The Soul-Sucking Canada Thread
 

Ugly doesn't quite capture the essence of soul-sucking. Soul sucking is often (but not necessarily) ugly, but more often it is dismal banality or cookie-cutter sameness (e.g., big box barf, cubicles, fast-food/gas station urban fabric, worthless strip malls), that sucks the soul out of you. It can be also refer to egregious examples of mediocrity. But whatever its character, the effect is the same: places you would rather avoid, on account of the sheer dread these places inspire (not to be confused with dangerous places, which may instill dread but for different reasons).

Show us your your dirty underwear; your soul-sucking places and districts.

To get the ball rolling: Here are some from beautiful London Ontario (you have to start with SEARS)
https://c1.staticflickr.com/8/7419/1...9fd11e01_h.jpghttps://farm6.staticflickr.com/5487/...b539bbef_b.jpg
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6192/...2b762cd1_b.jpg
SSP

Needs no introduction:
http://www.joycebyrnerealtor.com/ima...llatOxford.jpg
https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7204/6...8b311495_z.jpg
joycebyrnerealto

:yuck:
https://farm8.static.flickr.com/7416...8d311c83_b.jpg
Fiveprime

worthless industrial strip malls:
https://www.google.ca/maps/@42.97711...7i13312!8i6656

Mississauga. All of it.

Would the Drumheller mall qualify?

https://i.imgur.com/wDM5qlCh.jpg

The gateway to Drumheller:

https://www.google.ca/maps/@51.45822...2!8i6656?dcr=0

No soul sucking thread would be complete without this old lady mausoleum:

https://www.ocregister.com/wp-conten...sstorelogo.jpg

http://ghk.h-cdn.co/assets/16/06/980...crafts-ghk.jpg

https://fortunedotcom.files.wordpres...e-2s2x2438.jpg

Suburban St. John's proper, not even as far out as the suburban municipalities, is as soul-sucking a place as I've ever been.

http://i64.tinypic.com/2igm03s.png

http://i68.tinypic.com/wlgs3.png

http://i64.tinypic.com/2qc4kll.png

http://i66.tinypic.com/1127fqs.png

http://i66.tinypic.com/9kqqfa.png

http://i67.tinypic.com/245jb01.png

https://www.google.ca/maps/@53.55870...7i13312!8i6656

https://www.google.ca/maps/@53.55870...7i13312!8i6656

Most of 111 Avenue is incredibly soul sucking. I could've thrown this into the ugly Canada thread as well, but honestly just looking at images like that is just more depressing rather then laughable at how ugly it all is.

Those suburban St'John's pictures are horrid. Not only is the street incredibly ugly but it's also filled with the plague of human housing..........vinyl siding. Vancouver is full of vinyl siding and it looks horrible. At least the suburbs of Ontario still use brick which has a warmth about it and ages very well while vinyl siding looks like crap after only a few years.

Curious, where is that huge suburban shot taken?

At least there's some kind of grid pattern and density in that suburb.

Milton, Cambridge, London, Brantford, Windsor, Chatham, Peterborough, North Bay, Sudbury, Scarborough, Ancaster, Burlington, Cornwall, Orleans, Kingston, Exeter, St. Thomas, ...
https://www.shopperscanada.com/myste...hmond-hill.jpghttps://www.shopperscanada.com/myste...hmond-hill.jpghttps://www.shopperscanada.com/myste...hmond-hill.jpghttps://www.shopperscanada.com/myste...hmond-hill.jpghttps://www.shopperscanada.com/myste...hmond-hill.jpghttps://www.shopperscanada.com/myste...hmond-hill.jpghttps://www.shopperscanada.com/myste...hmond-hill.jpghttps://www.shopperscanada.com/myste...hmond-hill.jpghttps://www.shopperscanada.com/myste...hmond-hill.jpghttps://www.shopperscanada.com/myste...hmond-hill.jpg
shoppercanada

Vaughan

https://i.imgur.com/DymXZyB.jpg

Curious about those suburban SJ pics. What's with the lack of trees in some of those shots? Reminds me a lot of so much of British cities. You know, in the middle class and lower neighbourhoods that are completely devoid of greenery. Though those SJ shots at least have grass, being in the suburbs and all.

St. John's trees are small to start, developers level them to build the houses. In order to plant grass they haul in dirt to put over the rock (with a generous dose of lime to help the "soil" alkalinity. If you want a tree, you need to dig into the rock and put in dirt for the tree to grow. It is ridiculously difficult to plant trees in most places. I lived there. I planted a tree in my front yard. It took me literally days (full days) to dig the hole to get enough soil for a smallish tree too maybe eek out an existence.

It's called The Rock for good reason. Planting a tree is not for the weak.

That's one thing I would find really hard about living in a place like that. That would get me down way more than weather/climate ever could. (Which the latter generally don't.)

Lots of factors - the main one is it's cheaper to clear cut, flatten the bedrock, lair a couple of inches of gravel, and throw down sod. And we do whatever's cheapest, for everything. However, we used to require developers to plant trees - and all areas of the city built during that time, at all elevations and classes, have decently-sized trees.

For example:



They're still much smaller here than the same species would be anywhere else. The landscape is bare bedrock or peat bogs at higher elevations, and then a thin layer of soil along the river valleys. The places where these houses are used to look like one of these three pictures:



And then it's just preferences. Middle-aged people here, my parents included, think trees in the front is a lower-class or bush living thing. If they bought a house with a tree out front that was higher than the living room window, they'd certainly have it removed.

What makes it that much worse is the complete lack of trees combined with ugly lawns. That last one is so bad I could almost see it making a cameo appearance in a Wes Anderson movie. The cheery colours combined with harsh soul crushing architecture.

http://www.elginmall.com/uploads/ima...der_Image1.png
elginmall

I agree with you (except for some parts of the fugly "downtown", Port Credit and Streetsville)

Here's some new homes in an area that should've been built out years before (These homes must be less than twenty, even though nearby, you'll find 35 or so year old homes)
https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.60946...=en&authuser=0

Here are some very VERY run of the mill homes....these 80's subdivisions are EVERYWHERE in Mississauga, they're probably more common than the 60's or 70's subdivisions:
https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.61450...=en&authuser=0

Seriously? That has to be the only time I have ever heard that. Everywhere else trees add character and value to your home. Bizarre that they would feel that way. You wouldn't want a tree hiding the sight of the cookie cutter rows of vinyl sided houses now would you? No, of course not. Greenery would spoil the view of absolute, lifeless desolation.

Trees attract black files.