is urban, cannot geometrically (or financially) handle the influx of cars from the automobile suburbs. But the best way I could illustrate my point is that cities existed long before there were Pickerings and Lavals and they did quite well for themselves.

That's not to say that you could nuke the 905 tomorrow and Toronto would get along just fine (it wouldn't), but we need to get over this ridiculous fetish for the segregation of uses (like CBD - Bedroom suburb, in this case) and start conceiving of and building our cities with varying levels of urbanity, but with a minimum threshold at which walkability (i.e urbanity) can be achieved.



Leslieville, Toronto. An example of a good 'minimum urban density'
I agree, and in larger cities, the newest, most further out suburbs probably have a minimal positive impact on the core city. Milton, Bolton, and Newmarket won't have the same impact on Toronto that Scarborough, Etobicoke or Vaughan do.

And of course cities existed long before their suburban counterparts (or at a time when the suburbs were just nearby towns) and got along fine. But many of the new amenities cities have received post-war are due to a growing regional population to support them. There's less incentive to build a new arena or expand an art museum when the population isn't growing and post-war, most of that growth has been suburban.

Increasing transit services to the suburbs will be key to ensuring the core city isn't strained by an influx of auto traffic from the 'burbs. Stuff like GO is a step in the right direction, though things like better integration between GO and TTC would help things along much further. If someone in Pickering wanted to spend an afternoon in downtown Toronto, they should be able to catch a bus to take them to the nearest GO station and then take that into the city with ease instead of trying to drive downtown.

Of course, like you say, it is difficult to justify quality transit service when everything is single use and spread apart in the suburbs. Why go the 5km through winding residential roads to pick up 7 bus passengers when you could do the same in an older community or around important nodes and pick up 20 or 30? This is where better suburban planning comes into play. Increasing densification in places like Mississauga is a step in the right direction, but really we should be moving towards what Richmond, BC is doing or perhaps my personal ideal suburban model, the Dutch suburban model. You're right we do need to do away with the segregation of uses and curb the divide between city and suburb (i.e. make the suburb more of a city).
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  #56  
Old Posted Feb 20, 2014, 1:45 AM
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Originally Posted by Beedok View Post
One thing I would love for the GTHA though would be for Lakeshord Rd from Toronto though to Burlington to be a mostly commercial midrise stretch. Preferable stretching into the Hamilton Beach area. Unfortunately I think there's a few industrial zones in the way.
There's plenty of space for retail and mixed uses in the front yards of those multi-million dollar homes through Oakville and Burlington.
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  #57  
Old Posted Feb 20, 2014, 3:07 AM
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I always thought that North Bay would make a real nice larger city on a lake..It's at roughly 63'000..Even if it hit 100'000.
How would Red Deer transform if it doubled? Theoretically the corridor between Edmonton and Calgary could be completely urbanized..If each city expanded even a half hour out, it would make a huge difference. Red Deer would have to expand on both ends though. Long way off for now.
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  #58  
Old Posted Feb 20, 2014, 3:29 AM
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Realistically in our life time we will see a metro Toronto of 10 million people (including well over 3.5 million people in the city of Toronto itself). A metro Montreal of 5.5 to 6 million people, a metro Vancouver of 4 to 4.5 million people, a metro Calgary of 3 to 3.5 million people, a metro Edmonton of 3 million people, a metro Ottawa of 2.5 to 3 million people.
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  #59  
Old Posted Feb 20, 2014, 4:07 AM
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Canmore as a much larger city would be pretty cool - the natural setting is incredible (obviously!).
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  #60  
Old Posted Feb 20, 2014, 4:33 AM
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Flin Flon, MB - 1.5 million

This small mining town of 5,000 people in the 2011 underwent a tragic incident in 2015 where one of the mines blew up. As part of the damage all road access to the town were ruined as well as all communication lines broken. Half the town's population was lost in the explosion. The mayor, having barely escaped the explosion himself, gathered the remaining citizens - mostly women and children - to give a speech of morality. After comforting the citizens of Flin Flon, he addresses what a lot of people had been murmuring about; with most of the men dead in the explosion, and all access to the outside world cut off, what will happen to their small quaint town? The mayor - one of 11 surviving men - lets the town known know that the only way to move is for every woman to have 10 children in order to ensure the town continues to grow. 20 years later the provincial government realized they hadn't heard from Flin Flon in a while and sent a staff member to check up on the town. The staff member was shocked when she realized there had been a mining accident 20 years ago. Further she was shocked to see so many young children. The population was now 12,000 people. Eventually communication and road access to Flin Flon was restored, but out of the ashes of the mine shaft explosion a new culture was born. Women kept on each having 10 or more children even though they had access to the rest of the world again. This pattern continued for 50 years and by the time 2084 rolled around, Flin Flon had grown to 1.5 million strong. Now the provincial government is working hard to help the youth keep caught up academically - the average IQ of the town dropped to 70 as a result of all the in-breeding in the early part of the century.
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