[Dado]

I'm a little surprised no one has mentioned this yet.

What was particularly noticeable to me when I was in Calgary was that subdivision planning proceeds on a very "cellular" basis. We do the same here in Ontario, but it's very stark and obvious in Calgary due to the nature of the rural landscape in the Prairies.

Typically the section roads become the multi-lane suburban arterial roads separating each neighbourhood "cell" from the next. Sometimes the section roads are replaced (particularly in the northwest and southeast), but the end result is the same - major arterials "containing" neighbourhoods.

So far, so good.

What seems to happen next is that the retail/commercial gets placed on arterial roads at or near major intersections. These retail/commercial areas are completely cut off from the adjacent neighbourhoods. At the same time, these arterial roads are far from conducive to the development of any kind of mainstreet feel - they're too wide and too busy and too bleak.

Moreover, the neighbourhoods themselves are frequently designed with a circulator-type road within them (e.g. New Brighton Dr, Cranston Dr, Auburn Bay Blvd). My guess is this circulator road is there for transit service since it results in everyone being ~400 m from it. The upshot is that while the neighbourhoods have a geographic centre, they don't have an actual centre that acts as a focus of activity.

What needs to change is to first put a stop to this circulator-road only nonsense within neighbourhoods. Secondly, the placement of major retail along the arterials has to stop.

So let's take a hypothetical section of land. The section roads can continue to be turned into major arterials that act as neighbourhood boundaries. But what needs to happen next is that the quarter section lot lines need to be turned into mainstreets, such that we get an actual centre in the centre. Heck, put a central square there just for fun (just like Garrison Woods, or even Saddledown). If the powers-that-be want to put a circulator road in half way between the edge and the centre, fine, they can do so, but it shouldn't be done to the exclusion of the pair of intersecting mainstreets.

The centre and the two mainstreets can then be designated for mixed use and higher densities and whatnot. What's more is that these mainstreets would connect to the mainstreets of adjacent neighbourhoods, creating continuous mainstreets to run transit along. The commercial big box developers will have a fit about this, but they can put their stuff along the mainstreets as well, but near to the intersections with the arterials. The parking lots can go behind the stores, which would be placed up against the mainstreet.

Tuscany kind of has a half-assed version of this general arrangement, but the intersecting roads are unfortunately done up as oversized arterials and the centre, such as it is, has a park in one corner and housing oriented away from the centre in another.

Finally, light rail, if present should be run through these centres (like it is in Saddledown) rather than run along the major arterials (like it is slated to do in the Southeast along 52nd).