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  #281  
Old Posted Apr 29, 2020, 9:31 PM
OldDartmouthMark OldDartmouthMark is offline
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There seems to be a lot of armchair quarterbacks on the internet utilizing their amazing 20-20 hindsight vision to second guess the actions of governments around the world and cherrypicking the ones that seemed to prove more successful by differing metrics for some reason. Their motivation is not always clear, but perhaps they gain some personal satisfaction in convincing themselves that they know more than the people whose careers are based on the study of such things. It's a strange phenomenon, that seems to be integral to the human condition.

It seems odd that people will deride posts by someone like Colin, when their own opinions are no more valid than his. After all, they are just opinions... like mine as well.

Ah well, it's all just entertainment I suppose. A great way to pass the time while grumbling over the fact that the mean old government is not letting us do what we want to do. Enjoy yourselves folks. But don't worry, it will be all over soon enough, then we can look back and hopefully learn from the experience.
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  #282  
Old Posted Apr 29, 2020, 11:51 PM
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Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark View Post
It seems odd that people will deride posts by someone like Colin, when their own opinions are no more valid than his. After all, they are just opinions... like mine as well.
Disagreeing and deriding are two different things, and arguments are different from opinions. I offer arguments that people can assess for themselves, that don't rely on appeals to my expertise (which I expect people to give ~0 weight since I'm just somebody posting on the internet).

My argument is:

1) The best experts struggle to accurately predict future COVID-19 outcomes or what activities are high or low risk. We know this because they have said this, their models have high uncertainty and have proven so far to have poor predictive power, and they have been conservative with their shutdown policies.

2) Therefore we cannot say conclusively that high density alone is a significant risk factor or, if it is a risk factor, that its risk isn't easy to mitigate.

Others in this thread made perfectly valid points about the concept of population density (people per unit of land area) being different from overcrowding (people per unit of housing). A lot of claims about density really have to do with overcrowding or poverty, and mix up cause and effect. For example you might find that high density correlates with lung cancer, because poor people smoke more and poor people live in smaller houses or apartments. That doesn't mean that high density causes lung cancer.

Last edited by someone123; Apr 30, 2020 at 12:08 AM.
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  #283  
Old Posted Apr 30, 2020, 3:31 AM
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Fourth day in a row with no new cases in Hong Kong.

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Not me. Science and facts are not on your side. Would you have jumped on the New York or London subway a few weeks ago and gone to work every day ?
We kept going to work by public transport, since there was never any lockdown here. I feel OK with it given all the precautions that people are taking (face masks, frequent hand-washing).
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  #284  
Old Posted Apr 30, 2020, 3:48 PM
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  #285  
Old Posted Apr 30, 2020, 3:56 PM
OldDartmouthMark OldDartmouthMark is offline
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Disagreeing and deriding are two different things, and arguments are different from opinions. I offer arguments that people can assess for themselves, that don't rely on appeals to my expertise (which I expect people to give ~0 weight since I'm just somebody posting on the internet).

My argument is:

1) The best experts struggle to accurately predict future COVID-19 outcomes or what activities are high or low risk. We know this because they have said this, their models have high uncertainty and have proven so far to have poor predictive power, and they have been conservative with their shutdown policies.

2) Therefore we cannot say conclusively that high density alone is a significant risk factor or, if it is a risk factor, that its risk isn't easy to mitigate.

Others in this thread made perfectly valid points about the concept of population density (people per unit of land area) being different from overcrowding (people per unit of housing). A lot of claims about density really have to do with overcrowding or poverty, and mix up cause and effect. For example you might find that high density correlates with lung cancer, because poor people smoke more and poor people live in smaller houses or apartments. That doesn't mean that high density causes lung cancer.
Fair points. While I wasn't singling out you (or anyone else) in my post, I will say that you appear to possess a high level of skill in terms of being able to express yourself, while others may not be able to express their ideas as well on an internet board such as this. It doesn't mean that their ideas are not valid, even though they may not have the time or inclination to develop a detailed case argument. Internet boards in general, seem to flow into a sort of online debate, where everybody must bring the highest level of argument to the table and if they don't then 'you win'. My view, however, is that it should be more about conversation and mutual respect. If somebody presents an idea, it's reasonable to at least consider it. I know I can't shape the way discussions occur on this forum, but it's how I would like to frame discussions that I am involved in. That said, I'm only human and can be affected emotionally when discussing certain topics that may be affecting my life or the lives of those I care about. As long as we all try to keep it positive, it will always be better than going the other way IMHO.

In terms of this particular discussion, there are aspects of dense urban living that are promoted by those who are proponents of such a lifestyle, that have been mentioned by a few members (including myself) and not actually addressed in counterargument. Instead we read things, like... "but Hong Kong".

These aspects include (followed by my argument as to why they are valid in this conversation):
1) Personal cars are bad, mass transit is good. - Mass transit presents higher risk of exposure than a personal car.
2) Tall residential buildings are good, single family homes are bad - As mentioned apartment/condo buildings have unavoidable situations such as hallways, elevators, lobbies, etc. which have higher risk of exposure than a single family home.
3) In general, it doesn't seem like a stretch to say that more people using a smaller area will increase risk of exposure. More people on the sidewalks with less room to move away, more corners to unexpectedly meet another pedestrian, etc.
4) Etc. you get the idea...

Comparing financial status is not a valid point IMHO, in every case people who are more well off financially have greater ability to separate themselves from the general population - it's a fact, no matter where you live. You could be a billionaire living in a Manhattan condo and pay people to do all of your errands for you, so you never have to go outside if you don't want to. People of lesser financial means do not have that choice, and in this case are often the ones who have to work in grocery stores and other essential service industry jobs.

But if you want to use overcrowding, it is still a real-world side effect of density. Dense city areas tend to be more expensive to live in, so somebody who lives there in the lower echelons of financial income will have to live in circumstances where they must come into contact with people. In the more extreme case, homeless people tend to live in the denser areas of cities, and they have almost no means to protect themselves, save for the efforts of those who are trying to run shelters safely. One could conclude by this that dense areas create greater exposure risks by these means as well.

But, as everybody understands, I think, there are so many variables that it is very difficult to do a case-to-case comparison, to come to any sort of conclusion.

To be honest, though, the argument seems silly and nonproductive, and certainly doesn't serve much purpose in the current circumstances. We are all dealing with this, and we are all doing the best we can to get through it.

One could argue that the governments have been too conservative in this case, but given the circumstances I think the Canadian government has done a good job, the NS government has done a very good job - better than most IMHO. The US is a case study where there are many differing philosophies and levels of protocols and varying ideas on when it is safe to start going back to normal, etc. With some of the horrific stories coming from various parts of the country I think there will be some very interesting (though heartbreaking) situations that will reveal that Canada could have done much worse than it has. Of course we are still somewhat early in the process of figuring things out, so time will grant us the wisdom of how to best deal with these situations in the future.
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  #286  
Old Posted Apr 30, 2020, 4:15 PM
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Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark View Post
One could argue that the governments have been too conservative in this case, but given the circumstances I think the Canadian government has done a good job, the NS government has done a very good job - better than most IMHO. The US is a case study where there are many differing philosophies and levels of protocols and varying ideas on when it is safe to start going back to normal, etc.
My opinion is that it was important to be conservative in the beginning but we are entering a phase where people need to be more adaptive, and it will be easy to cause more harm from shutdowns than the virus itself, given that we know places like NS are not in a NY or Italy type situation.

One thing I have noticed is the prevalence of slogans like "flatten the curve". But what is the curve? Originally, public health authorities spoke about slowing down the number of hospitalizations to avoid overwhelming the system and ensure a supply of ventilators and health care workers to staff them. But a lot has changed since then:

- Estimates of mortality have dropped by 3-10x (from ~3-10% down to ~0.5-1%), and might drop further as the pandemic spreads beyond high risk areas like old folks' homes.
- Ventilators have not proven to be very effective at preventing death; it remains unclear if interventions are making much difference compared to people just resting up.
- We have demonstrated that the current level of blanket shutdowns is enough to drop the reproduction value of the virus low enough that it does not cause runaway outbreaks affecting ~80% of the population.

I don't think we should stop worrying about covid but I think we should look at more targeted intervention, e.g. open up businesses but require that workers wear protective equipment. And authorities should definitely be opening up large outdoor spaces. We have had open parks and beaches in BC and it's been fine. A few of them have been adapted to have one path in and one path out so people aren't walking too close. It is much better to open an area like the Halifax Common and monitor for large groups than to close it down and force people into less space.
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  #287  
Old Posted Apr 30, 2020, 4:21 PM
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Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark View Post
In general, it doesn't seem like a stretch to say that more people using a smaller area will increase risk of exposure. More people on the sidewalks with less room to move away, more corners to unexpectedly meet another pedestrian, etc.
I don't disagree with this in the abstract but it is a very simplified scenario. We have seen that places like Hong Kong have been able to prevent wide-scale outbreaks. There are many variables at play, and sometimes simple ways to mitigate risk. I think we need to account for mitigations in the "risk"; if it's easily preventable it's not as bad as a risk that's impossible to avoid.

We also have to be specific about what we mean by density. For example some native reserves are very low density, with a huge amount of outdoor space for everyone, yet they have crowded housing. A small town may be very low density yet have places like a single grocery store or church where everybody gathers.

On paper my neighbourhood has a high density (it's a mix of townhouses, 5 storey condos, and ~20-30 storey highrises), but I've had no problem staying 2 m away from others. In fact I was surprised that my building lobby has been much less of an issue than expected. Most of the time there's nobody there, sometimes I wait a few seconds for one person/group to go by.
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  #288  
Old Posted Apr 30, 2020, 5:25 PM
OldDartmouthMark OldDartmouthMark is offline
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Originally Posted by someone123 View Post
My opinion is that it was important to be conservative in the beginning but we are entering a phase where people need to be more adaptive, and it will be easy to cause more harm from shutdowns than the virus itself, given that we know places like NS are not in a NY or Italy type situation.

One thing I have noticed is the prevalence of slogans like "flatten the curve". But what is the curve? Originally, public health authorities spoke about slowing down the number of hospitalizations to avoid overwhelming the system and ensure a supply of ventilators and health care workers to staff them. But a lot has changed since then:

- Estimates of mortality have dropped by 3-10x (from ~3-10% down to ~0.5-1%), and might drop further as the pandemic spreads beyond high risk areas like old folks' homes.
- Ventilators have not proven to be very effective at preventing death; it remains unclear if interventions are making much difference compared to people just resting up.
- We have demonstrated that the current level of blanket shutdowns is enough to drop the reproduction value of the virus low enough that it does not cause runaway outbreaks affecting ~80% of the population.

I don't think we should stop worrying about covid but I think we should look at more targeted intervention, e.g. open up businesses but require that workers wear protective equipment. And authorities should definitely be opening up large outdoor spaces. We have had open parks and beaches in BC and it's been fine. A few of them have been adapted to have one path in and one path out so people aren't walking too close. It is much better to open an area like the Halifax Common and monitor for large groups than to close it down and force people into less space.
My impression is that this is exactly what the governments are doing. Watching the data and adjusting restrictions based on that. They may be slightly on the overcautious side of things, but I think that is necessary when attempting to manage any large number of people, when complete enforcement isn't really a practical deterrent.

The talk seems to now be moving on what restrictions can be reduced, with the understanding that it will take several weeks for the data to show the result of those changes.

NS is in the position of having covid start here later than it had in other provinces, and thus are also in the favourable position of seeing how it works out in other provinces before moving forward. Our cases have definitely decreased, but have not fallen to zero like NB and PEI, so there will be a further waiting period before things can change.

Nobody is going to get out of this unscathed, but I do think we are doing pretty well overall here, aside from the heartbreaking cases in our long term care homes.
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  #289  
Old Posted Apr 30, 2020, 5:28 PM
OldDartmouthMark OldDartmouthMark is offline
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Originally Posted by someone123 View Post
I don't disagree with this in the abstract but it is a very simplified scenario. We have seen that places like Hong Kong have been able to prevent wide-scale outbreaks. There are many variables at play, and sometimes simple ways to mitigate risk. I think we need to account for mitigations in the "risk"; if it's easily preventable it's not as bad as a risk that's impossible to avoid.

We also have to be specific about what we mean by density. For example some native reserves are very low density, with a huge amount of outdoor space for everyone, yet they have crowded housing. A small town may be very low density yet have places like a single grocery store or church where everybody gathers.

On paper my neighbourhood has a high density (it's a mix of townhouses, 5 storey condos, and ~20-30 storey highrises), but I've had no problem staying 2 m away from others. In fact I was surprised that my building lobby has been much less of an issue than expected. Most of the time there's nobody there, sometimes I wait a few seconds for one person/group to go by.
I think the discussion was based on the abstract, but as I have pointed out there are too many variables to actually be able to compare it so simply. And I still contend that it's not a very useful discussion. Besides, most of these conversations just come down to defending one's lifestyle preference anyhow. Not very useful.
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  #290  
Old Posted Aug 22, 2020, 2:23 PM
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There's an article on The Chronicle Herald's website today stating that construction at 2183 Gottingen could finally start soon, but the Housing Trust of Nova Scotia will sell the property at 2215 Gottingen to fund the initial stages of construction.

https://www.thechronicleherald.ca/bu...derway-488034/

(Article is paywalled)
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  #291  
Old Posted Aug 27, 2020, 11:26 PM
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Here is the listing for 2215 Gottingen: https://www.commerciallistings.cbre....b5?view=isSale

It has a couple recent aerials:


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  #292  
Old Posted Feb 13, 2021, 1:30 PM
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Here is the listing for 2215 Gottingen: https://www.commerciallistings.cbre....b5?view=isSale

It has a couple recent aerials:


More recent update on this. Project seems doomed.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-...reet-1.5910190
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  #293  
Old Posted Feb 13, 2021, 4:23 PM
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Some interesting comments by Ross Cantwell below that article. Finally an example of a comment section providing useful information?
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  #294  
Old Posted Feb 13, 2021, 8:14 PM
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Some interesting comments by Ross Cantwell below that article. Finally an example of a comment section providing useful information?
Mostly useful in confirming that the proponents are in over their heads trying to do a project of this size. I am not optimistic.
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  #295  
Old Posted Feb 13, 2021, 8:47 PM
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Mostly useful in confirming that the proponents are in over their heads trying to do a project of this size. I am not optimistic.
Wanting to build affordable housing is a noble goal but the process of buying sites, demolishing whatever is on them to reduce property bills, and then holding them for many years while figuring out the details does not seem to be good for the city. These HTNS lots at this point are probably the 2 biggest gaps along the main part of Gottingen.

I wonder if it is a better approach to let developers build private market-oriented units and then provide subsidy to the tenants directly. This means that only "generic" housing is being built and the government housing subsidy timelines are somewhat removed from the development process. Subsidies to tenants can also be adjusted more quickly whereas it's hard to build or repurpose tailor-built multi-unit developments. They also let tenants make decisions about trade-offs related to where they want to live or what amenities they prefer.
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  #296  
Old Posted Feb 14, 2021, 4:35 PM
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Wanting to build affordable housing is a noble goal but the process of buying sites, demolishing whatever is on them to reduce property bills, and then holding them for many years while figuring out the details does not seem to be good for the city. These HTNS lots at this point are probably the 2 biggest gaps along the main part of Gottingen.

I wonder if it is a better approach to let developers build private market-oriented units and then provide subsidy to the tenants directly. This means that only "generic" housing is being built and the government housing subsidy timelines are somewhat removed from the development process. Subsidies to tenants can also be adjusted more quickly whereas it's hard to build or repurpose tailor-built multi-unit developments. They also let tenants make decisions about trade-offs related to where they want to live or what amenities they prefer.
Excellent solution 123, but I suspect that a market solution may threaten too many empire plans.
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  #297  
Old Posted Jul 20, 2021, 4:04 PM
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The Design Advisory Committee now has 2215 Gottingen listed as having a Level III Pre-App submitted for the site. We should hear the details soon.

Site Plan Approval Application Tracker - July 2021
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  #298  
Old Posted Jun 3, 2022, 12:29 PM
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Holy moley this thread has been going on for a long time.
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  #299  
Old Posted Jun 4, 2022, 12:27 PM
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I erroneously thought 2215 commenced work, but it is this one. The lot is now fenced in and there is some equipment on site. It will be great to have one of the gaps filled in. I am excited to see the updated renderings.
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  #300  
Old Posted Jun 6, 2022, 12:52 AM
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