Canadian Urban Canyons

[SteelTown]

Originally Posted by SteelTown

This area of downtown Hamilton is quickly filling up as a new urban canyon. This area will have a future LRT stop.


Source: Chris R. - https://urbantoronto.ca/forum/thread....32784/page-10

Update


Source: Chris R. @ https://urbantoronto.ca/forum/thread....27799/page-14

[Martin Mtl]

Rue Saint-Jacques, Montréal.


Pictutre by Lc17 on agoramtl.com

[MolsonExport]

love me some Montreal canyons

[Kilgore Trout]

I was just on St-Jacques today. It has always been an impressive street thanks to the old architecture but the new towers the create a terminal view takes it to the next level.

If only it was livelier at street level. There's plenty of people around, but it's not a destination, despite the architecture. In that particular area, McGill Street is way busier.

[kool maudit]

Originally Posted by Kilgore Trout

I was just on St-Jacques today. It has always been an impressive street thanks to the old architecture but the new towers the create a terminal view takes it to the next level.

If only it was livelier at street level. There's plenty of people around, but it's not a destination, despite the architecture. In that particular area, McGill Street is way busier.

Very true. It is second only to Bay Street in built form, but there's that issue.

Something that has changed over my years on the forum is an increasing sense that while buildings are important, they remain secondary signifiers. The primary quality is the human activity they imply. A hypothetical "canyon" of important headquarters, hotels with many international visitors and high-end commercial outlets is thus more impressive than even a much larger canyon of high-rise student residences, holiday apartments and hospital buildings.

In some senses, I think a city like e.g. Toronto is almost topped out in terms of what buildings themselves can provide. To level up, it is now down to what sort of things are going on in the buildings, and how central they are to world affairs.

[WhipperSnapper]

I don't know about that. I find the forum is even more focused on tall development with respects to the increase in number of residents, storeys and, appearance in the skyline over urban form, living conditions and architecture. There's less focus on existing inventory with the even more focus on future taller development.

This could be due to more places booming than when I joined.

[kool maudit]

I worded the above badly, I meant something that has changed in my own thinking on the subject.

[WhipperSnapper]

Well, I interpreted it the way I did as I can't imagine you as more skyscraper enthusiast than urban explorer

[TorontoDrew]

Some fun shots looking down into the canyons near The One.

Posted by Maldive.









And the video from the drone that took them: • Video Link

[WhipperSnapper]

The global residential skyscraper boom had yet to take off when I joined the conversation around 2000. There were numerous conversations across all the platforms to make commercial cores more attractive and the conversation typically settled on they lack of human scale to compete with mixed use neighbourhood high streets. That lack of human scale is a trade off for expressing commercial prowess but, it's detrimental when it comes to living in this built form. That conversation over human scale residential skyscraper clusters has never been brought up since the boom took off. Rather residential skyscrapers canyons are viewed as indistinguishable from the commercial cores of 20 years ago applying the same might and prowess over the more likely scenario of warehousing people.

In Toronto's case, the legacy of tens of thousands of mediocre, undersized units will be lasting long after this affordable housing crisis is forgotten The percentage increase of even smaller proposed living spaces is way up from 5 years ago. The best thing to ever happen for Toronto is this lull to get new projects in the ground that would have doubled or tripled the extreme limits of undersized units in a few short years. Their sheer numbers would have set the market for generations.

[yaletown_fella]

The post 2008 frenzy of overly low interest rates (negative real rates,,, inflation-induced debt destruction) , a growing culture of mortgage fraud, taxation shift from general property tax increases towards very high DC charges, and investors shifting their focus away from yield-generation to capital appreciation is what led to extreme land inflation.

Back in the 90s and pre-2008 , a greater share of developers were building for livability. They had to produce projects like Gairlochs 3194 Dundas or Merchandise Lofts to lure in buyer interest .. the quality of condo (and neighborhood context) many of us would actually want to live, were in reach of people who worked hard and sacrificed. Nowadays a 1 bedroom unit in an attractive building like these go for over 600k, over 10x the average income.

Even floorplans and unit features at Concords Mariners Terrace far exede the vast majority of market units being churned out today, some in absurd places for shoebox living such as North Oshawa or 'Downtown Markham'

[Maldive]

Yonge Street


ryanbruins17

[MolsonExport]

looks great. If only it was a water canyon, like the Chicago river.

[ScreamingViking]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

looks great. If only it was a water canyon, like the Chicago river.

If we keep getting the kind of rain we did this past summer, it could very well become one in the future.