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Honestly I am against this proposal for all the reasons you just listed. Does every corner of this metro need to be residential? Does it not make sense to use that parcel, surrounded by a massive casino, a metro hub, industrial lands and the airport, to be used for industrial or entertainment purposes instead?
Residential tower development should be concentrated along #3 road in Richmond (preferably Aberdeen Station and north). Same goes for the River front of Surrey. So what if new West is redeveloping their river front, the Surrey Flats around Scott Road should be kept for industrial uses, if anything, industry should be intensified in this area.
It is great for people to live near mass transit, but for us to be truely successful as a metro people also need to
work and be
entertained near mass transit. Why not relocate the DinoTown theme park (bigger and better of course) along that parcel of land in Richmond? The casino is already there, as is the transit, perfect for such an entertainment destination. Not to mention the land there is flat (perfect for a theme park), is near an airport (why the hell want to live right beside where planes land and take off all day?) and is a severe flood plain (a theme park being flooded is far better than a residential area!).
Honestly, at one point in the 50s it was decided that every development should be a carbon copy suburban subdivision. At that time it was the be all and end all of urban development, they really thought it was the best solution! How did that turn out? Pretty bad in many respects. Now it seems the be all and end all is for every development to be a mixed use (primarily residential) condo tower. While high density residential living is a good thing, and some mixed use is a good thing, if everything is built this way we are only going to be repeating our mistakes from the suburban sprawl days of the 50s. Of course this time it will be an entirely new set of problems (the death of night life and true entertainment areas, the strangling of our industrial sector through high land values and overly strict operating guidelines, such as strict noise and light bylaws, possibly destroying 24 hour operations, the same goes for the airport, etc...)
Again, I hate to bring up Japan, but if you ever ride the train there while the cities do have lots of mix use (essentially residential and retail together) they also have many areas that are strictly commercial and entertainment. In fact it is often these commercial areas during the day that become the entertainment areas at night (there is a smart mixes use strategy). Also, snugged right in with the city are incredibly dense, intense industrial areas with rapid transit train stations at their door step.
sorry for the rant!