The Soul-Sucking Canada Thread

[Doady]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

If you're going to live in a suburb and drive everywhere, you might as well live in a sprawling area with plenty of trees and a lot of privacy. Americans would never accept living in a place like this (no, that is not the alley) - which is really the worst of all worlds. They certainly wouldn't accept living in a place like that and paying the prices that we do.

Those are alleys. The front of those apartments look like this. But hey don't let facts get in the way of your argument.

But, yeah, density and "stacked townhouses" aren't really a thing in US suburbia. Praise to them.

Those complexes are located beside Dundas Street in Mississauga, one of the busiest transit corridors in the GTA with 10 minute express service and 12 minute local service for 5-6 minute frequency combined. "Worst of both worlds"? Very few American cities have the kind of transit ridership and service that Mississauga does. Mississauga is not Arlington, TX.

[O-tacular]

I live in stacked townhouses with a similar set up to those and the front areas are very nice. The roadways are basically alleys with attached garages. Not really soul sucking at all.

[Doady]

They look alright from Dundas St or Shoreline Dr. Parking and garages are behind, hidden from the street, unlike "snout houses".

Increasing density and reducing walking distances along suburban arterials like Dundas is simple TOD. And it works. Dundas buses are extremely busy. Hurontario is getting LRT. So it's not like these designs have no effect. Not many places in US (suburban or otherwise) can match Mississauga's transit ridership.

You guys still prefer US suburbia? Fine, but don't say car dependence in Canada is the same.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by Doady

Those are alleys. The front of those apartments look like this. But hey don't let facts get in the way of your argument.

That is not an alley. That is the only access road to the units in the centre, and the route by which almost all people access their home, since most people drive. The "better" looking side for the people on the inside of Shoreline Dr. (not visible) is a tiny public strip that they don't have the freedom to maintain to their liking. Some improvement.

But, yeah, density and "stacked townhouses" aren't really a thing in US suburbia. Praise to them.

There's density, and then there's walkability and character. These areas might be dense, but there's almost nothing to walk to and they have almost zero character.

If I'm going to have to live in a place where I have to drive everywhere anyway, I'd rather have trees and yards.

If you can't provide walkable neighbourhoods or mixed use districts with a range of amenities, what's the point of curbing sprawl, anyway? You save on some infrastructure costs, to a point, and you can argue that it saves valuable farmland (which will be increasingly irrelevant with the growth of hydroponic/greenhouse farming in the future), but "dense sprawl" like Toronto has other negatives. From an ecological standpoint, it has much fewer permeable surfaces for water to run off to than exurban sprawl in a place like Atlanta, and it has a worse heat island effect and less native biodiversity. It's more congested (since it's still overwhelmingly automobile-oriented) so travel times are just as long, even if the distances covered are shorter.

Those complexes are located beside Dundas Street in Mississauga, one of the busiest transit corridors in the GTA with 10 minute express service and 12 minute local service for 5-6 minute frequency combined. "Worst of both worlds"? Very few American cities have the kind of transit ridership and service that Mississauga does. Mississauga is not Arlington, TX.

Arlington is probably easier to drive in than Mississauga so, from a utilitarian standpoint, a majority of Mississaugans would be better off living in Arlington with a tiny minority being considerably worse off. Arlington is more affordable, too.

I'm not convinced that running frequent transit service in a dense area with completely segregated land uses and a horrible pedestrian realm is good urbanism.

[GlassCity]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

That is not an alley. That is the only access road to the units in the centre, and the route by which the almost all people access their home, since almost everybody there drives. The "better" looking side for the people on the inside of Shoreline Dr. (not visible) is a tiny public strip that they don't have the freedom to maintain to their liking. Some improvement.



There's density, and then there's walkability and character. These areas might be dense, but there's almost nothing to walk to and they have almost zero character.

If I'm going to have to live in a place where I have to drive everywhere, anyway, I'd rather have trees and yards.



Arlington is probably easier to drive in than Mississauga so, from a utilitarian standpoint, a majority of Mississaugans would be better off living in Arlington with a tiny minority being considerably worse off. Arlington is more affordable, too.

I'm not convinced that running frequent transit service in a dense area with completely segregated land uses and a horrible pedestrian realm is good urbanism.

But it's not the fault of the development either. I think the same development located in a more urban street grid would look fine. The problem is that many Toronto suburbs treat arterial streets (like in this case, Dundas) as highways. This is what makes what should be a good, urban development as completely void of any other characteristic of urbanity aside from density.

[Doady]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

That is not an alley. That is the only access road to the units in the centre, and the route by which almost all people access their home, since most people drive.

It's an access road for cars, like an alley or shared driveway, in a city centre.

Your argument is like saying that an underground parking garage of a condo tower is the actual streetfront.

Originally Posted by hipster duck

The "better" looking side for the people on the inside of Shoreline Dr. (not visible) is a tiny public strip that they don't have the freedom to maintain to their liking. Some improvement.

You're arguing against the entire condominium concept now? I don't get it. There are plenty of freehold detached, semi-detached and townhouse units in Mississauga that give people such freedom. Why single out this one condominium complex for being a condominium complex?

There's density, and then there's walkability and character. These areas might be dense, but there's almost nothing to walk to and they have almost zero character.

What little walkability and character here is even harder to see when despite all the parking and garages being from the street, you insist on going behind and focusing on the parking and garages only and ignore every other aspect of the development.

If I'm going to have to live in a place where I have to drive everywhere anyway, I'd rather have trees and yards.

Are you saying there are no trees and yards in Mississauga? Again, you are singling out a single condominium complex in Mississauga beside a busy transit corridor for being a condominium complex beside a busy bus transit corridor.

If you can't provide walkable neighbourhoods or mixed use districts with a range of amenities, what's the point of curbing sprawl, anyway?

Mississauga does have walkable neighbourhoods. It is building mixed-use districts. Again you are singling out a single condominium complex.

You save on some infrastructure costs, to a point, and you can argue that it saves valuable farmland (which will be increasingly irrelevant with the growth of hydroponic/greenhouse farming in the future), but "dense sprawl" like Toronto has other negatives. From an ecological standpoint, it has much fewer permeable surfaces for water to run off to than exurban sprawl in a place like Atlanta, and it has a worse heat island effect and less native biodiversity. It's more congested (since it's still overwhelmingly automobile-oriented) so travel times are just as long, even if the distances covered are shorter.

You seriously think building lower density and increasing driving and driving distances reduces the amount of paved surfaces?

Arlington is probably easier to drive in than Mississauga so, from a utilitarian standpoint, a majority of Mississaugans would be better off living in Arlington with a tiny minority being considerably worse off.

Mississauga's "tiny minority" is similar to many other Canadian cities.

Main mode of commuting: car, van, truck, as driver or passenger (2016)
Victoria 48.4
Ottawa 68.4
Quebec 75.1
Winnipeg 77.4
Halifax 77.7
Mississauga 78.0
Edmonton 78.8
Kingston 78.8
London 82.7
Hamilton 83.0
Kitchener 86.7
Windsor 88.2
Regina 88.3

Arlington is more affordable, too.

So Mississauga would be much more affordable if the density and housing supply was reduced, and everyone was forced to buy houses on bigger lots while townhouses and apartments were eliminated as options. Somehow I disagree.

I'm not convinced that running frequent transit service in a dense area with completely segregated land uses and a horrible pedestrian realm is good urbanism.

Again, not binary or static variables. Not even downtown Toronto is perfect. Even downtown is gradually improving. That idea that 0% urban is all we should accept as an alternative to 100% urban is just incredibly narrowminded, foolish, and destructive. Stop seeing everything either black and white and look at the bigger picture. What happens in Mississauga, what Mississauga will become, will affect Toronto too.

[someone123]

I've lived in a bunch of these different types of neighbourhoods, everything from the inner city to exurbia, and I agree with the "worst of both worlds" assessment of most higher density Canadian suburbs. My personal ranking of places to live, all else being equal, and assuming reasonably nice non-blighted neighbourhoods, is: inner city -> exurbia -> suburbia.

I think people who choose higher density car-oriented neighbourhoods are largely choosing to put up with the shortcomings of these areas in exchange for shorter commutes and cheaper prices. By and large, they don't like the stacked townhouses in Mississauga more than traditional houses near downtown Toronto or out in some farm town, or a bungalow with lots of privacy on a half acre lot.

I also think that cities like Toronto have done a really awful job of building housing that people want. This is true of most of North America. One sign of this is that the nicest areas tend to be built prior to about 1940. The nice areas built in 1900 are more valuable than modern neighbourhoods. People often counter that this must be true because they're more central but that's just another symptom of how we've failed to build good transportation. Theoretically the greenfield areas should be better because they could benefit from newer technology.

[someone123]

Here is a picture of a newer neighbourhood in Malmö:


Source

I have never been there and I don't know if it has lots of interesting things you can walk to, but it looks like it has character. It has lots of different styles and a nice pedestrian scale with medium building heights, small footprints, and lots of variety within a small area. I don't think there are any modern developments that have these characteristics in Canada.

[Doady]

The best neighbourhoods are ones developed gradually over time, with a mix of building ages and styles. An effort by a single developer to build a neighbhourhood all at once from scratch is probably going to look like an effort by a single developer to build a neighbourhood all at once from scratch.

Look at North York Centre, it took 50+ years to get to where it is now. Mississauga City Centre started 30 years ago and still has a very long way to go. Maybe 50 years from now, the Lawrence East corridor in Scarborough will become urban.

Urbanization is normal in cities, so instead of trying to build brand new neighbourhoods to be 100% urban right away, suburbs can focus on laying the foundation for their gradual urbanization, and also the urbanization of existing neighbourhoods, and that means building transit too.

[Innsertnamehere]

A huge part of what makes urban residential areas attractive is actually quite simple - tree cover. The problem is a solid tree cover takes 20-30 years to develop, and century old neighbourhoods have extremely dense, mature tree covers. There is a very positive corrolation between tree cover and the price of the neighbourhood.

If you want to build a "nice" residential area, build something fairly dense with amenities in walking distance, then give it 30 years for the trees to mature.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Doady

The best neighbourhoods are ones developed gradually over time, with a mix of building ages and styles. An effort by a single developer to build a neighbhourhood all at once from scratch is probably going to look like an effort by a single developer to build a neighbourhood all at once from scratch.

Maybe the best are, but a lot of neighbourhoods that people like have more or less uniform buildings built on an industrial scale. Some of these neighbourhoods were fully planned or built as worker housing; the houses were not individually designed and crafted. This includes New York brownstones and tenements, Boston triple deckers, triplexes in Montreal, Toronto rowhouses, the early 20th century detached houses farther west, etc.

Some of the houses people like today were originally Sears catalog homes, for example. It is striking how attractive these house designs are compared to typical modern suburban homes. All mass produced.

[MolsonExport]

Part of the reason for soul suckery is the horribleness of these massive urban boulevards for anyone that is unlucky enough to be walking alongside. Interesting neighborhoods aren't just nice houses with trees (this helps alot) but need commercial areas that people want to walk to and walk around in.

None of this happens in new suburbs, which have six/eight-laned boulevards with the sole intention of sucking the soul (i.e., making things most efficient for drivers) out of commercial districts.

THIS is what I mean:

researchgate.net

Most suburban Ontario commercial districts looks just like this.

[niwell]

Originally Posted by someone123

Maybe the best are, but a lot of neighbourhoods that people like have more or less uniform buildings built on an industrial scale. Some of these neighbourhoods were fully planned or built as worker housing; the houses were not individually designed and crafted. This includes New York brownstones and tenements, Boston triple deckers, triplexes in Montreal, Toronto rowhouses, the early 20th century detached houses farther west, etc.

.

Toronto is actually fairly unique in this respect - there were certainly standard home designs but it was very rare to have mass built speculative housing like you'd see in NYC, Montreal or even Hamilton. It was much more common to see owner built structures or small developers building a small row of 2-5 houses. It's why the central residential streets are relatively eclectic (for better or worse) given the age of construction.

[Doady]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Part of the reason for soul suckery is the horribleness of these massive urban boulevards for anyone that is unlucky enough to be walking alongside. Interesting neighborhoods aren't just nice houses with trees (this helps alot) but need commercial areas that people want to walk to and walk around in.

None of this happens in new suburbs, which have six/eight-laned boulevards with the sole intention of sucking the soul (i.e., making things most efficient for drivers) out of commercial districts.

THIS is what I mean:

researchgate.net

Most suburban Ontario commercial districts looks just like this.

Wonderland Rd might be an example newer design of suburban commercial, in clumps around certain intersections. Wharncliffe Rd S. is example of the older style where the entire street is continuously lined with commercial. The latter would be easier to redevelop into a more traditional main street.

Originally Posted by someone123

Maybe the best are, but a lot of neighbourhoods that people like have more or less uniform buildings built on an industrial scale. Some of these neighbourhoods were fully planned or built as worker housing; the houses were not individually designed and crafted. This includes New York brownstones and tenements, Boston triple deckers, triplexes in Montreal, Toronto rowhouses, the early 20th century detached houses farther west, etc.

Some of the houses people like today were originally Sears catalog homes, for example. It is striking how attractive these house designs are compared to typical modern suburban homes. All mass produced.

The surest sign of cookie cutter design is to look at a house at the street corner. If the side of the house mostly just a blank wall facing the street, it probably wasn't designed to be at the corner, and you can see some of that in Toronto as well.

You can see in Cornell in Markham some attempts replicate an old residential street (but I don't like anything that is faux-historic).

I guess I was mostly just talking about commercial areas when I said continuous development. It's really commercial areas that is the main difference between cities and suburbs. Residential streets are not a big deal as that Cornell example shows. Just hide the parking at the back.

With the Uptown Core that Oakville is building, the residential streets are fine, but the commercial streets are still kinda dead.

But the way Oakville is building its Uptown Core, they are not trying to make it a finished product. The way the power centre is laid out, it can be redeveloped in a proper downtown eventually. First they are concentrating building high density all along Dundas to establish it a major transit corridor. And that's probably the key. They have to change the culture first.

A real urban neighbourhood is a work in progress and can respond and adapt to cultural shifts and evolve over time. If the suburbs cannot do the same, I think that's really what we should be criticizing.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by someone123

Here is a picture of a newer neighbourhood in Malmö:


Source

I have never been there and I don't know if it has lots of interesting things you can walk to, but it looks like it has character. It has lots of different styles and a nice pedestrian scale with medium building heights, small footprints, and lots of variety within a small area. I don't think there are any modern developments that have these characteristics in Canada.

Without experiencing it on the ground, I'd say that's a fantastic looking neighbourhood that meets all my criteria. I'd be happy to live there.

There are some examples in Metro Vancouver of really well made walkable neighbourhoods built from scratch.

My favourite is Newport Village in Port Moody:



Streetview

Kitty corner to that is Suter Brook, which is also good.

As with most things planning-related, [Metro] Vancouver is ahead of [Greater] Toronto on the new urbanism file.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

My favourite is Newport Village in Port Moody

I would rate this area as "okay". Not as nice as a vibrant older neighbourhood in a city like Vancouver, but better than typical suburbia. The fact that this stands out as an unusually good example of new construction is a bad sign.

This area is a small island with some basic chain stores. If you want to go somewhere else you have to contend with a large arterial road or get on the train.

If you consider that condos in these buildings tend to be $600 per square foot and up the exposed or painted concrete and metal siding don't seem so great. The design and build quality is out of whack with the price.

The old part of Port Moody is okay too, another little island with some restaurants, breweries, etc. If you want to walk there you have to go past some dead zones that are of a pretty significant size as far as pedestrian distances go.

Poor pedestrian connectivity is, I think, the biggest problem with most newer areas. The value for dollar in terms of build quality and architecture is also really bad in Toronto and Vancouver now.

If I had to hazard a guess I'd say poor planning is only a small part of the problem. The bigger problem is that the housing market is broken and incentives are misaligned. It's not surprising that the current housing market in Vancouver has led to an oligopoly of large developers. Profitability depends far more on wheeling and dealing with land and zoning than it has to do with building the best possible quality product. To some degree this is like Telus or Air Canada's products but in building form.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by someone123

I would rate this area as "okay".

This area is a small island with some basic chain stores. If you want to go somewhere else you have to contend with a large arterial road or get on the train.

Poor pedestrian connectivity is, I think, the biggest problem with most newer areas. The value for dollar in terms of build quality and architecture is also really bad in Toronto and Vancouver now.

If I had to hazard a guess I'd say poor planning is only a small part of the problem. The bigger problem is that the housing market is broken and incentives are misaligned. It's not surprising that the current housing market in Vancouver has led to an oligopoly of large developers. Profitability depends far more on wheeling and dealing with land and zoning than it has to do with building the best possible quality product. To some degree this is like Telus or Air Canada's products but in building form.

The disjointedness of new urbanist developments means that the viability of street-oriented commercial storefronts are at a real disadvantage, because they can only serve that little island of pedestrianism. Not surprisingly, the only places that can afford the rents - given the lousy foot traffic - are chains (or, worse, fronts), and the ensuing sterility discourages other independent businesses from setting up shop.

What would have been ideal - but this ship has sailed - is if cities like Toronto and Vancouver would have just extended their walkable "urban fabric" into the inner suburban postwar bungalow neighbourhoods that lie immediately adjacent to the last generation of streetcar suburbs. Then commercial areas could successfully build off of existing urban areas immediately next door. This would have involved developers tearing down 1950s-era strip malls and replacing them with midrises along the commercial streets (this is happening, although anemically - Vancouver is, again, better than Toronto at this), but, more crucially, demolishing the bungalows on the sidestreets and replacing them with apartment houses that would have come right up to the street. Unfortunately, this is where zoning rules and land economics put up a hard wall. The zoning restricts anything but SFH, so the best way to maximize land costs is to build monster homes. Ironically, these zoning rules were meant to preserve "character", but in places like Bathurst/Lawrence in North York or Marpole in Vancouver this has resulted in half the old homes being demolished anyway for monster homes. What are the odds that these monster homes will be redeveloped to something denser in the near future? Now the odds for redevelopment are stymied by both high land prices (made higher by the production of luxury homes) and more political opposition from the rich landowners who live there.

Long story short: Canadian cities have painted themselves into a corner.

[itom 987]

Can anyone beat this?
[IMG]Untitled by Thomas Huizinga, on Flickr[/IMG]

[Metro-One]

Definitely some rose colored glasses and moving of the goal posts going on here.

Just a few comments I want to say:

Been throughout western and Northern Europe and suburbia there is not so much better than suburbia in metro-Van (again, talking about new suburbia, not urban infill or older towns) as people are trying to paint it on here. There are shit developments and nicer developments in Europe as well.

And I don’t understand the criticism towards the Newport example. Have to cross a major road, drive, or take a train to access stores beyond those in the local community? This is no different than anything I have witnessed in most European or Asian suburbs (and even urban areas)... And yes, even in Europe the retail in newer developments tend to be chains, at least at first. Eventually, just like in Vancouver, as a development ages more local eateries and stores establish themselves.

If you really want to see the worst of both worlds regarding towers in the suburbs, come to Japan, China, or Korea. Here, you will literally have a single 12 story residential tower surrounded with a parking lot and then surrounded by rice fields... Oh, and the roads have no sidewalks and a lot of cars. Did I mention that these roads are barely wide enough for two cars to pass each other? Makes going for a jog really exciting. Of course not everywhere is this poorly planned, but you would be surprised how much of this awfulness there is. It makes Metrotown or Brentwood look like an urban utopia of built form and services.

This forum is funny when it gets a little too self hating...

[GlassCity]

Originally Posted by Metro-One

Definitely some rose colored glasses and moving of the goal posts going on here.

Just a few comments I want to say:

Been throughout western and Northern Europe and suburbia there is not so much better than suburbia in metro-Van (again, talking about new suburbia, not urban infill or older towns) as people are trying to paint it on here. There are shit developments and nicer developments in Europe as well.

And I don’t understand the criticism towards the Newport example. Have to cross a major road, drive, or take a train to access stores beyond those in the local community? This is no different than anything I have witnessed in most European or Asian suburbs (and even urban areas)... And yes, even in Europe the retail in newer developments tend to be chains, at least at first. Eventually, just like in Vancouver, as a development ages more local eateries and stores establish themselves.

If you really want to see the worst of both worlds regarding towers in the suburbs, come to Japan, China, or Korea. Here, you will literally have a single 12 story residential tower surrounded with a parking lot and then surrounded by rice fields... Oh, and the roads have no sidewalks and a lot of cars. Did I mention that these roads are barely wide enough for two cars to pass each other? Makes going for a jog really exciting. Of course not everywhere is this poorly planned, but you would be surprised how much of this awfulness there is. It makes Metrotown or Brentwood look like an urban utopia of built form and services.

This forum is funny when it gets a little too self hating...

It's not just this forum though, North American planning in general tends to be a bit too europhelic. We can, and have, created some damn good urbanism throughout North America. No need to look abroad to some other example. Just minimizes the victories we've had here, and makes it seem like successful urbanism is a 'there' thing when it's perfectly possible here too.