Canadian Cities: population living in tall buildings (5 storey+)

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally Posted by Harrison

Tallest...outside Toronto, Vancouver and possibly Calgary? Need some clarification here.

Tallest residential tower in Edmonton. (although I do believe Encore's podium is commercial) That's all. We've come a long ways, height wise, since 2006.

[Denscity]

Originally Posted by Xelebes

The increases of note:

Toronto: +9% [40% gain in share]
Ottawa-gatineau: +3% [27% gain]
Hamilton: +5% [32% gain]
London: +7% [68% gain]
Winnipeg: +4% [50% gain]
Vancouver: +9% [109% gain]
Kitchener: +4% [57% gain]
Montreal: +3% [47% gain]
Halifax: +6% [102% gain]
Quebec: +2% [53% gain]
Calgary: +2% [57% gain]
Edmonton: +1% [35% gain]
Victoria:+3% [113% gain]
Saskatoon: +1% [23% gain]
Regina: +2% [50% gain]

Vancouver and Victoria at the top with an over 100% increase each!

Thought Toronto would be higher.

[WhipperSnapper]

Toronto gained the same as Vancouver. 9% is pretty crazy. The lower gain as a percentage of the total only means that Toronto has a larger, maturer market than Vancouver for dwellings over 5 floors.

[Pinion]

Originally Posted by eemy

I'm not too surprised by Ottawa and Hamilton. They both have a lot of residential high rise buildings. I am quite a bit surprised that Vancouver doesn't have a higher proportion of residents in tall buildings though. I guess their predominance ends when you leave downtown?

Metro Vancouver has close to 10 significant suburban residential skylines scattered across the valley, I've never seen anything like it in North America at least.

But there's lots of sfh too.

[softee]

Originally Posted by Pinion

Metro Vancouver has close to 10 significant suburban residential skylines scattered across the valley, I've never seen anything like it in North America at least.

Toronto also has at least a dozen significant skylines, and dozens more smaller clusters of hi-rises scattered across the metro area.

[TorontoDrew]

I was kind of expecting Vancouver and Toronto to be neck and neck. I wonder how we fare against other global cities. Manhattan must be at 80% or more, same with San Paolo, and Hong Kong.

[SaskOttaLoo]

Originally Posted by Bad Grizzly

Agreed. This is a good trend for the country to have.

Calgary's numbers will move up, but unfortunately the percentage probably won't. With respect to new buildings over 5 storeys, we have several thousand units planned or u/c. I believe the number is around 10,000, with almost all in the core. This is a good sign, but suburban single family housing is still going strong as well.

It's interesting...I used to be all about density but now I'm less enthused. I think Montreal's Mile End / Plateau neighbourhoods are the ideal in terms of density. I haven't lived in a +10 story building, but there seem to be some real trade-offs in terms of the ability to build a community with your neighbours that's more difficult. I was speaking to a friend from London UK last week, and he was shocked when I mentioned that so many Canadian high rises are residential. He said - and I haven't looked it up to confirm - that in London the vast majority of the high rises are for commercial purposes and that people don't want to live in them. If true, I think that's really interesting given how much higher the population density is in London. Then again, apparently it's the same in Tokyo - so many people live in small townhouses, not in massive condo buildings.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by SaskOttaLoo

It's interesting...I used to be all about density but now I'm less enthused. I think Montreal's Mile End / Plateau neighbourhoods are the ideal in terms of density. I haven't lived in a +10 story building, but there seem to be some real trade-offs in terms of the ability to build a community with your neighbours that's more difficult. I was speaking to a friend from London UK last week, and he was shocked when I mentioned that so many Canadian high rises are residential. He said - and I haven't looked it up to confirm - that in London the vast majority of the high rises are for commercial purposes and that people don't want to live in them. If true, I think that's really interesting given how much higher the population density is in London. Then again, apparently it's the same in Tokyo - so many people live in small townhouses, not in massive condo buildings.

I'd be very surprised if the bolded part is true. It might apply to central London, but greater London has huge numbers of residential highrises. Maybe he was too posh to ever venture beyond zone 1...

[GreaterMontréal]

Originally Posted by SaskOttaLoo

It's interesting...I used to be all about density but now I'm less enthused. I think Montreal's Mile End / Plateau neighbourhoods are the ideal in terms of density. I haven't lived in a +10 story building, but there seem to be some real trade-offs in terms of the ability to build a community with your neighbours that's more difficult. I was speaking to a friend from London UK last week, and he was shocked when I mentioned that so many Canadian high rises are residential. He said - and I haven't looked it up to confirm - that in London the vast majority of the high rises are for commercial purposes and that people don't want to live in them. If true, I think that's really interesting given how much higher the population density is in London. Then again, apparently it's the same in Tokyo - so many people live in small townhouses, not in massive condo buildings.

not only Mile-End / Plateau

Le Sud-Ouest (which includes Griffintown) : 80k+
Villeray-Saint-Michel-Parc Extension : 150k
Rosemont-La Petite Patrie : 145k
Ahuntsic-Cartierville : 140k
Mercier-Hochelaga-Maisonneuve : 140k
etc .

I would say , the total triplex neighbourhoods population is well above 1M.

[TownGuy]

Originally Posted by softee

Toronto also has at least a dozen significant skylines, and dozens more smaller clusters of hi-rises scattered across the metro area.

Yep pretty much. This is just in one direction and as you can see there are little skylines, clusters, whatever, all over the place.


Toronto from Above by Preston Kwan, on Flickr

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by SaskOttaLoo

I haven't lived in a +10 story building, but there seem to be some real trade-offs in terms of the ability to build a community with your neighbours that's more difficult.

I don't think we should put too much stock in community building or social capital, or whatever it's called.

Generally speaking, the things that negatively affect the amount people interact with their neighbours are things that we urbanists tend to like: density, renting, different social classes and ethnicities living in close proximity to one another, etc.

If you want to have people talk to their neighbours, build a neighbourhood of single family detached homes on a cul-de-sac that are geared toward one specific income and demographic.

[vanman]

Originally Posted by Xelebes

The increases of note:

Toronto: +9% [40% gain in share]
Ottawa-gatineau: +3% [27% gain]
Hamilton: +5% [32% gain]
London: +7% [68% gain]
Winnipeg: +4% [50% gain]
Vancouver: +9% [109% gain]
Kitchener: +4% [57% gain]
Montreal: +3% [47% gain]
Halifax: +6% [102% gain]
Quebec: +2% [53% gain]
Calgary: +2% [57% gain]
Edmonton: +1% [35% gain]
Victoria:+3% [113% gain]
Saskatoon: +1% [23% gain]
Regina: +2% [50% gain]

This completely goes against the grain of the empty highrise condo hyperbole that is prevalent in Vancouver at least. More people than ever are living in towers.

In BC's case the modification of the building code in 2009 allowing 6 story wood frame buildings must have made quite an impact on the current stats.

[Capsicum]

Originally Posted by TorontoDrew

I was kind of expecting Vancouver and Toronto to be neck and neck. I wonder how we fare against other global cities. Manhattan must be at 80% or more, same with San Paolo, and Hong Kong.

To be fair, Manhattan is only one part of NYC itself let alone the metro, so it's obviously going to be hard to top, since the Toronto number is CMA, the metro area if not NYC would be a fairer comparison.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

I'd be very surprised if the bolded part is true. It might apply to central London, but greater London has huge numbers of residential highrises. Maybe he was too posh to ever venture beyond zone 1...

Yep, London has thousands of mostly-residential high-rises.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

I don't think we should put too much stock in community building or social capital, or whatever it's called.

Generally speaking, the things that negatively affect the amount people interact with their neighbours are things that we urbanists tend to like: density, renting, different social classes and ethnicities living in close proximity to one another, etc.

If you want to have people talk to their neighbours, build a neighbourhood of single family detached homes on a cul-de-sac that are geared toward one specific income and demographic.

I would also counter that meeting up with your neighbours on your cul-de-sac is just one form of community building, and it often doesn't happen anyway.

In healthy cities community building is a diverse activity that takes many forms. Communities can be based on lots of things other than proximity, perhaps because so many people live near you in an urban setting that proximity is not a big deal and you can specialize more than that with your social groups.

I think there are other fundamental social factors that are so much more important than built form of housing that built form is clearly a second-order concern. If you don't have a stable income and you can't afford housing in the first place or have any free time because you are too overworked then you cannot participate meaningfully in any community. We should be talking about structuring housing development so that it serves these fundamental goals of affordability and accessibility or ease of movement. Canadian cities are actively failing at these goals.

The fact that we have one portion of society setting the agenda based on block parties and having places for their kids to play road hockey while another portion struggles to find any place to live or have any kind of social life is terrible.