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  #1  
Old Posted Aug 8, 2018, 11:16 PM
Docere Docere is offline
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Do you wish Canada had Westchester/Main Line type suburbs?

Bad in terms of sprawl, but they're very nice aesthetically compared to cookie cutter postwar suburbia.
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  #2  
Old Posted Aug 8, 2018, 11:34 PM
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Any info available for people not familiar with these suburbs?
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  #3  
Old Posted Aug 9, 2018, 4:41 PM
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I agree with Nouvellecosse, but to answer your question YES.

https://www.google.ca/maps/@41.03246...7i13312!8i6656
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  #4  
Old Posted Aug 9, 2018, 6:29 PM
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I think the closest thing we have to them here would be the Lakeshore West line suburbs along Lake Ontario, from southern Mississauga through to Oakville and Burlington. But yes, they're certainly a more preferable style of suburban development to the banality of the Pickerings and Markhams of the world, even if a little less dense.
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  #5  
Old Posted Aug 9, 2018, 6:46 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin View Post
I think the closest thing we have to them here would be the Lakeshore West line suburbs along Lake Ontario, from southern Mississauga through to Oakville and Burlington. But yes, they're certainly a more preferable style of suburban development to the banality of the Pickerings and Markhams of the world, even if a little less dense.
I was thinking of those too, but the ones in the U.S. tend to be posher. Think of the look of Rosedale and Forest Hill but in the suburbs.
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  #6  
Old Posted Aug 9, 2018, 7:09 PM
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I think Metro Vancouver's various offerings like New West or even West Van are similar on some level.
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  #7  
Old Posted Aug 9, 2018, 7:38 PM
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Originally Posted by Franco401 View Post
I think Metro Vancouver's various offerings like New West or even West Van are similar on some level.

New West is a bit of a different animal (not really a suburb in the same sense, and more traditionally industrial), but Vancouver's north shore suburbs are definitely of a similar typology - just in more of a west coast geographic context. A bit more Marin County than Westchester.
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Old Posted Aug 9, 2018, 8:09 PM
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Bedford NS evolved for a time as this type of suburb. It had commuter rail starting in the late 1800's. The little train station is still there but no trains stop there. Commuter rail service may resume in the next few years.

There are lots of nice early 20th century homes on the older streets (though some sadly have been demolished for McMansions), and a few old commercial buildings along the main street (Bedford Highway, which is not a highway in the modern sense).

In recent years it has grown a lot but the new development is typical suburban sprawl for the area. Lots of multi-unit but completely car oriented.

Rockingham was another suburb along the same route.
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  #9  
Old Posted Aug 9, 2018, 8:58 PM
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Never heard of either suburb.
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  #10  
Old Posted Aug 9, 2018, 10:43 PM
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I'm not that familiar with the term but looking at the street view, my impression is that it's something like North York for Toronto. Some of them evoke the "North York centre" feel in terms of connection to, and position, just north of the old city, the way those suburbs do for "the city" in terms of NYC's metro.
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  #11  
Old Posted Aug 9, 2018, 10:44 PM
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North York is nothing like Westchester.
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Old Posted Aug 9, 2018, 10:48 PM
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Well, I was just vaguely going off the similarity that North York is an area that has "rich suburbs" some distance north of, but still linked in some geographical way to the old city like York Mills, Bridle Path etc. just like Westchester is the rich northern suburbs for its city, and also that this streetview had to North York Centre.

Quote:
Originally Posted by TorontoDrew View Post
I agree with Nouvellecosse, but to answer your question YES.

https://www.google.ca/maps/@41.03246...7i13312!8i6656
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  #13  
Old Posted Aug 9, 2018, 10:49 PM
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Originally Posted by Acajack View Post
I was thinking of those too, but the ones in the U.S. tend to be posher. Think of the look of Rosedale and Forest Hill but in the suburbs.
Yeah in older US cities that were already huge a century ago - the "Rosedale" type areas in the suburbs.

You get a sort of Rosedale/Forest Hill/North Toronto feel in outer NW DC though (Toronto and Washington DC were similar sized urban areas in 1940).
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  #14  
Old Posted Aug 10, 2018, 5:16 AM
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Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin View Post
I think the closest thing we have to them here would be the Lakeshore West line suburbs along Lake Ontario, from southern Mississauga through to Oakville and Burlington. But yes, they're certainly a more preferable style of suburban development to the banality of the Pickerings and Markhams of the world, even if a little less dense.
Southern Mississauga, Oakville, Burlington have almost non-existent local bus service compared to central and northern Mississauga, Markham and Pickering. Southern Mississauga isn't a "little less dense" than the rest of Mississauga, it's A LOT less denser.

Mississauga-Lakeshore: 1,960.8 people/sqkm
vs.
Mississauga Centre: 5,410.1 people/sqkm
Mississauga East-Cooksville: 3,747.6 people/sqkm
Mississauga-Erin Mills: 3,631.0 people/sqkm
Mississauga-Streetsville: 2,547.8 people/sqkm

If the rest of Mississauga was built like the southern parts, then Mississauga would have only half the population. The urban footprint of the GTA would be twice as large, and transit would be a lot more inefficient (e.g. Westchester's Bee-Line Bus has half the ridership of MiWay despite serving a 30% larger population).

If lower density and the isolation that comes with it is more exciting for you, then go live on a farm. But if the urban footprint of the GTA was twice as large, there wouldn't be much farms left.
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  #15  
Old Posted Aug 10, 2018, 12:44 PM
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Originally Posted by isaidso View Post
Never heard of either suburb.

Exactly. Maybe some can add some context to the examples for those of us who have no idea what is being discussed.
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  #16  
Old Posted Aug 10, 2018, 12:55 PM
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In Montreal, there's Beaconsfield and Baie d'Urfé.
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  #17  
Old Posted Aug 10, 2018, 1:07 PM
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I also have no clue what a suburb a la Westchester or Main Line looks like. Apparently Westchester is a very large suburb/county north of the Bronx and I tried to look around a bit but I am not sure what the TC is referring to.

Are we talking about something like this? or that?

Last edited by le calmar; Aug 10, 2018 at 1:30 PM.
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  #18  
Old Posted Aug 10, 2018, 1:13 PM
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I don't like either.
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  #19  
Old Posted Aug 10, 2018, 2:27 PM
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A history of the Philly-area main line which I think the OP was referring to.

My understanding is that this basically refers to suburban towns built along rail lines stemming from large northeastern metro areas in the U.S. Predating the car, they have solid walkable main streets and small CBDs themselves, and tend to have larger more palatial houses. In the NYC area you've got all of the towns between the Hudson River and Long Island Sound, north of the city proper, stretching up into Connecticut.

I don't know about the history of rail access, but some of the suburbs on Montreal's west island seem to fit the bill: Pointe Claire, Baie d'Urfe, etc.

As Someone123 mentioned, the Halifax metro region has some of this too, akin to a micro version of what you see in the Boston metro region. They tend to wrap around the Bedford Basin and extend north. Bedford would be the most developed. Places like Fall River and Windsor Junction might fall into this too, but because of much slower growth they don't really have much in the way of commercial cores or anything like that, and feel much more rural. Some large estates and stuff out that way though.

You can see a tiny bit of this in Saint John, NB, too, in communities along the rail line, like Rothesay and Quispamsis, where you've got these historic little junctions and turn-of-the-century subdivisions, Cape Cod-looking streets.
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  #20  
Old Posted Aug 10, 2018, 2:55 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Doady View Post
Southern Mississauga, Oakville, Burlington have almost non-existent local bus service compared to central and northern Mississauga, Markham and Pickering. Southern Mississauga isn't a "little less dense" than the rest of Mississauga, it's A LOT less denser.

Mississauga-Lakeshore: 1,960.8 people/sqkm
vs.
Mississauga Centre: 5,410.1 people/sqkm
Mississauga East-Cooksville: 3,747.6 people/sqkm
Mississauga-Erin Mills: 3,631.0 people/sqkm
Mississauga-Streetsville: 2,547.8 people/sqkm

If the rest of Mississauga was built like the southern parts, then Mississauga would have only half the population. The urban footprint of the GTA would be twice as large, and transit would be a lot more inefficient (e.g. Westchester's Bee-Line Bus has half the ridership of MiWay despite serving a 30% larger population).

I'm not sure what's included in each area (though at 2,000/sqkm it's only a little less dense than the Mississauga-wide average of 2,500/sqkm - not half) and if that includes Port Credit, or the industrial areas, etc; but regardless, the idea with these sort of railroad suburbs is that you have a dense, walkable, traditionally urban town centre located around a train station, surrounded by lower-density SFH.

So the density levels should - at least in theory - roughly even out between the two, all else being equal; with the higher density of the TOD town centres offsetting the lower density of the surrounding houses. The big difference is that the first type here provides a greater diversity of housing types and is better at providing both "urban" and "suburban" accomodations, and in a more attractive way:









Quote:
If lower density and the isolation that comes with it is more exciting for you, then go live on a farm. But if the urban footprint of the GTA was twice as large, there wouldn't be much farms left.

This is kind of funny. For the record, I wouldn't like to live in either - I'm a city person, myself - but, most of the people living in the suburbs probably would rather live on a farm than in a neighbourhood of packed-in houses, given the option. That's why they live in the suburbs and not in the city. People aren't moving to places like Brampton and Vaughan for the density and vibrant urban life.
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