World-famous planner trashes Vancouver ...

[squeezied]

van specials make good rental income. cant really blame ppl for wanting money over spending money on architecture

[slide_rule]

duany is a fraud, plain and simple. he attacks the aesthetically challenged older areas, knowing full well that he peddles aesthetically pleasing yet environmentally, socially, and fiscally divisive greenfield NU-lite developments, aka brand name sprawlburbs.

vancouver's burbs are unattractive because they were made of the abundant yet impermanent local material wood, and most importantly, they're unattractive because they were built in the postwar era when labor was expensive and the demand for housing was great. compare the typical 1950s-1980s era balloon framed vancouver bungalow to something built in the same era elsewhere in north america. guess what? they're not very different.

deep down duany, and every architecture acolyte knows the quality and aesthetic appeal of buildings boils down to circumstance and budget. yet duany persists with his slides and charrettes and his unnecessarily big words. furthermore, duany ISN'T a planner. he's an architect who designed funky miami-vice buildings, then abruptly switched over to nostalgic-LOOKING yet car dependent developments designed to appeal to peoples' fashion senses. ugh! it's just amazing how this guy continues to attract disciples to his very flawed yet well marketed developments.

[Hed Kandi]

I suggest everyone watch this:

http://www.sfu.ca/city/city_pgm_video014.htm

[SpongeG]

ugh hes pretentious

[slide_rule]

if you guys aren't tired of duany yet, his mouthpiece/sidekick/fellow conspirator leon krier has some high-sounding yet hollow piece of fluff in the city discussions section.

lots of talk about how a city should look and contain every possible function within walking distance (not gonna happen), all masquerading for the fact that leon krier shills for a bunch of developers who create classically proportioned sprawlburbs for gullible yuppies and poseurs. anyone been to cornell in markham?

[Phil McAvity]

Originally Posted by Hed Kandi

World-famous planner trashes Vancouver single-family-home architecture and more.

"You are here in Canada of the British tradition, in which planning is actually negotiated. The developer comes in and there's an elite bureaucracy that discusses with the developer what is to be done. It's very different from the American system. The American system is based on codes. We have rules. If you follow the rules, you can go ahead and build....The advantage of the American system is that it's much more efficient because you can't really be held up if you follow the code. The disadvantage is that it's extremely rigid. It takes a lot of creativity away. The disadvantage of the Anglo-Canadian system, with all the negotiations, is that you have an elite bureaucracy, and I believe your planners in Vancouver here for three generations have been absolutely elite. It's the main reason you have a really marvellous city and a certain amount of courage in your elected politicians, obviously. That negotiation also works very well. It also happens to be fantastically inefficient, which is one of the reasons you have a housing shortage and hideously expensive shortage. There's no way to accelerate it so there's a housing deficiency. You can get beautiful Vancouver with very expensive housing or hideous Houston, with very cheap housing. I suggest that you blend them a bit."

http://communities.canada.com/vancou...-and-more.aspx

^I don't get this paragraph. Firstly, he says, "It also happens to be fantastically inefficient, which is one of the reasons you have a housing shortage and hideously expensive shortage." A "hideously expensive shortage" of what? What the hell is he talking about? Finish the sentence! Secondly, he seems to be saying that municipal inefficiency is the reason houses are so expensive. Huh? Now maybe this guy's not familiar with the free market but i'm pretty sure that's the main reason houses in Vancouver are so expensive. It's called high school economics-the laws of supply and demand. While I am at least as keen as the next guy to criticize staggeringly inefficient municipal governments, I don't think they are the reason for high house prices. If municipal governments play any role in the high cost of houses in Vancouver, it's very minor. I also take exception with his comment that, "I believe your planners in Vancouver here for three generations have been absolutely elite. It's the main reason you have a really marvellous city...." So it's not the mountains or the ocean or the miles of beautiful beaches or the mighty Fraser River or Stanley Park or False Creek that makes Vancouver great, it's actually the generations of elite planners that make it so great.

I hardly think Duany's critique of Vancouver's suburban homes is the same as him "trashing Vancouver" either. In fact, he had many good things to say about the city so less hyperbole in the title would have been good.

[agrant]

That was a long video, but very interesting. He's a good speaker. I think the bulk of it made a lot of sense, some details maybe not. Loved his comment about plaza/parking lots in Europe vs parking lots here. You wouldn't feel as out of place or uncool dining at a cafe within parking lot that also acts as a plaza. Very true.

[fever]

Duany is best known for designing what he calls T3 suburbs, auto-dependent but otherwise well-designed suburbia. I'd be interested in seeing places he'd call T4-6 that he's designed, if he's designed any. How much experience does he have with urban "new urbanist" development?

I think he might be oversimplifying by trying to categorize with only six transects: Yaletown's form is much different from what is being attempted in SEFC, for example, and I would place both in T6.

Otherwise, his drawings look good and his ideas seem sound. What have been the results when applied to infill development in what he'd call T5, where Vancouver is most in need of good ideas? And how would he handle corridors that transition quickly on each side, for example from an infilled T5 Main or Kingsway to the adjacent T3 suburbia?

His discussion of urban design focuses a little too much on architecture. I think we should consider form separate from style (architecture), though both are important. While the neo-gothic Grace, for example, is much different than any typical Vancouver condo, the form is basically the same and both work quite well.

His elitest comment is hilarious considering where it's coming from, even if it's true.

[quobobo]

Originally Posted by Phil McAvity

^I don't get this paragraph. Firstly, he says, "It also happens to be fantastically inefficient, which is one of the reasons you have a housing shortage and hideously expensive shortage." A "hideously expensive shortage" of what? What the hell is he talking about? Finish the sentence!

I'm pretty sure that should read something like "which is one of the reasons you have a housing shortage and hideously expensive housing".

Secondly, he seems to be saying that municipal inefficiency is the reason houses are so expensive. Huh?

He said it's one reason, not the reason.

Now maybe this guy's not familiar with the free market but i'm pretty sure that's the main reason houses in Vancouver are so expensive. It's called high school economics-the laws of supply and demand. If municipal governments play any role in the high cost of houses in Vancouver, it's very minor.

And who regulates/limits supply? Long story short, many of our urban planning policies do have a noticeable impact on housing prices, whether through directly inflating building costs (permit delays like Duany mentions, requirements for amenities, etc) or blatantly limiting supply (height/density limits).

For a great example, take a look at our zoning map. I have a very hard time believing that zoning for only freestanding houses in about 75% of Vancouver has a minimal effect on housing supply (and correspondingly prices).

It's debatable whether or not this type of planning is beneficial, but I don't think there's any way to claim that the costs are minor.

[slide_rule]

ideally, vancouver would still retain its ALR, both to prevent further sprawl and to preserve agricultural land. vancouver neighborhoods without any outstanding architectural heritage (yes, the vast majority of vancouver is eligible to be redone) would be slowly upzoned with efficient mass transit, nodes of very high density, and higher density overall.

duany especially dislikes vancouver and portland, officially because he dislikes their lack of beauty, but he really wants the ability to develop large swaths of greenfield land to his liking. greenfield NU may be anachronistic, but they have consistently attractive aesthetics AND nice fat profits for his developer patrons.

[GMasterAres]

I could have swore that most homes in Vancouver (single family) were constructed oh between 1940 and 1960. It's kind of hard to pin bad policy today on policy upwards of 50 years ago. :-P It would be like blaming current governments on anything that happened in World War 2.

I would argue that where Vancouver fails is in requiring people to maintain the old homes in its districts. My sister lives in Kits and I am just amazed at how you can drive down a road like 3rd Avenue and from house to house see 1 house that looks absolutely amazing, all done up and kept up, nice lawn, hedgings, you name it, then you move to the next house and it looks like something out of Kabul with the house turned into 5-6 units of low income rental. Bad grass in the front, rotting steps, questionable electrical work and damage on the outside.

That's just a two homes next to each other. The bad looking home could look amazing with some maintenance. But Vancouver doesn't hold land/home owners to the fire. So is it _really_ bad home design? Or just owners that don't give a crap and as a result don't maintain their properties. Any home no matter how amazingly it is designed will look like garbage if the front lawn is filled with garbage, a rusted pickup on blocks, and the grass is all brown and torn up.

[slide_rule]

too bad vancouver wasn't built a few decades prior to that. cheaper materials and a surfeit of readily exploited labor would've resulted in grander houses.

i swear a lot of the poorly-maintained houses in wealthy areas are being held onto by old-timer owners. they're the ones who bought when housing was actually affordable. they're the house rich, cash poor crowd. now their places are looking increasingly modest when compared to their gentrified neighborhoods.