Quote:
Originally Posted by niwell
Yeah, I've long maintained that Burlington's downtown is probably the best of the suburban municipalities in the GTHA. It's a bit undersized for a standalone city of that size, but not nearly so much as most of the others, and it actually has a substantial amount of both employment and residential space. You need the combination to have an actual functioning downtown, not just a quaint retail / restaurant strip.
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I disagree that employment is "substantial" in Burlington's core. There are a few small office and mixed use buildings in downtown B-Town, and many old homes converted to commercial/office use, but there could be so much more. In Halton most of the employment is along the QEW corridor, in Burlington and Oakville (check out
the employment surveys; they map things at a municipal level but unfortunately don't break down sub-municipal areas).
People may look at the towers and see a "downtown" but as an employment node there's much to do yet. Most of the talk lately has been about fighting tall condo towers and supporting local retail, but getting more offices in the core seems to be a non-issue I wish city council would focus attention toward.
I've lived on the edge of downtown for more than 13 years and aside from new residential developments and some change in restaurant/retail the office component hasn't seemed to keep up. This city can do better that way.