The Tales Of Urbanizing Canada Are Overblown (Commentary)

[Hamilton]

I think the statistics that show that multifamily and attached housing is becoming more common relative to single-family detached housing in Canadian MSA's is good evidence against the article in the OP. But I also agree that high density alone does not make a place walkable and urban. Not all dense infill is created equal. You need to look at the zoning (including parking requirements and mixed use allowances), street grid, transit usage, car ownership rates, etc as well (and to be fair, people in this thread have already pointed out that some of these things are trending in the right direction in Canadian MSA's).

Here's an article that I enjoyed reading that makes this point vis-a-vis infill directly across the Hudson River from Manhattan:

https://capntransit.blogspot.com/201...-of-water.html

So this is infill development, really close to Manhattan, instead of way the hell out in Suffolk County or the Highlands. Why does it make me sad? Because it might as well be in Suffolk County. There are almost no walkable streets in the area. River Road has hardly any pedestrians and you can't blame people because it has wide car lanes, too many of them, and narrow sidewalks, and virtually none of the shops, restaurants or residences engage with that sidewalk. There is a semi-continuous riverwalk, but it zigzags around the piers and buildings, past windows and terraces that do not interact with it. Despite all this development, River Road does not make the frequent network map because you're very likely to wait more than fifteen minutes for a bus.

River Road is one of the reasons I'm so skeptical about "density" being an important factor in transit use or walkable streets. It's got density, or something resembling density. I don't know the numbers, but all of this new construction is apartments and townhouses, with no detached single family houses that I could see. But all that development was designed for driving.

Every housing complex has tons of parking, often obscured by an overhanging apartment or townhouse ... structure (it's hard to call them buildings because the architecture is so fragmented). Sometimes the parking is in its own big ugly building, and sometimes it's designed so that it's immediately adjacent to the apartment or townhouse of its occupant. The new shops and restaurants are all the same kind of strip development, overloaded with surface parking that would be equally at home in Scottsdale, Arizona as on Tonnelle Avenue on the other side of the Palisades.

So here we have dense infill development a short distance from one of the most walkable job centers in the country, and still it's just as car-oriented as Phoenix. I'm guessing that the two biggest factors involved are the zoning code and outdated standards followed by the New Jersey Department of Transportation, which together have built one of the densest driving-oriented suburbs I've seen.

[mhays]

All true, but density at least means the horrible walk to transit is shorter, and transit is far more effective on passengers per mile etc. Even if the suburban crappiness is exactly the same.

[NorthernDancer]

Brampton has a small (for a city of 600,000), but very pedestrian-friendly downtown:

https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.68591...2!8i6656?hl=en


Gage Park is particular is very nice:

https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.68466...2!8i6656?hl=en


There's a Go Train/VIA Train station just a 5-minute walk from the corner of Main and Queen Streets (the centre of downtown Brampton). There's also excellent bus service along both Main and Queen Streets, including Bus Rapid Transit lines to York University in Toronto and Mississauga City Centre.

https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.68684...2!8i6656?hl=en


Zum, Brampton's BRT service:

http://www.brampton.ca/EN/residents/...ary2014_P1.pdf

[M II A II R II K]

Great, now if they could only get rid of that dreadful sounding announcement voice.

[dc_denizen]

Place like Plano, Addison, Frisco, etc may not have as many highrises, but they have a ton of 4-6 story multifamily developments that serve the same purpose. Dallas permitted 25,000 units w/ in developments with more than 5 units (45% of the total) in 2016 and 27,000 in 2015!

if you follow new urbanism, dallas has actually done a pretty great job of creating new urbanist downtowns and nodes.

[dc_denizen]

Originally Posted by mhays

The maps show Brampton being much denser. Equalize the scale and it's obvious.

no, it's not. Plano, for instance gets to 3900/square mile. With south Asian family sizes and basement apartments, it's easy to have Brampton's density with an equally sprawlly built environment dominated by single-family homes.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

no, it's not. Plano, for instance gets to 3900/square mile. With south Asian family sizes and basement apartments, it's easy to have Brampton's density with an equally sprawlly built environment dominated by single-family homes.

And Toronto and Dallas have massive differences in housing affordability.

Dallas has higher incomes and much lower housing costs, so people sprawl out in big homes. Toronto has extreme affordability issues so naturally people are more crammed into housing.

It's like comparing suburban LA to suburban Ohio or something; suburban LA is just as sprawly, it's just more packed-in and the cultures living there favor intergenerational living.

[dc_denizen]

that's part of it, but also, Dallas has a very master-planned feel, like Irvine or something. with more actual planning, this has helped the city avoid the southeastern type leapfrog sprawl + actually results in a suburban landscape with some decent qualities (multifamily, concentrated office employment, few strip malls, etc).

this is why I think the parallels to suburban Toronto are worth discussing here.

[ssiguy]

I think this idea that Canada's urban myth being overblown is misleading as it doesn't take into account the real changing demographics. Certainly Canada's suburbs continue to grow but it's downtowns are also booming............how can this be happening at the same time? It's called changing demographics kids.

Those 60/70/80 growth area are ussually considered urban now but many of those areas have seen stagnant or even suffer from population decline. It's not that no one lives there but rather the number of people in those homes is decreasing. Those homes that use to have Mon & Dad and three kids may only have one or two people living in them as the kids have moved away. Their kids and their grandkids have either moved to the outer suburbs for room and a house they can afford or moved downtown to be where the action is, they have a better selection of condos or apts, and being closer to work or post-secondary schools.

This is also born out by the phenomenon of "dying malls" built in the 70s & 80s. It's not that people all of a sudden wanted to go shopping in the rain, drudge thru the snow, or freeze to death in the winter or boil to death but in the summer but rather that their shoppers have disappeared. Malls live on discretionary spending and that is much higher when there are kids around. They want the latest fashions and newest gadgets but as they left so did their spending and the stores closed up often leaving only the non-discretionary spenders and the stores they support behind ie grocery stores, pharmacies etc. The stores followed the shoppers and the shoppers are now in the further out suburbs or downtown.

In the US where the "donut" urban development {which Canada never really suffered fro to near the extent} has turned into more of a "dartboard" scenario with booming downtowns and outer suburbs while the post-war suburbs being the ones that are stagnant. Toronto's biggest non-city suburb is Mississuaga but most of it was built out by 2000 and now has one of the slowest growth rates in the entire GTA. All the condo construction in the world cannot mask the fact that those tens of thousands of SFH that once had 5 or 6 people living in them now maybe have just 1 or 2.

[mhays]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

no, it's not. Plano, for instance gets to 3900/square mile. With south Asian family sizes and basement apartments, it's easy to have Brampton's density with an equally sprawlly built environment dominated by single-family homes.

Look at houses per acre in a typical google maps view.

[mhays]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

Place like Plano, Addison, Frisco, etc may not have as many highrises, but they have a ton of 4-6 story multifamily developments that serve the same purpose. Dallas permitted 25,000 units w/ in developments with more than 5 units (45% of the total) in 2016 and 27,000 in 2015!

if you follow new urbanism, dallas has actually done a pretty great job of creating new urbanist downtowns and nodes.

Maybe. I've yet to see an example that doesn't have massive amounts of parking, and densities tend to be really low.

[NorthernDancer]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

no, it's not. Plano, for instance gets to 3900/square mile. With south Asian family sizes and basement apartments, it's easy to have Brampton's density with an equally sprawlly built environment dominated by single-family homes.

No. Brampton is more than twice as dense as Frisco, and that has nothing to do with this crazy theory of yours that it's because multiple generations of South Asian families are living in the same house. A theory that you still haven't provided any proof of.

In fact, Brampton is more than twice as dense as Frisco despite the fact that Brampton still has quite a bit of farmland and wilderness - it's not close to being built out.

[NorthernDancer]

Brampton more than doubles Frisco's density even with vast unpopulated areas like this:

https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.79614...2!8i6656?hl=en

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

With south Asian family sizes and basement apartments

Frisco also has South Asian families. And you've provided zero evidence that basement apartments are more common in Brampton than they are in Frisco. If anything the opposite is likely true.

Plano, for instance gets to 3900/square mile.

Brampton AVERAGES over 5800/square mile, and that's with plenty of undeveloped land.

[NorthernDancer]

Population Density:
Brampton (2016) - 5,772/square mile
Plano (2015) - 3,850/square mile
Addison (2015) - 3,429/square mile
Frisco (2017) - 2,682/square mile

[dc_denizen]

Originally Posted by NorthernDancer

Brampton more than doubles Frisco's density even with vast unpopulated areas like this:

https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.79614...2!8i6656?hl=en




Frisco also has South Asian families. And you've provided zero evidence that basement apartments are more common in Brampton than they are in Frisco. If anything the opposite is likely true.



Brampton AVERAGES over 5800/square mile, and that's with plenty of undeveloped land.

Frisco/Plano have south Asians, but not anywhere near in the massive 40% share that they represent in Brampton. north dallas suburbs are largely white with some racial minorities here and there. multigenerational housing is one reason that Los Angeles achieves such high densities, and you come across it in discussions of Asian ethno-burbs like Brampton as well.

Plano averages 3900 ppl/sq mile. Brampton is 5800. both are shit, urbanistically (staten island is around 10,000 ppll/sq mile). Both are suburbs with relentlessly suburban built environments.

I don't think you can argue against the point that Brampton has many similarities to Frisco/Plano/Richardson, in terms of the (suburban) lifestyle it offers inhabitants, notwithstanding somewhat higher (but still very low) densities and somewhat higher transit share.

also, brampton is not a 'city', any more than the woodlands or frisco are. these are big suburbs with tiny downtowns.

[NorthernDancer]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

somewhat higher transit share.

10.8% vs. 0.28%

That's about 38 times as high if that's what you mean by "somewhat higher".

No city in all of Texas has even half the transit share of Brampton. Not even Dallas or Houston, which are both around 4.2-4.3%.

[MolsonExport]

dc denizen...never misses a chance to slag Canada. It is axiomatic. I wouldn't mind it if he knew what he was talking about, but ass gas doesn't count for knowledge.

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by NorthernDancer

Population Density:
Brampton (2016) - 5,772/square mile
Plano (2015) - 3,850/square mile
Addison (2015) - 3,429/square mile
Frisco (2017) - 2,682/square mile

I'm not familiar with those US cities but single family homes in the Toronto area are built on very small lots. Lot sizes are far more generous in other parts of Canada and more generous still in the US.

[dc_denizen]

^ true when it comes to the east and the south, meanwhile in the west lot sizes tend to be smaller. although Dallas homes generally have small yards but lots of house.

these videos (I wish I could find something better for Brampton, but itll have to do) provides some interesting viewpoints for the comparison...

• Video Link

• Video Link

[NorthernDancer]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

dc denizen...never misses a chance to slag Canada. It is axiomatic. I wouldn't mind it if he knew what he was talking about, but ass gas doesn't count for knowledge.

Yet he never misses a chance to make an idiot of himself.