Suburban Skylines

[mhays]

Good one!

There are good examples of urban suburban downtowns though.

Alas, Bellevue, my local version, has the skyline but might never get there on walkability. The street grid isn't that bad, but you have to push a button to cross legally, which often means waiting when you'd otherwise just go. When I visit I just ignore the buttons and cross of course (and almost got run over by a bus in a fly-through lane once).

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Kngkyle

The only noteworthy one for Chicago is Evanston. Not much of a skyline but a very nice downtown with easy rail transit to Chicago. Also, trees!

evanston certainly doesn't have the mightiest skyline around, but for an american suburb, it sure does do a lot of things right at ground level.

check it out: Evanston, IL - Chicago's fantastic northern neighbor

[IMBY]

Originally Posted by mello

So Vancouver is a young, expensive city laden with scenic views just like SD/LA/SF and they are progressive enough to have been going vertical in their suburbs for decades so what gives in California cities? Van is a clear example of how this works and people are fine with it, I just don't see why CA can't get its act together and go up outside of downtown areas.

I've been stumped myself as to why, for instance, San Bernardino isn't a suburban high rise jungle, with a commuter train to L.A., or Riverside or Hollywood or any other suburb of L.A.

I do recall that 72% of L.A. is still? archaically zoned for single family homes, and then there's the anti-density Nimby's to contend with.

Big question, with Vancouver, how did the developers win over their Nimby's?

[LosAngelesSportsFan]

Originally Posted by IMBY

I've been stumped myself as to why, for instance, San Bernardino isn't a suburban high rise jungle, with a commuter train to L.A., or Riverside or Hollywood or any other suburb of L.A.

I do recall that 72% of L.A. is still? archaically zoned for single family homes, and then there's the anti-density Nimby's to contend with.

Big question, with Vancouver, how did the developers win over their Nimby's?

San bernardino is an hour away from LA... It's not really a suburb of LA like Pasadena or Glendale for example.. There are many suburbs (or areas outside of DTLA) that have high rise districts.... Pasadena, Glendale, Burbank, Universal City, Brentwood, Westwood, Santa Monica, Hollywood, Koreatown, Beverly Hills, Long Beach, Irvine and so on

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by IMBY

I've been stumped myself as to why, for instance, San Bernardino isn't a suburban high rise jungle, with a commuter train to L.A., or Riverside or Hollywood or any other suburb of L.A.

Beause it's the least desirable part of Southern CA, and pretty much all sprawl. Why would there be an urgent need for corporate HQ highrises or luxury condo and hotel towers?

Also, that commuter rail line has limited ridership and frequency, and probably has nothing to do with development patterns.

Originally Posted by IMBY

Big question, with Vancouver, how did the developers win over their Nimby's?

Canada and the U.S. are quiet different when it comes to living preferences and zoning norms. And Vancouver is basically unique in that it's a place for Chinese nationals to park their money in RE.

[mhays]

The primary answer is that in Vancouver, nimbys don't have as much power. Which gets into Canadian land use decisions not being as local, etc.

[dleung]

Originally Posted by mhays

The primary answer is that in Vancouver, nimbys don't have as much power. Which gets into Canadian land use decisions not being as local, etc.

NIMBY's generally have less power in Canada, but they have comparatively more in Vancouver due to the region's focus on quality-of-life, where shadowing, neighbourhood-scale, etc are important factors.

Since the first post 4 years ago, Vancouver's suburban skylines have all grown faster than downtown. There are now 4 skylines that peak at around 500-600 feet.

Metrotown




Brentwood


Surrey

[Centropolis]

clayton, missouri is in the midst of a building spree (for a suburban midwestern downtown):


media.chute.io

but also has apartment neighborhoods like this:


barronrealty.com


wikipedia.com

[Pavlov's Dog]

For Vancouver an additional factor favoring high-rise condo development was the timing of having half a million or so Chinese people moving over from Hong Kong and other places densely populated places in Asia and having high rise, transit-centric living as the expectation. Is there any data or anecdotal evidence to support my hypothesis?

[mhays]

In those four years, the Seattle area has had a TINY trickle of new highrises outside the Seattle and Bellevue cores. One in Southcenter, one in Renton, one in the U District, one in Tacoma... Others are planned in Lynnwood and Bellevue's I-90 corridor. This gives me hope that real skylines will happen in these places.

The U District and Tacoma are already highrise districts actually, just without large numbers. Tacoma might be stagnant after the current one. But the U District recently upzoned to allow highrises for the first time in decades, and something like eight of them are planned.

Bellevue has also upzoned to allow 600' in a core area, and a few proposals might soon take advantage of that.

[softee]

Cool aerial shot of Mississauga:


Pic courtesy of Urban Toronto

[dleung]

2 suburban skylines with downtown Vancouver in background

Originally Posted by owenhujb

A view of Burnaby's 2 major skylines from Edmonds Town Center

Credits to Zepfancouver for the shots and Sp0ckets for the photo stitching

[summersm343]

Philadelphia Region

Most of the skylines in the Philadelphia area are shorter, but impressively urban.

Center City, Philadelphia
-Tallest Building: Comcast Technology Center - 1,121 feet tall




University City, Philadelphia
-Tallest Building: FMC Tower - 736 feet tall






Atlantic City, New Jersey
-Tallest building: Ocean Resort - 710 feet tall




Wilmington, Deleware
-Tallest building: 1201 Market Street - 330 feet tall




Camden, New Jersey
-Tallest building: Camden City Hall - 371 feet tall
-Outdated on Google Earth, as another highrise has been built recently in Camden as a part of a redevelopment effort in the city




Templetown, Philadelphia
-Tallest building: Morgan Hall - 344 feet tall
-This image is also outdated, as 3 more highrises have been built that would be visible here




City Avenue Corridor - straddled between Philadelphia and Bala Cynwyd
-Tallest building: Park Plaza Condominiums - 293 feet tall
-Rather spread out, but makes an impact from some angles




Reading, Pennsylvania
-Tallest building: Berks County Courthouse - 275 feet tall




Conshohocken, Pennsylvania
-Tallest building: Eight Tower Bridge - 214 feet tall
-Also outdated, as 3 more highrises are currently under construction here

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by dleung

2 suburban skylines with downtown Vancouver in background

when i drove to vancouver this year i was legit disoriented by the skylines as i had lost cell/data service and could not easily orient myself towards the “correct” skyline.

[isaidso]

The argument that NIMBYs hold less sway in Canada seems true but it still wasn't answered as to why that is. Is it the way the municipal government works in Canada vs the US, the political climate in each country, and/or other factors? Canadian urban planning policies quite uniformly encourage TOD (Transit Oriented Development). NIMBY opposition exist in Canada too (Canadians like detached housing just like Americans) but they rarely succeed in pushing their agenda.

Besides, a far higher % of Canadians live in cities with expensive real estate. A single detached house on a big lot would cost millions.

[dleung]

I'd imagine it's the same individualistic cultural forces in America that favor private cars over transit, stand-your-ground laws, ownership of firearms, private healthcare, private schools, private prisons, etc. There is less institutionalization of the greater good.

[mhays]

The gubmint should say out of private business, and specifically mandate what gets built.

[dc_denizen]

And yet In the supposedly more individualistic USA we have 600,000 multi family units under construction, delivering 340,000 per year, and most in the suburbs

The fact these are midrises rather than high rises has to do with the price levels in the us being lower and much more aligned with incomes

[dc_denizen]

Also Americans aren’t really ok with this

[Nite]

The New Westminister skyline in metro Vancouver is underrated I feel.


https://www.flickr.com/photos/147784...n/photostream/

Metro vancouver with some suburban skylines

views for years 2 by
Andrew Rochfort, on Flickr