Quote:
Originally Posted by Doady
I think Confederation Parkway in Mississauga is a decent attempt, not trying to replicate the past. Of course, you can see my Cooksville Village thread to see typical attempts in the 60s and 70s.
The suburbs don't grow organically, one small lot at a time, so they won't have the look of traditional main streets. If they try too hard to be something they are not, they can look stupid, and they won't have their own identity. That goes for anything in art, really. It's like Mick Jagger singing in a fake southern US accent, Rolling Stones don't sound like a band from the UK, their music just has little of its own identity. Trying too hard to replicate the past, places like Oakville and Markham are the architectural equivalent of the Rolling Stones: above average, but in a fake and contrived way. |
A lot of this comes down to basic geometry.
Lets say you have two cities where the existing densities are uniform and new development is built at the edge in perfect concentric circles to the same density as the existing stuff.
City 1 is basically like a small dense city
Radius: 1 mile
Density: 30,000 ppsm
Population: 94,248
City 2 is a big (somewhat) sprawling city like Toronto (or early 1900s London)
Radius: 15 miles
Density: 10,000 ppsm
Population: 7,645,380
Lets say both cities grow by around 7% every 5 years (this is approximately Toronto's rate of growth).
The dense little city would have to expand its radius by about 185 ft every 5 years, so 1-2 city blocks per decade. That means it can basically grow a lot at a time.
The big city however would have to grow 2800 feet in every direction every 5 years, which is a couple city blocks per year. That's much more likely to result in mass produced housing developments.
That being said... Australia cities are growing just as fast as Canadian ones but they are much more likely to have homes individually designed, even in new subdivisions. So if Canada can adopt that culture, and combine it with more flexible zoning that allows a wider variety of typologies, I think you could still get some variety.
And you can still have a pretty vibrant appearance at the storefront level even with homogeneous buildings, like the 2-3 storey 60s-70s stripmalls of Toronto/Mississauga. I think it's part giving time for business owners to customize their storefronts, part just age, since new condos also have pretty boring retail (bank + Starbucks + nail salon).
Also I think a lot of potential more varied development lies with redevelopment of residential areas. Residential lots are quite small, and especially if the increment of redevelopment is relatively small, large scale lot consolidation isn't really viable. It's also a process that will be undertaken by a wide variety of developers, and covering a longer time span, thus encompassing a wider range of architectural trends, and sourcing materials from a wider variety of suppliers. And if we're talking about SFH/rowhouse neighbourhoods with relatively high homeownership rates, it'll be more difficult to consolidate properties than if the land is mostly owned by commercial landlords.
Even redevelopment of post-WWII residential areas could work under certain conditions (ex first ring post-WWII neighbourhoods or areas near rapid transit).