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Originally Posted by someone123
Has St. John's had many planning exercises that focus on the benefits of density and good urban design? Does the local media talk about these things?
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With the upcoming municipal development plan update there have been a few meetings and brain-storming sessions among residents about the St. John's of the future and how they in vision it. There is a sizable group of people (though I'm not sure anyone from this forum have been involved) that have mentioned density as being a key issue currently in the city, or more along the lines of a complete lack of density. On the other hand, there is a complete separate group of people who feel like increasing density in and around the downtown core will destroy its historic character. Many people who live downtown completely forget about the fact that they live in a mixed commercial, financial, and residential area. Hence any attempt to add density to one specific neighborhood, especially downtown, is often met with complete outrage. Instead we're left with a sprawling city that's on the verge of collapsing on itself. The media doesn't mention much about positive urban development, and often negatively criticizes high density downtown developments (check out CBC Newfoundland videos about The Hilton Garden Inn proposal for such an example).
The only neighborhood/area within a reasonable distance from downtown which I would consider high density (besides New Gower at Barters) would be Margarets Place, and given how it's nowhere near any street that would be able to handle the amount of traffic in that area I'd even go as far to say that was a mistake in its own. At least downtown there's close proximity to the highway.