Quote:
Originally Posted by Doady
High-rise living and high-rise construction have been a normal part of Toronto since the 50s. You can see high rises in all of the 50s and 60s suburbs. There are almost two hundred 70s/80s/90s high-rises in Mississauga alone. I don't think what's happening now is a building boom, just a continuation of what's been going on since the 50s. Maybe high-rise construction has been encouraged further by the Places to Grow Plan (Greenbelt),But I'm not sure it even matches the 50s building boom. The new buildings are certainly taller, construction more focused on older parts of Toronto instead of the suburbs, but overall this is not something new to the GTA, and it is probably not something that will go away.
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High rise living took off in the 1960s. The first condo high rise was built in 1968. Yeah, high rise living has been a part of Toronto for the past 50 odd years and has persisted through the many booms and busts. The difference is scale. As you say, today's towers are 3 times taller and twice as large as those from previous booms. This amounts to an incredible number of high rise units opposed to low rise. As I said in my last post, Places to Grow is negligible when it comes to height. There is a ton of property to achieve the necessary numbers without resorting to building tall.
For the sake of Toronto, I hope I'm right. I know some of you are memorized by tall building but, they is a human equation to it as well. It's not right for a family of four with two hard working professionals to live in a tiny one bedroom Cityplace condo because they can't afford to upgrade. Prices are simply out of control and grossly impacting quality of life. This is not good for the future of Toronto.