Quality of Canadian urbanism

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by giallo

Indeed. And I'd say for worse.

Outside of added density and some nice greenery, everything else in that photo makes me depressed.

The noteworthy takeaway is what a diamond in the rough these places are. It's an ideal foundation upon which to intensify. There are a few buildings one can restore/repurpose (those old school buildings) to maintain architectural diversity. The road widths lend itself well to pedestrianization, landscaping, and re-paving. They're not those impossibly wide boulevards we see in car dependent suburbia. Most Canadian cities now have decent urban planning policies in place and are now on the right path.

I suspect these quintessentially Canadian places will look amazing in 15-20 years. All the ingredients are there. We just need to insist on good quality and be patient. It's not places like peninsula Halifax I'm worried about. It's cities like Sudbury that desperately need investment and intensification but neither is likely.

[thewave46]

Originally Posted by isaidso

The noteworthy takeaway is what a diamond in the rough these places are. It's an ideal foundation upon which to intensify. There are a few buildings one can restore/repurpose (those old school buildings) to maintain architectural diversity. The road widths lend itself well to pedestrianization, landscaping, and re-paving. They're not those impossibly wide boulevards we see in car dependent suburbia. Most Canadian cities now have decent urban planning policies in place and are now on the right path.

I suspect these quintessentially Canadian places will look amazing in 15-20 years. All the ingredients are there. We just need to insist on good quality and be patient. It's not places like peninsula Halifax I'm worried about. It's cities like Sudbury that desperately need investment and intensification but neither is likely.

Sudbury's a weird outlier by Canadian city standards.

It's a mining city for starters, but the mines aren't in the core of the city. The mining history means there's mines in many places on the periphery, and land use is a hodgepodge of mining company and city land. The employment node of downtown was simply due to initially it being the shopping/service core, then government setting up there.

It's built on Canadian Shield, so it's not an easy city to build on - you've got rock or swamp. I'm trying to think of another city of its size with such challenging terrain in this country. The closest one I can think of might be industrial Cape Breton.

It's not really a city that can easily be intensified, nor does the culture of the place lend itself to that inclination. "Intensification" generally means blasting off a hillside to build houses on. The employment nodes are much more spread out, making large scale intensification harder.

You don't realize how weird it is in context until you dig down into it.

[Loco101]

Originally Posted by thewave46

Sudbury's a weird outlier by Canadian city standards.

It's a mining city for starters, but the mines aren't in the core of the city. The mining history means there's mines in many places on the periphery, and land use is a hodgepodge of mining company and city land. The employment node of downtown was simply due to initially it being the shopping/service core, then government setting up there.

It's built on Canadian Shield, so it's not an easy city to build on - you've got rock or swamp. I'm trying to think of another city of its size with such challenging terrain in this country. The closest one I can think of might be industrial Cape Breton.

It's not really a city that can easily be intensified, nor does the culture of the place lend itself to that inclination. "Intensification" generally means blasting off a hillside to build houses on. The employment nodes are much more spread out, making large scale intensification harder.

You don't realize how weird it is in context until you dig down into it.

From my travels I would say that Saguenay QC is quite similar to Sudbury in not being the easiest place to build things in parts of the city.

[ue]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

While most Canadian downtowns/inner cities are quite vibrant and appealing, the reality is that most Canadians live in the suburbs. Whether that being due to not being able to afford to live in the inner cities, being closer to work as most do NOT work right downtown, or having the complete audacity of actually wanting a back yard or a bedroom for each kid, there are several factors at play.

Also most people have a car and that will never change regardless of how good the transit is. Having a car is expensive but it is a convenience that allows far more freedom than transit every could and hence it is an expense they are willing to pay.

The question is not how we get people to ditch their cars because it's never going to happen but rather how we can work with our cars and still make vibrant communities. One very easy and cheap way we can do this is reconfiguring parking.

Much of our urban blight and pedestrian unfriendly suburbs is that stores are fronted by massive parking lots taking the store fronts far off the roadways and sidewalks. We don't have to force less parking but rather reconfigure where we put it. Putting all store fronts at the sidewalks and putting the parking in the rear would go miles to bringing vitality to our streets. We have recently seen the development of such communities with streets offering a more pleasant pedestrian realm being created in our suburbs but the reality is that they don't have any less parking than what we are use to but rather the parking is behind the stores and not in front of them.

Getting rid of parking minimums in our suburbs may look great for urban policy wonks but it is key to a businesses success because they know the the VAST majority of people going to their business are going to drive. This is why businesses fight back against such proposals..........getting rid of parking spots is a one way ticket to insolvency and they know it.

That's simply not true. While, yes, many people would still own a private automobile no matter what, the number would be drastically reduced if we prioritized public transit and other alternatives the way we have been with automobiles for multiple generations now.

The only reason why cars are so convenient now is because we have purposefully designed our cities with them in mind. New development assumes everyone will drive while old development has been retrofitted with automobiles in mind. Prioritizing development in such a manner is ecologically horrendous as well as fiscally costly. These developments are inefficient and do not pay for themselves, they are only subsidized by further sprawl (the growth ponzi scheme). If we stopped building the costly infrastructure required for cars to be so convenient, they wouldn't be so freeing. They're already pretty inconvenient in many North American central areas, not to mention Europe and Asia.

[Harrison]

Originally Posted by thewave46

Sudbury's a weird outlier by Canadian city standards.

It's a mining city for starters, but the mines aren't in the core of the city. The mining history means there's mines in many places on the periphery, and land use is a hodgepodge of mining company and city land. The employment node of downtown was simply due to initially it being the shopping/service core, then government setting up there.

It's built on Canadian Shield, so it's not an easy city to build on - you've got rock or swamp. I'm trying to think of another city of its size with such challenging terrain in this country. The closest one I can think of might be industrial Cape Breton.

It's not really a city that can easily be intensified, nor does the culture of the place lend itself to that inclination. "Intensification" generally means blasting off a hillside to build houses on. The employment nodes are much more spread out, making large scale intensification harder.

You don't realize how weird it is in context until you dig down into it.

Not the same size, but as far as small cities go, I'd say Yellowknife has the most challenging terrain for construction. Canadian Shield throughout the city, mixed in with permafrost and a few lakes here and there, all of which leads to a very expensive environment in which to build.

[SignalHillHiker]

This is basically the opposite of everything I usually love - urban, densely packed, colourful - but it’s still lovely. I love it.

• Video Link

[someone123]

Originally Posted by isaidso

The noteworthy takeaway is what a diamond in the rough these places are. It's an ideal foundation upon which to intensify. There are a few buildings one can restore/repurpose (those old school buildings) to maintain architectural diversity. The road widths lend itself well to pedestrianization, landscaping, and re-paving. They're not those impossibly wide boulevards we see in car dependent suburbia. Most Canadian cities now have decent urban planning policies in place and are now on the right path.

There is a development around there that I find pretty interesting.

It is a small apartment building with a FAR of about 8 and no setback built on a small lot that's surrounded by empty space. It is a little piece of a dense urban neighbourhood being built in the wasteland.

https://urbanhalifax.tumblr.com/tagged/6189Young

The "green space" in this rendering is 2 different empty lots on either side of the building, which is designed for no minimal/no setbacks (note how the side wall has no windows).