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  #181  
Old Posted Jan 21, 2011, 4:59 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MichaelS View Post
You are missing my point entirely. It is not the "political weight" that wealth allegedly gets, it is the pure economics of land value to the residents who live there.

I will try to use another analogy to make my point again. Assuming Bill Gates lives on a large estate property for this one. If I went to him and offered him $10 million for it, so I could turn it into a high density urban village, he would tell me to get off his property before he unleashed the hounds. It is not worth it to him to sell his land for that much money. Any more than $10 million, and my development wouldn't make a profit, so I can't offer him more. If I were to offer him $10 billion, we might be talking. But the only way I could do that would be if the land value (read, market value, read enough people would want to live in that location) would justify my spending $10 billion on land acquisition, then project development, then sales, to still make a reasonable profit.

Abosuletely nothing to do with politics. Pure market forces. Until the land becomes valuable enough that the current owners find it worth upzoning, it won't happen.
Very astute comments, I think it is alot about market churn that allows for revitalization and densification to happen. Communities that are overly successful don't redevelop, and neither do communities in decay. Moreover, I think a lot of it depends on having a sufficient stock of housing that is in need of major repairs or dilapidated. For the most part, this area has always had it's housing stock well cared for.


Another factor may be that housing in Mount Royal is in general larger square footage than other inner city housing stock. This leaves with less opportunity for people that want a larger house to upsize. i.e. My grandparents lived in Sunnyside before I was born, but left for the edge of the city so that they could have a larger house when my mom was born. As a result of Mount Royal's larger square footage houses, there wouldn't be the same need to migrate to the outskirts. This would result in a greater propensity to reinvest in the existing housing stock.
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  #182  
Old Posted Jan 21, 2011, 5:38 PM
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Originally Posted by Me&You View Post
Source?

I know several residents of Mount Royal that have no where near 79' of frontage... I'd go so far as saying the majority of lots have a frontage of well under 79'.
Mount Royal Estate area. You can search for it in the bylaws and you'll find it.

Some of it might be referenced here:
http://www.calgary.ca/docgallery/bu/..._royal_arp.pdf
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  #183  
Old Posted Jan 21, 2011, 5:43 PM
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Originally Posted by polishavenger View Post
Since mount royal density is not the base line for the majority of the cities neighbourhoods, and it covers such a small area ...
It is all relative. To you it covers a small area, while to others, the reference point would be that it covers almost the same area as the entire core of Calgary.

You can get an idea here:
http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&sourc...,0.092697&z=14

The core I'm talking about would be bound by the tracks and the river. Mount Royal I'm talking about is the area with curvy streets and huge space between them.
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  #184  
Old Posted Jan 21, 2011, 9:32 PM
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Originally Posted by suburb View Post
Mount Royal Estate area. You can search for it in the bylaws and you'll find it.

Some of it might be referenced here:
http://www.calgary.ca/docgallery/bu/..._royal_arp.pdf

Nice selective quoting...

Since you wanted to bold "Estate" to emphasize your point, let me do the same -

Quote:
Originally Posted by Me&You View Post
Source?

I know several residents of Mount Royal that have no where near 79' of frontage... I'd go so far as saying the majority of lots have a frontage of well under 79'.

Perhaps it's that the minimal divisible width is 79', as in a lot can only be divided if it's more than 178' wide?

...
And yep, the area defined as the "Estate" area is where several of the people I was referring to live...

Just as I thought, the minimum divisible width is 79'. From the ARP -

"Existing lots and developments which are less than the minimum requirements or greater than the maximum allowed as shown above shall be deemed conforming to the DC district. All new developments should conform to the standards of the DC district" (page 28 of the pdf)

Edit -

I'm with Polishavenger on this one... Mount Royal is a very small area in the scheme of inner-city redevelopment... There are a ton of other larger, more suitable areas that could use a "shot in the arm" of new development and density a lot more than Mount Royal. Why mess with perfectly desirable and unique area? Fill in Eau Claire, the west end, Sunalta, East Village, Vic Park / East Beltline (and, well, the entire Beltline), Mission, Erlton, Sunnyside, Hillhurst, The Bridges, and all the other areas already seeing some dense redevelopment and infill. Once that's done, then maybe it will be time to look at doing something with the zoning in Mount Royal, but until then, we have more than enough space that could use, and actually wants, the attention of developers.

Last edited by Me&You; Jan 21, 2011 at 10:17 PM.
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  #185  
Old Posted Jan 24, 2011, 6:13 AM
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There's a sociological/historical nuance that can be gleaned from the last few pages here, something about the common man defending the aristocracy while trying to attack the slightly-higher-than-his-own-class, but I'm at a loss to really articulate it. I've definitely seen it repeated over and over throughout history though.
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  #186  
Old Posted Jan 24, 2011, 8:58 AM
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See: Gramsci’s Theory of Cultural Hegemony

Not that I actually recommend reading much on the subject, he is probably the only person in history to actually be imprisoned for being boring.
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  #187  
Old Posted Jan 24, 2011, 7:54 PM
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Originally Posted by Policy Wonk View Post
See: Gramsci’s Theory of Cultural Hegemony

Not that I actually recommend reading much on the subject, he is probably the only person in history to actually be imprisoned for being boring.
wow didn't expect to see that reference in here.... I second that though, I read some of Gramsci's work around hegemony last year
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  #188  
Old Posted Jan 24, 2011, 10:05 PM
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Well, it certainly explains why a lot of proletariat rage is projected at the bourgeoisie as opposed to the commanding heights. It can especially well correlate to the present retard-centric American political order.

I don't think I have strung together so many marxist buzzwords since college!
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  #189  
Old Posted Jan 25, 2011, 12:59 AM
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It's kinda sad to see so much of what I learned in my younger days (and dismissed as being irrelevant) come about. Your comment about US politics these days is spot on.
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  #190  
Old Posted Jan 25, 2011, 10:40 AM
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I can only assume you made much better career decisions than I did,
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  #191  
Old Posted Jan 25, 2011, 9:59 PM
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Originally Posted by polishavenger View Post
Call this sacrilage in the face of our urban values, but I would be the first one up in arms if the mount royal area was facing redevelopment pressure. It is an incredibly beautiful area, and everytime someone from out of town comes to visit, its one area I tend to show them. Each house is unique, the landscaping is mature and well kept. So long as the area doesnt get special property tax treatment, I think it should be protected as both historical, and unique.

Since mount royal density is not the base line for the majority of the cities neighbourhoods, and it covers such a small area, there is nothing to be gained by trying to redevelop it, and a tremendous amount to lose.

Attention should be on creating a new high quality standard for new communities. I think every knew suburb should have at its core an area like brew street in port moody with SFH on the outer perimeter, or should look similar to a neighborhood called Discovery Bay in HK. Check it out, I think most people, even suburbanites would like that area.
Mount Royal may end up being similar to the area south of downtown vancouver around kitsilano. Many of the Uber-large home have been broken into 4-6 BEAUTIFUL suites. I see that happening to some of them. Its amazing how many homes you can fit into one of those mansions.
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  #192  
Old Posted Feb 20, 2012, 10:14 AM
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Taken from the Construction Forum:

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Originally Posted by Ramsayfarian View Post
Wonder if the never ending debate between urban and suburban that happens here, had anything to do with Richard White's story in today's Herald.

Well worth the read.

"Suburb Bashing Ignores the Facts"
What facts? That people like their space; have their cake and want to eat it too? Well no shit? This is about as enlightening as when the many armchair climatologists or other cereal box atmospheric scientists remind us that climate has always been changing, when explaining climate change...

I know science is hard for some people, but then a corresponding opinion shouldn't be presented as such. The only argument that is tiring is that of "people like suburbs, therefore suburbs are good." By that logic Pickton shouldn't be punished, and I should own a 100 million dollar yacht with 4 wives running around on it. (Exaggeration to make a point.)

Let's look at energy and resource use and the corresponding increased pollution. How about a built form that encourages the most dangerous and deadly thing most people do per day? How about for a country (countries, if you include those that the "urban policy maker and scientist" Wendell Cox uses as support) that champions free markets, suburban development adheres very little to this principle. For that lovely "social engineering" argument - I'd love to see what would happen if a city was run entirely by a company paying dividends...

Seton as an example of good development (Sorry Strongbow): I see a massive hospital (a public good whose utilization should be maximized through increased accessibility) in more or less, the middle of nowhere, and a lot of parking lots with a few decent looking buildings and maybe one street worth walking down. Quarry Park? An embarrassement. There is nothing there that is ground breaking or different from the status quo.

White wants to argue that this kind of development is conducive to diverse lifestyles - well what if I choose a lifestyle that doesn't involve the use of a car? How do I get most places? Missionaries? The Gospel?

Quote:
The gospel is more transit, cycling and walking, and fewer cars, more urban (multi-family housing) development and less suburban (single-family) development.

These missionaries are trying to convert us from our hedonistic North American lifestyle to an enlightened European one.
Yeah, wouldn't want to try and improve on energy consumption and pollution generation, while allowing equality of use of public infrastructure, support for a truly alternative lifestyle and choice making that is ultimately cheaper for the public purse. Maybe throw some straw man and sensationalist rhetoric in there and you've got yourself a rational and convincing argument... Is White per chance confusing a newspaper article with the comments section below?

I personally think that articles like this and especially the recent one quoting Wendell Cox are nothing short of embarrassing and an afront to reason and knowledge in general. That's a fact - well no, that's an opinion.

End Rant

Quote:
Originally Posted by Aegis View Post
I'm not normally one to post stuff about other cities in a local thread, but, this is a really interesting article, which contradicts some of the prevalent opinions in this thread on density. Example: environmentalists blocking development of tall buildings or near transit nodes. Learned a new term today: Manhattanization.

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...24868&page=153

http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/2011...se-development
I'm not 100% sure what you are trying to say here or if I'm misinterpretting it, but as far as the bold:

The article seems to be saying the exact opposite:

Quote:
Keeping San Francisco from becoming a forest of skyscrapers once dominated conversations about development in The City. Opposition to such “Manhattanization” was a platform that environmentalists, neighborhood groups and outright foes of development used to block construction projects.

But times have changed.
Quote:
Past rejection of density propelled the growth of suburbs and the carbon emissions of longer car commutes. But today’s dominant paradigm favors dense, transit-oriented infill developments that encourage walkable access to schools, stores and services.
Quote:
Environmentalists will keep fighting developments that involve the addition of traffic, but don’t expect the same kinds of fights over greater density in San Francisco
In fact, the entire article is basically a contradiction to everything that White was trying to say. Perhaps we are on the same page?
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  #193  
Old Posted Feb 22, 2012, 5:58 PM
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People always forget about sustainability when they write these articles and seem to take it from a very selfish point of view. Im so happy that we at least have the LRT to curb some of the effects of this bad style of development. We need to get more of these suburban people out of their cars and walking. We will probably see more people making an effort when oil skyrockets again.....
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  #194  
Old Posted Apr 11, 2012, 8:04 PM
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Thought the new census data, as reported by the CBC, was interesting:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/...bs-growth.html

Quote:
City centres grew by just 5.3 per cent — less than the national average. But peripheral areas grew 8.7 per cent over the five years, according to census data calculations provided to The Canadian Press by Statistics Canada.
<>
Calgary's Chestermere, Airdrie and Okotoks also make the top 10, as do Edmonton's Beaumont and Leduc.
I don't like the fact that they count our commuter communities as suburbs, as when the data is aggregated by lobbyists / special interest groups, it paints a bad picture for those who live only 10km out of the core.
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  #195  
Old Posted Apr 11, 2012, 9:24 PM
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Originally Posted by suburbia View Post
I don't like the fact that they count our commuter communities as suburbs, as when the data is aggregated by lobbyists / special interest groups, it paints a bad picture for those who live only 10km out of the core.
What is the distinction between a suburb and a commuter community? I don't mean to sound terse, because I agree with you that there is a distinction, but how would you define it and how does is paint a bad picture?

In Calgary the distinction is more obvious than other cities, but in the future it may be harder to separate. Is a bedroom community anywhere where people drive to another community to work? Is it based on municipal jurisdiction? Does it depend on the reach of school boards and public transit? Or, is it how the individuals of the community identify?
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  #196  
Old Posted Apr 11, 2012, 10:30 PM
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Originally Posted by RyLucky View Post
What is the distinction between a suburb and a commuter community? I don't mean to sound terse, because I agree with you that there is a distinction, but how would you define it and how does is paint a bad picture?

In Calgary the distinction is more obvious than other cities, but in the future it may be harder to separate. Is a bedroom community anywhere where people drive to another community to work? Is it based on municipal jurisdiction? Does it depend on the reach of school boards and public transit? Or, is it how the individuals of the community identify?
There is a lot of gray, no doubt, but I'll provide an example as how this can become a slippery slope. Someone (maybe Fusili but may have been someone else) recently posted an interesting article highlighting that living in the suburbs is actually more expensive with several (though not all) things considered. The report was from the US and the summary sections were pretty clear, but reading the details, you realize that they called things suburbs even past 100km away, which was ridiculous in my view. The discussion to till that point on this forum was about suburbs in Calgary that were only about 12 km away, and while the report was being used to argue my stance, its raw data actually indicated that at that distance, even without all things considered, it was actually cheaper than living right in the core. In the same vein, with Okotoks, Cochrane, Airdrie and Chestermere being referred to as suburbs, the lobbyists and special interest groups (like the authors of that report) spin numbers and denounce people living in the true Calgary suburbs. By some descriptions and in larger cities, 12km is arguably still inner city.

With the above being agreed to at a philosophical level, how could we define the edge of the burbs and the beginnings of commuter communities? Good questions. I don't have a good answer, and while for this City I'd like to say City limits, I actually think some of the deep SE as virtually commuter as it stands. The ring road would be good to use, but that only works for this city (and it is not even a ring yet, so even questions there). Perhaps a radius of 10mi/16km? You probably need a formula with a cube root function on a proportion of the population of a city. How about cube root of (population/1000) miles. For 1M that is 10mi (16km), beyond which you are a commuter community. For 10M, it would be 21.5mi (34.5km).
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  #197  
Old Posted Apr 11, 2012, 11:26 PM
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Wait, I live in the suburbs but also work 2 minutes from my house in one of those dreaded suburban office plazas?

What does that make me?

The Sustainable Satan?
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  #198  
Old Posted Apr 12, 2012, 2:02 AM
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Originally Posted by suburbia View Post
There is a lot of gray, no doubt, but I'll provide an example as how this can become a slippery slope. Someone (maybe Fusili but may have been someone else) recently posted an interesting article highlighting that living in the suburbs is actually more expensive with several (though not all) things considered. The report was from the US and the summary sections were pretty clear, but reading the details, you realize that they called things suburbs even past 100km away, which was ridiculous in my view. The discussion to till that point on this forum was about suburbs in Calgary that were only about 12 km away, and while the report was being used to argue my stance, its raw data actually indicated that at that distance, even without all things considered, it was actually cheaper than living right in the core. In the same vein, with Okotoks, Cochrane, Airdrie and Chestermere being referred to as suburbs, the lobbyists and special interest groups (like the authors of that report) spin numbers and denounce people living in the true Calgary suburbs. By some descriptions and in larger cities, 12km is arguably still inner city.

With the above being agreed to at a philosophical level, how could we define the edge of the burbs and the beginnings of commuter communities? Good questions. I don't have a good answer, and while for this City I'd like to say City limits, I actually think some of the deep SE as virtually commuter as it stands. The ring road would be good to use, but that only works for this city (and it is not even a ring yet, so even questions there). Perhaps a radius of 10mi/16km? You probably need a formula with a cube root function on a proportion of the population of a city. How about cube root of (population/1000) miles. For 1M that is 10mi (16km), beyond which you are a commuter community. For 10M, it would be 21.5mi (34.5km).
Quote:
Originally Posted by patm View Post
Wait, I live in the suburbs but also work 2 minutes from my house in one of those dreaded suburban office plazas?

What does that make me?

The Sustainable Satan?
LOL.

The more I think about, the less the distinction matters. There's no magic formula for the boundaries of regional identity. For example, SEton is about the same distance from the core as Chestermere, but it will have a c-train and a hospital. I know people from Oshawa who say they are from Toronto unless they are talking to someone who is actually from the GTA (who likely takes great offense to such a statement). There's a bit of insecurity at play when it comes to suburban identity.
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  #199  
Old Posted Apr 12, 2012, 3:58 PM
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Originally Posted by RyLucky View Post
LOL.

The more I think about, the less the distinction matters. There's no magic formula for the boundaries of regional identity. For example, SEton is about the same distance from the core as Chestermere, but it will have a c-train and a hospital. I know people from Oshawa who say they are from Toronto unless they are talking to someone who is actually from the GTA (who likely takes great offense to such a statement). There's a bit of insecurity at play when it comes to suburban identity.
Your seton example is precisely why i suggested a formula where even it would be considered a commutor community.
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  #200  
Old Posted Apr 12, 2012, 5:12 PM
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Originally Posted by suburbia View Post
Your seton example is precisely why i suggested a formula where even it would be considered a commutor community.
Its a bit difficult being that Calgary is a unicity, but maybe if a majority of residents of a south end community worked south of the innercity, then it could be considered to not be a commuter community?
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