Quote:
Originally Posted by fenwick16
Halifax is different than most cities in Canada. Take for example London, Ontario. Maybe it makes sense in London to have offices concentrated in the core since London isn't divided by a large harbour. The same goes for Regina, Calgary, Edmonton, and Winnipeg. Figure 14 of this report - https://www.regina.ca/opencms/export/sit...ts/urban-planning/.media/pdf/study-1.pdf - gives statistics on the downtown/suburban office splits for various cities throughout Canada.
At one time it seemed as though the urban plan for the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) was to focus office buildings downtown with highways, subways and commuter trains transporting people downtown and then out of the city after work. Over the past 20- 30 years office buildings have been distributed more throughout the GTA and numerous condos towers are being built in downtown Toronto. I think this has been good for the city. Downtown Toronto has become a vibrant city with people living and working in the core. Neighbouring communities, such as Mississauga, North York, Markham can also support both work and residential spaces. Since the late 1960's the office space distribution in the GTA has gone from over 80% in the downtown core of Toronto to under 50% (Figure 12 of the same report - https://www.regina.ca/opencms/export/sit...ts/urban-planning/.media/pdf/study-1.pdf)
Personally, I think Halifax is moving in a logical direction as far as office construction is concerned. Office buildings are being built where people live. And now condos and more apartments are being built in the Halifax core where many people work. |
Toronto office space has been distributed throughout the GTA because the region's horrifying sprawl makes it impossible to commute, but the percentage of its office space downtown is still far higher than Halifax (a less sprawly city where it's easier to commute downtown).
And the suburbification trend is now reversing, with downtown office space is now so in demand in the GTA that a whole derelict former industrial area between downtown and the harbour is now becoming the "South Core" office district. Offices are actually
moving from the burbs into downtown to an unprecedented degree, so if you're saying the Toronto model is one of dispersed offices throughout the region, that's really not true, certainly not anymore--downtown is the number-one office-space growth area in the entire region, by far.
As for a city like Calgary, it actually would make more sense, given the car-dependent, dispersed nature of the city, to have a less centrally focused office district. But oil companies love to be physically near each other. They're like banks that way.
I do agree in theory that it makes sense to have several regional office centres throughout a metro region, and that it makes sense for Halifax to get residential space downtown and not just office space. But Halifax can definitely stand to have the balance of office space tipped more toward the old downtown for a few years—it's been left out in the cold far too long, as Counterfactual said.
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