Is this Low Density

[Riise]

Originally Posted by speedog

The only time you're going to move away from low density is when multi-floor, multi-unit developments start to appear.

There was a thread in the City Discussion section and Japanese neighbourhoods were mentioned. Even primarily single-detached neighbourhoods in Japan achieve an impressive level of density. They look much different to most of the original pictures here though.

[hipster duck]

The difference between Victorian urban semi-detached neighbourhoods and recent semi-detached subdivisions is that:

1. Many of the Victorian neighbourhoods contain multiple dwelling units within the same property. A lot of those Victorian Bay and Gables are actually a series of apartments.

2. The roads are considerably narrower in pre-war neighbourhoods. Roads gobble up a lot of space. If you superimposed the road right of way onto that of the Victorian street, it would probably end up in most people's living rooms.

3. One of the reasons those new subdivisions appear to look dense is because the homes themselves are actually quite large and fill out the lot. The Victorian homes are much narrower and smaller, and so are their lot sizes.

[TorontoDrew]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

All of those are fantastic. The third is weakest, but even that's better than the example in the original post.

The last one is near Little Portugal and Little Italy. For some reason the homes in that part of the city aren't kept up as you'll find elsewhere. They also seem to love wrought iron fencing and statues which don't work well with the old Victorian designs. The hipsters taking over will see much of that area change and look more like the first examples. I just wanted to show a selection from across the core to show what the inner city really looks like and how dense it is.

[wg_flamip]

Originally Posted by TorontoDrew

The last one is near Little Portugal and Little Italy. For some reason the homes in that part of the city aren't kept up as you'll find elsewhere. They also seem to love wrought iron fencing and statues which don't work well with the old Victorian designs. The hipsters taking over will see much of that area change and look more like the first examples. I just wanted to show a selection from across the core to show what the inner city really looks like and how dense it is.

I actually kind of like that fenced-in yard with a statue of the Virgin and a patch of azulejos slapped up next to the door look. It works better on the otherwise plain Edwardians you find a bit West and a bit North of Little Portugal proper though. I mean, it's not pretty, but it's home.

[TorontoDrew]

Lol I forgot about the Virgin Mary bathroom tiles slapped up on the brick by the doors. That ads an extra $50,000 to your property. I'm not a fan of the Edwardian Era homes either. The beaches and hoods north of bloor are dominated by them.

[RueBulmer]

continuing way off subject, there was a Greek palace near my brother's place in Toronto. I don't know Toronto well enough to tell you which street but he lived in a much newer row house on Walmer just below Casa Loma. The Greek palace was south across the tracks and west, perhaps west of The Annex? Or is that still the Annex?

[speedog]

Originally Posted by Riise

There was a thread in the City Discussion section and Japanese neighbourhoods were mentioned. Even primarily single-detached neighbourhoods in Japan achieve an impressive level of density. They look much different to most of the original pictures here though.

Good point.

I'd be interested to see some pictures of such in this thread but it appears that most of the posters in this thread are intent on debating/discussing things other than 'what low density is or is not'.

So continuing on in harmony with this thread's direction, Carl's Jr opened up here recently - worth checking out or not?

[Innsertnamehere]

meh. Went to the one in Toronto when it opened, it's not that cheap, but not that bad either. It's right down the street from burgers priest though so I'm not sure why anyone wouldn't just go there.

[casper]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

meh. Went to the one in Toronto when it opened, it's not that cheap, but not that bad either. It's right down the street from burgers priest though so I'm not sure why anyone wouldn't just go there.

Trying to tie this back to topic of the threat. As density increases it becomes more viable to have subscale burger joints. With lower density your stuck with McDonalds and the odd Burger King. Higher density equals burger diversity.

Actually another trend that is driving up density in older neighborhoods on the west coast (well lets say Vancouver) is laneway homes. Older Vancouver neighborhoods typically have back lanes. Usually these are dominated by detached garages. The trend now is to put in two story structure with a single car garage and a smaller (lets something like 800 sq ft) apartment. The city has also zoned much of the city to permit secondary suits in basements. These two factors is increasing density. The same is occurring with new construction in established neighborhoods. I have not seen this trend in any new neighborhoods.

[speedog]

Lane way homes, starting to see them in both older and brand new communities in Calgary although I don't think we'll see many of them.

Secondary suites, man, that is quite a boondoggle in Calgary - plenty of illegal ones, some legal ones and the city just seems unwilling or unable to figure out how to deal with secondary suites.

[Hali87]

Originally Posted by casper

Actually another trend that is driving up density in older neighborhoods on the west coast (well lets say Vancouver) is laneway homes. Older Vancouver neighborhoods typically have back lanes. Usually these are dominated by detached garages. The trend now is to put in two story structure with a single car garage and a smaller (lets something like 800 sq ft) apartment. The city has also zoned much of the city to permit secondary suits in basements. These two factors is increasing density. The same is occurring with new construction in established neighborhoods. I have not seen this trend in any new neighborhoods.

This is starting to happen here as well, although a bit differently because the context is different. There aren't really back lanes here, and many areas have zoning that restricts each lot to a single dwelling building - so the secondary suites have to be connected to the original house by some kind of breezeway or atrium in order to make it all "one building". There have actually been some very creative results, although I'd rather just see them update the law to get rid of that technicality.

Then of course there are entire neighbourhoods of SFH's divided into multi-unit apartment buildings/flats/rooming houses (the lines between these arrangements tend to be a bit blurred often with shared entrances, etc). Would these be considered secondary suites in Calgary? Or is it only when extra units are renovated onto an existing house?

[TorontoDrew]

Originally Posted by RueBulmer

continuing way off subject, there was a Greek palace near my brother's place in Toronto. I don't know Toronto well enough to tell you which street but he lived in a much newer row house on Walmer just below Casa Loma. The Greek palace was south across the tracks and west, perhaps west of The Annex? Or is that still the Annex?

Is it the house where they've stuck a statue on pretty much anyplace they can?

From blogto

[Docere]

Originally Posted by softee

Well, that old inner city area is actually a street in Leaside, which is kind of a special case -- a former incorporated town (Inc. 1913) that was developed as a pre-war "model suburb" and eventually became part of the borough of East York.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaside

Yeah, I wouldn't called Leaside an "old inner city area." It wasn't really developed until the 1930s and 1940s - after the City of Toronto was pretty much fully built up.

Forest Hill and Leaside were pretty much Toronto's first automobile suburbs.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by TorontoDrew

Is it the house where they've stuck a statue on pretty much anyplace they can?

From blogto

I think this is on Crawford or Shaw, north of Bloor.