Canadian Skyline Thread III

[saffronleaf]

Originally Posted by WhipperSnapper

There are many suburban stations that are not well equipped for dense residential developments and no more than mid rise times coverage should be considered at all but a couple. Instead we're starting to build and demand for more denser clusters of skyscrapers than China with a billion people. We've diluted in thinking that affordability, high population is achievable through intensification and the result is narrow shoe boxes looking into other shoe boxes occupied by desperation than desire. Sprawl is an ugly, anti-social form of development. Outward expansion in the form of Toronto's streetcar suburbs wouldn't be called sprawl. (Best would to copy Asia and build new cities of 2 million or more from scratch.) The ugly, anti-social, unwalkable skyscrapers in suburban TODs are more representative of sprawl. Yeah, if you have to walk to a station and jump on a train for just about anything than the neighbourhood is not walkable. That's Toronto. Metrotown fares so much better but, what type of environment are we creating with more and more lots filling in giving us the first impressions of just how close these towers will be to one another at build out.

This forum obsesses about population growth as it leads to bigger and bolder development. More development brings more people and more vibrancy. However, is it really all that healthy? Of course, at present, one really has to experience it in Toronto to start questioning it.

if you're in downtown (like east of bathurst, west of the don river, north of the lake, south of bloor) it's very walkable and the density is a big reason why.