Quote:
Originally Posted by 905er
I don't understand why downtown Saskatoon has so much dead space between buildings.. it looks denser from an aerial perspective but on foot there are huge gaps between buildings which makes it appear rather depressing.. it's quite different from it's provincial counterpart Regina in that respect.. Regina appears to be much denser in the core.
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Yes, Regina's core is denser and more compact, while Saskatoon's downtown is spread over a larger geographic area. Our streets are also wider than Regina's which makes for a different experience. And we have some beautiful surface parking lots scattered throughout.
There are a number of historical reasons why the established downtown ended up being so large, I think the most obvious of which is that the structure of the city established in the early days kind of pre-determined a downtown of this size. The river as a natural boundary on the south and east, 25th St with the University Bridge connection as the logical boundary on the north, and the rail yards (now Midtown Plaza) on the west. When those were removed in the 60s, the new logical western boundary became Idylwyld Drive even further west, a major north-south artery. Planning decisions in the decades since, such as zoning, have been made within those boundaries. I think also that the desire for proximity to the river (rather than organizing around a central nucleus more like Regina's case) has also spread much of out density out along a thin meandering line along the river.
I'm not sure having a downtown this large has served us well given our size. But the upside is that we have a lot of room to grow... for generations. Options for a new downtown arena become viable without necessarily needing to demolish any buildings. Or a new central library.
If you started your street view exploration in the area that my previous link took you to, that is a part of downtown that is particularly unpleasant. But the central part of our downtown, centred on a few blocks of 21st St (east-west) and 2nd Ave (north-south) there are fairly intact streetscapes and more of a feeling of urbanity. I see that area as our true "core".