The Great Canadian Towns and Villages Thread

[Nashe]

I think his video only obliquely mentions the real issue until the end:

1) NA cities didn't plan for efficient land use, because it didn't HAVE to
2) NA citizens (for multiple reasons), didn't WANT to, either.

I agree that it would be a massive undertaking (and nearly impossible) to convert most NA cities, given that demand is only growing slowly for the kind of walkable/bikeable/transit-based cities that he likes. I see attempts in my own city, but it's difficult because it's kinda hard to move buildings and remove car infrastructure when it's being actually used.

[Truenorth00]

^ This is what makes the lack of effort in small towns so disappointing. Most of them, by definition can be made walkable. And most of them are empty 90% of the time.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by Architype

Here's a desert-like landscape in Newfoundland, it may be the most desert-like in Eastern Canada, sub-Arctic.



Google Maps link:
https://goo.gl/maps/ZxqtuA9t7byGJbjP6

wow. I never would have expected this

[MolsonExport]

Our auto-centric lifestyle is at the root of so many of our problems. Outside of the big cities, there have been little to no efforts made to change this.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

I love his tone.

I'm going to have to agree with ssiguy this time around.

I've met some people who have met Jason Slaughter, and the word on the street is that he's kind of a dipshit. He knows that cities in North America are making some progress on the urbanism front, but he deliberately downplays these in his videos to get clicks. It turns out you can rage farm walkable urbanism to dissatisfied North Americans.

To be perfectly honest, things are moving about as fast as they can on this front in Canadian cities. Rebuilding the entire built form toward something urban and walkable will take decades. In Toronto, for example, the transportation department has been very aggressive with building bike lanes, but they're not going to tear up a street to build cycle tracks until the road and all the associated infrastructure under it is due for replacement. Building separated bicycle lanes at the height of the sidewalk - which has been standard in the Netherlands for over 40 years now - requires moving the placement of storm drains ($$$), so unless this is up for immediate renewal, it's not going to happen. Despite this, the city still forges ahead with interim solutions like placing temporary concrete barriers beside newly-painted bike lanes at surface to make them separated from traffic, but still conform with existing infrastructure.

Same with his criticism of the GO train system. He trashed the one rail system that is going through the herculean transformation from a park-and-ride commuter train into a regional rail system. He slams GO for having mammoth parking lots and no TOD, despite the fact that:

- there are thousands of condo units planned or U/C near GO stations
- our train lines historically went past low-value industrial sites and getting developers to build residential there is only something possible in a housing crisis and boom;
- the provincial government changed and overrode existing municipal zoning to allow density within transit station areas
- they set up an office (Infrastructure Ontario) to work with private developers to plan and build TOD

It's for reasons like this that Canadian urbanist YouTubers like Reece Martin and Oh the Urbanity! have to create reaction videos to dispel the things NJB posts.

[niwell]

People like Jason Slaughter and the online YIMBY / Fuckcars movements represent a weird space where I agree with a significant percentage of their points but simultaneously find completely obnoxious. Videos like that one are pretty offputting to the average person IMO, and actually counterproductive even when they do make some good points.

[suburbanite]

Originally Posted by niwell

People like Jason Slaughter and the online YIMBY / Fuckcars movements represent a weird space where I agree with a significant percentage of their points but simultaneously find completely obnoxious. Videos like that one are pretty offputting to the average person IMO, and actually counterproductive even when they do make some good points.

Agreed. I don't find his videos that bad, but I get some posts that pop-up from fuckcars on my feed and it is often incredibly obnoxious. I don't tend to think that personally attacking car users is going to make them switch to alternative methods of transportation in a built environment that doesn't really allow for it. I'm more "build it and they will come" than "make fun of them until they hate what you build".

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by suburbanite

Agreed. I don't find his videos that bad, but I get some posts that pop-up from fuckcars on my feed and it is often incredibly obnoxious. I don't tend to think that personally attacking car users is going to make them switch to alternative methods of transportation in a built environment that doesn't really allow for it. I'm more "build it and they will come" than "make fun of them until they hate what you build".

This. Well put

[MolsonExport]

You can't "build it" when there isn't the political will. And there isn't the political will because of the general apathy of the population. Meanwhile we have to settle for a completely unsustainable and awful suburban landscape (which is were most Canadians live) dominated by stroads, F-150s, and Timmy drive thrus. Awful places (maybe not to those who are always in their vehicles).

[1overcosc]

A few from the Eastern Ontario highlands region. Most of the small villages in this area are not much to look at built-form wise and it's their natural settings that make them beautiful, but there's a few nice ones.

Douglas, Ontario


Barry's Bay, Ontario


Wilno, Ontario
This village is interesting as it was founded by Polish immigrants and to this day almost everyone who lives there is of Polish ancestry.

[megadude]

I hadn't before driven Highway 6 between Valens and the 401. Finally did on my way from Burlington to Guelph. I did not realize that the village of Morriston had a tiny main street. It's not much but really appreciate the historic architecture and the one building with colour. If only more places had the St. John's school of thought. Feel free to add some colour!

By the way, Guelph is easily one of the most underrated and under appreciated places in Canada. I don't know where the rough areas of Guelph are, but in the four or five times I've been around town, I am always impressed. Impressed by the architecture (old and new), the greenspace, housing stock (old and even newer homes, which aren't as offensive as in many other places) and even their student housing, industrial and strip retail/malls. Sure, a lot of it just run of the mill like anywhere else, but not as bad as other places. And I absolutely love their downtown.

Sometimes I do rankings/favourites of things in my head and sometimes I discuss with people when hanging out. If I were to do a ranking of downtowns of mid sized cities in Ontario, Guelph might be number 1. A contender with Kingston for that spot.

[csbvan]

Originally Posted by niwell

People like Jason Slaughter and the online YIMBY / Fuckcars movements represent a weird space where I agree with a significant percentage of their points but simultaneously find completely obnoxious. Videos like that one are pretty offputting to the average person IMO, and actually counterproductive even when they do make some good points.

Glad I'm not the only one! I agree with much of the movement's ideas (not all). But they're so bad at messaging I feel like I should be constantly against them.

[ssiguy]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

You can't "build it" when there isn't the political will. And there isn't the political will because of the general apathy of the population. Meanwhile we have to settle for a completely unsustainable and awful suburban landscape (which is were most Canadians live) dominated by stroads, F-150s, and Timmy drive thrus. Awful places (maybe not to those who are always in their vehicles).

I agree with you and I think most on this forum do as well but that is not the point and you know it. Intelligent individuals do not make their point by denigrating everyone else. It's both offensive and undermines the point you are trying to make.

Let's take his "fake London" as an example. He shows 2 pictures of London, one at Wonderland & Oxford and the other in front of the train station like somehow all of London is like that. Amsterdam doesn't have big box commercial stripes? Why not a lovely picture of Amsterdam's monstrous rail yards? Funny how he doesn't show off Amsterdam's monstrous urban ethnic ghettos and the horrors of being Europe's sex slave capitol with an estimated 20 to 25k sex slaves ply their trade............I don't think being a sex slave in a walkable and cycling city makes those poor souls feel any better.

If comparing one city's downtown why does he only show Amsterdam's beautiful areas but not London's? London is home to many gorgeous downtown neighbourhoods with beautiful institutional, Edwardian, and Victorian homes on tree lined streets. The city's to die for park system and Thames River Valley and it's many walking and biking trails. Why not mention how London DOESN'T have an urban freeway ripping up the urban fabric, built a new Market, a downtown arena with no surface parking, turning the city's main downtown corridor into a flex street, it's new bus-only lane BRT, or it's new zoning regulations that cut parking requirements 40% city wide and no parking requirements with 3 to 4 block of a regular transit route? Why miss Western which is always considered one of the most beautiful campuses in the country?

Does London sprawl? Of course and it certainly has it's fair share of big box but the city also has a strict urban growth boundary which again he always fails to mention and the city is actively engaging urban infill. He compares downtown Amsterdam with suburban London and then wonders why so many find him obnoxious, disingenuous, and arrogant.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

It's for reasons like this that Canadian urbanist YouTubers like Reece Martin and Oh the Urbanity! have to create reaction videos to dispel the things NJB posts.

Thought this was a pretty funny, not-so-subtle jab at NJB:

• Video Link


Count me in as another who can't stand NJB. His videos are generally informative, and I'm happy to see an urbanism channel become so popular and bring these concepts further into the mainstream; but the sanctimonious, braying tone (he sounds like an unfunny John Wilson) is unwatchable. More to the point, as others have noted his clickbaity dismissiveness of North American urbanism is inaccurate and unhelpful. He lost me at this one of "how Toronto got addicted to cars" for example - it's from 2022, yet almost entirely focused on the politics of the Rob Ford era with barely a footnote at the end of the massive transit & bike infrastructure expansion that's happened in the years since. Seems like kind of an important omission.

[someone123]

I lost interest in NJB pretty quickly a while ago. I figured he was somebody who had the born again experience in Europe and isn't in touch with a wide range of modern Canadian urbanism and the live issues around different parts of the country. When I watched he gave a lot of negative examples from London ON, not that there's anything wrong with that, but it didn't really reflect the areas and issues I am interested in. I am not that upset by stroads. They do exist. I used to go to a stroad to shop at IKEA maybe once a year. I don't think those areas will all be retrofitted to look like Amsterdam.

[Tone]

Photos prises en août dernier

[urbandreamer]

Only recently I heard about Douglas, Ontario because I came across a long ago Orthodox Mennonite girl I knew, who's moved there along with a bunch of her fellow horse and buggy plain people. Perhaps next year I'll explore the area on a camping trip.

[Kilgore Trout]

I'm a bit late to the NJB discussion but...

I think that, fundamentally, NJB is right about most of North America. There's a fundamental lack of human dignity built into the suburban landscape. And I also think his analysis of urban landscapes and why they work or don't work is pretty on point. A lot of people forget that he has videos praising Toronto's older neighbourhoods and explaining how driving can be necessary and car share systems are important. But as his popularity has grown he has definitely become more iconoclastic. I think his videos are engaging, which is why he has so many viewers, but they're often lacking in nuance, especially when it comes to North America.

NJB was in Montreal in August and apparently he's preparing a video about the city. I'm looking forward to seeing it, because if he trashes it in a snarky way — like, "Look, this is the best North America has to offer and it still sucks!" — then I think we can be sure he's jumped the shark. But I still have faith that he is capable of level-headed analysis.

Let's not forget that most of the built environment in North America is awful. That's particularly pertinent when it comes to small towns because, as NJB pointed out in his most recent video, the average small Dutch town is perfectly pleasant and walkable, whereas we have to really hunt for nice towns here that haven't been destroyed by car dependency. It's a real shame that the only places in North America where you don't have to rely on a car are a handful of urban neighbourhoods, when what we deserve is to be able to live in suburbs and small towns without absolutely needing cars to get around. That's the fundamental point NJB is trying to make.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by Kilgore Trout

Let's not forget that most of the built environment in North America is awful. That's particularly pertinent when it comes to small towns because, as NJB pointed out in his most recent video, the average small Dutch town is perfectly pleasant and walkable, whereas we have to really hunt for nice towns here that haven't been destroyed by car dependency. It's a real shame that the only places in North America where you don't have to rely on a car are a handful of urban neighbourhoods, when what we deserve is to be able to live in suburbs and small towns without absolutely needing cars to get around. That's the fundamental point NJB is trying to make.

I don't think anyone here disagrees with NJB's fundamental take. Speaking just for myself, I disagree with his tactics. At this point, he's not just preaching to the choir, but by being condescending and pumping out videos like this, his goal seems to be to get clicks and likes, not to encourage North American urbanism.

---

On the subject of small town urbanism, I think it's important to distinguish a town of 10,000 in the Netherlands from a town of 10,000 in North America.

North America is made up of metropoli of several million people, with large suburban belts and then things get rapidly rural (in Canada) or exurban (in the US). The Netherlands - more so than even other European countries - is effectively one large megalopolis made up of small and medium-sized towns operating as sub-regional nodes.

The closest analogy to a Dutch small town would be the handful of independent bedroom communities within commuting distance of our largest cities. These places - like Schomberg, ON or Chambly, QC - attract middle class professionals who would probably value things like walkability to some extent (obviously less than true dyed-in-the-wool urbanites), or investing in recreational bike trails and downtown revitalization that looks nice. They have the tax base to pay for some of this, and the population growth to experiment with this in new developments. Saying that places like this could do more to be walkable and connected to other places without needing a car is fair game.

But if you travel an hour further out, you get to towns where they don't have the money, the growth or the values to prioritize this. I'm not talking about remote towns hundreds of kilometers away in the boreal forest. Since so much of our economic growth is concentrated around big cities, even small towns in Southern Ontario or Quebec about two hours away from Toronto or Montreal would find it hard to justify spending big bucks to change their infrastructure as their population ages and shrinks.

[niwell]

As someone who owns property in a small town about 2 hours from Toronto (Napanee) I can report that if one wants it can be in fact walkable. It helps that our place is in the older part of town - and that the town wasn't growing that fast till recently - but you can access most things on foot. Downtown is less than 10 minutes away, but I can in fact get to the edge of the industrial area flanking the 401 in less than 30. No Frills in just over 20.

The problem is those areas only take a few minutes by driving, and it is much more convenient unlike in Toronto. And walking into the industrial/commercial area is pretty hostile despite having sidewalks. If the desire was there upgrades wouldn't be that expensive - downtown is already pretty nice and the older part of town is fairly pleasant to walk through. New midrise condos are going in downtown which will feature a retail flanked square so there's hope for the future. Also a surprising amount of lot subdivision which are mostly being built upon for rental properties. The VIA station is about 5 minutes from downtown on foot and if frequency was improved it would be much more desirable to get to and from. Though having 2 dogs it likely won't benefit us personally!