Quote:
Originally Posted by someone123
Halifax has a lot of dead zones with poor connectivity that are not complete neighbourhoods. The far end of Fairview and Clayton Park on the other side of the 102 from Bayers is a good example of this, and all of the mainland south suburbs suffer from similar problems. Nothing connects up well, the density is not quite high enough, and big box retail has siphoned off enough demand that there isn't enough left for local stuff.
I think a lot of people are accustomed to driving 10 minutes to the grocery store even when they live in a medium density neighbourhood but I'm not sure that's the preference of most people (one bit of evidence being the generally higher land values in the mixed use areas). Yet in the media BANANA values are often treated as the only values.
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That end of the suburbs is what I think causes people to relate big buildings with traffic. I've worked in that neck of the woods quite a bit and you really can't walk to anything aside from a park or gravel trail if you're lucky, and everyone gets accustomed to driving.
The density is weird in that you have dense buildings surrounded by parking lots. So while there's thousands of people in these neighbourhoods, there's not a lot of vibrance and little sense of place.
The bottom of Fairview is a much different story, where you have a great corridor of services, and convenience stores dotted throughout the lower density parts.