The Great Canadian Sprawl Thread!

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by GreaterMontréal

oui et non, moi ça me prend ma voiture, conduire fait partie des 3 choses que j'aime faire le plus. .

Et les deux autres?

OK, laisse faire...

[Spring2008]

I feel the same way about the city sometimes. Cgy had the wrong model in place, 50% of the growth since 2011 has been in established areas though. In the SE alone you have new large mixed-use communities of Seton, Mackenzie Town, and Quarry Park. Radiating southwest of downtown you have new infill development plus mixed-use with main streets etc going all the way up through Bankview, Marda-Loop, Currie-Barracks, Garrison Woods etc

Majority of the neighbourhoods in the west side and north are being planned as mid density mixed-use as well. Not saying Cgy's the poster child for innovative planning but lots more happening with Next City/Planit etc than the cgy gets credit for. Being a uni-city doesn't make it conducive to totally put the brakes on sfh either. In the big metros the sprawl just shows up more in the surrounding municipalities.

[SHOFEAR]

Grids are expensive. You create a very inefficient road network that is highly overbuilt and has terrible lot frontage ratios. The fact that new development like this is extremely rare (western Canada) just shows you that demand for it just does not exist.

Don't get me wrong, if I moved into a SFH it would be a mature neighborhood with grids. I love them....and I would value it enough to pay the premium, people like us are the exception.

[1overcosc]

Pure grids are still very rare in Ontario for new development, but newer developments do have generally linear street patterns.

In Ottawa, several new areas have been laid out by the city, and the developer has to follow the street pattern.

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by Spring2008

I feel the same way about the city sometimes. Cgy had the wrong model in place, 50% of the growth since 2011 has been in established areas though. In the SE alone you have new large mixed-use communities of Seton, Mackenzie Town, and Quarry Park. Radiating southwest of downtown you have new infill development plus mixed-use with main streets etc going all the way up through Bankview, Marda-Loop, Currie-Barracks, Garrison Woods etc

Really? It'd be cool if that's true, definitely. But this 2012 story indicates that Calgary will "endeavour" to get up to 33 percent of growth in established areas--by 2039. Presumably it's well below that right now?

(Also, I have to rant about McKenzie Towne--I have relatives living there so I'm pretty familiar with it. It may be mixed-use, but it's still greenfield development, it's architecturally abysmal, and it's still very car dependent. It's also got two blocks' worth of kitschy olde-towne main street, but immediately beyind that is two square blocks of parking spaces. It's not really engineered to be walkable, but to appear walkable.)

Garrison Woods is genuinely good, though.

[1overcosc]

50% doesn't sound unreasonable... for the most part, that's what the GTA and the Ottawa are achieving.

[Acajack]

New SFH areas in Ottawa:

http://goo.gl/maps/ep4In

New SFH areas in Gatineau:

http://goo.gl/maps/3Kzu8

[Spring2008]

I read it in one of Rollin Stanley's blog posts , I'll see if I can dig it up . Most of the inner burbs have been stagnating or slightly negative but inner city and existing SW and NW neighbourhood growth has generally been very strong in recent years.

Originally Posted by Drybrain

Really? It'd be cool if that's true, definitely. But this 2012 story indicates that Calgary will "endeavour" to get up to 33 percent of growth in established areas--by 2039. Presumably it's well below that right now?

(Also, I have to rant about McKenzie Towne--I have relatives living there so I'm pretty familiar with it. It may be mixed-use, but it's still greenfield development, it's architecturally abysmal, and it's still very car dependent. It's also got two blocks' worth of kitschy olde-towne main street, but immediately beyind that is two square blocks of parking spaces. It's not really engineered to be walkable, but to appear walkable.)

Garrison Woods is genuinely good, though.

[niwell]

I wonder how that 50% is calculated?

It was reported that many of the municipalities in the GGH are well above their 40% intensification targets not long after places to grow was put into place. Problem was, the urban boundary wasn't well defined at the time and much of this growth was near the periphery in neighbourhoods that weren't fully built out, or residual high density lots near the fringe. Regardless, Calgary has a fair amount of intensification going on right now.

[Calgarian]

There's the Calgary suburbs I was waiting to see. It's amazing that people just eat that shit up and look down on anyone who doesn't live exactly the same way as they do. In regards to McKenzie Towne, the high street is nice, but then you have that clusterfuck of a powercentre on 130th where everyone in the area goes to do their actual shopping. That place is the worst planned eyesore in the entire city, I flat out refuse to live in the area because of it!

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

Garrison Woods is genuinely good, though.

I was going to mention this development. Of course it is in no way suburban and the road network still doesn't look that great, but it shows that we can have new developments (and hence suburbs) that look nice.

I'd like to know what we did right at garrison woods, and wrong almost everywhere else.

Example

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

50% doesn't sound unreasonable... for the most part, that's what the GTA and the Ottawa are achieving.

Depends. there are only 2 municipalities achieving the 40% rate in the places to grow act IIRC, and those are Kitchener and Toronto. Markham is slightly below it however, I believe. But while most municipalities are failing, Toronto almost entirely makes up for it. Its taking in roughly 25-30% of annual population growth in the GTA, and its 100% intensification. While I wouldn't be surprised if the Greater Golden Horseshoe is achieving 40% overall, most areas are failing and failing miserably. Some municipalities like Brampton seem to be barely making an effort.

[niwell]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

Depends. there are only 2 municipalities achieving the 40% rate in the places to grow act IIRC, and those are Kitchener and Toronto. Markham is slightly below it however, I believe. But while most municipalities are failing, Toronto almost entirely makes up for it. Its taking in roughly 25-30% of annual population growth in the GTA, and its 100% intensification. While I wouldn't be surprised if the Greater Golden Horseshoe is achieving 40% overall, most areas are failing and failing miserably. Some municipalities like Brampton seem to be barely making an effort.

I imagine Markham is doing well simply because of the new "downtown" developments and infill around city hall. Not that those are a bad thing, but they were easy targets for intensification. Right now it seems that most intensification outside the City of Toronto is based on having readily available large vacant lots (usually along arterials) well within the urban boundary.

New developments in Markham aren't too bad either, using a new urbanist model and forcing retail to be integrated. Most of this retail is vacant or subpar now, but I think it's important to be included. It's easy to forget that even on major streets like Bloor the retail fronting the street was built up to a decade after the residential areas. If you look at old fire insurance plans / aerial photos you can see vacant lots fronting most major streets in areas that were "new" at the time.

Brampton does suck at intensification, but the new developments around Mount Pleasant have a lot of promise. The area right beside the GO station looks quite nice, has retail, and is very dense for a suburb. Burlington is exceeding the target I think, but like Toronto it has virtually no greenfield land left (think there is only a few hundred ha.). I imagine Mississauga is well over the threshold as well, as it's also down to basically no greenfield, and much of what's left will be used for employment.

[Spring2008]

It was but the split has been about 50/50 the last 2 - 3 yrs which is one of the MDP's objectives, and even surprised city planners how fast the ratio has risen. City has also raised suburban levies in 2011 and about to increase them again end of this year.

If you're interested, for newer suburban mixed-use also check out Currie Barracks (final phase will be similar to east-village), West District, West Campus, Stadium plaza Redevelopment, mixed-use development close to COP. There's a bunch of others, Wooster prob knows a lot more details. The western suburbs especially are seeing some very interesting development. The NE still sucks.

Originally Posted by Drybrain

Really? It'd be cool if that's true, definitely. But this 2012 story indicates that Calgary will "endeavour" to get up to 33 percent of growth in established areas--by 2039. Presumably it's well below that right now?

(Also, I have to rant about McKenzie Towne--I have relatives living there so I'm pretty familiar with it. It may be mixed-use, but it's still greenfield development, it's architecturally abysmal, and it's still very car dependent. It's also got two blocks' worth of kitschy olde-towne main street, but immediately beyind that is two square blocks of parking spaces. It's not really engineered to be walkable, but to appear walkable.)

Garrison Woods is genuinely good, though.

[MonkeyRonin]

Some of the new development in Markham. Had they used more attractive architectural styles it could actually be pretty decent.



Cathedraltown by Jimmy Wu Photography, on Flickr


20141224. In a new subdivision in the future downtown Markham, "they are all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same" by Vik Pahwa Photography, on Flickr

[FrAnKs]

I like it !

It just terribly miss some vegetation.

[middeljohn]

That's not bad at all in my opinion. It's pretty rare to see such a focus on midrise buildings. Once there are some store signs up and people outside I can see it feeling pretty lively.

[milomilo]

I don't see what the issue is with having areas with very similar architecture. There are many whole cities in Europe that are built with the same materials and style, and they usually look spectacular.

[middeljohn]

Keep forgetting which SSP user this is, but here's a video showcasing some of Edmonton's southern sprawl.

Edit: user is Kokkei Mizu

• Video Link

[rousseau]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

Some of the new development in Markham. Had they used more attractive architectural styles it could actually be pretty decent.


20141224. In a new subdivision in the future downtown Markham, "they are all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same" by Vik Pahwa Photography, on Flickr

This looks fantastic.