[WhipperSnapper]

Something like Mirvish Village that does a decent job to break up the podium(s) with complex massing and facades. Also pedestrian corridors break up the large development site. In order to wholly preserve a street with heritage homes, the developer was forced to concentrate the buildable density to recoup the large purchase price. Unfortunately, the similar towers all blend into a giant lump and the pedestrian corridors end up as tight alleys in a non downtown neighbourhood. Stronger zoning controls would have set the price lower allowing the developer to build less square footage with wider corridors and lower heights (mix of midrises and highrises than just highrises up to 28 floors tall) to allow more sun to filter in.

Investors are driving development all across Canada with cities struggling to meet housing needs. It's creating super high density suburban tract development away from just about everything and formulaic, overbuilt downtowns that will create an undesirable crush load of people over time with hundreds of developments completed

I have growing doubts that Canada will remain a destination for immigrants and temporary residents for development to reach critical mass for the crush load to be in full force. However, the forums' popularity of shifting a proposals discussion to population increase when the design is mediocre or forgetable is a little too pro development. Of course, most Canadian downtowns can use more residents. More people doesn't necessarily resolve problems and often creates problems. Again, an overpriced shoebox with no view is not exactly desirable. Like Toronto, it doesn't take much to go from the forelorn streets of the 1990s to the troubled but, packed streets of today.