Quote:
Originally Posted by someone123
Actually I think it does make sense that traditional houses would eventually be pushed off of the peninsula as the city grows. Back in the 1700's, Barrington Street was residential and was lined with houses. By the mid-1800's almost all of those houses have been replaced by commercial buildings. Today, there aren't many houses left even out towards Robie.
That's the natural evolution of a growing city. It might make sense to preserve some houses, but it doesn't make sense to artificially maintain low-density buildings in the most central areas. Instead, it makes more sense to extend the urban neighbourhoods outward. In the future, if things work out well, maybe Dutch Village Road will be like the new Quinpool Road, and the far North End will be like Agricola Street is today.
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Yep. I'd still argue for preservation of the old building stock, however (many of the commercial buildings on Agricola are just repurposed rowhouses). The side-street houses tend to be quite densely packed together, and I do, honestly, think it's worth preserving the houses lining streets like Robie, North, South, and Inglis for their urban form and architectural merit.
From living in Calgary and Toronto, I'm pretty decently acquainted with development there, and the concept of the "established neighbourhood" is gospel. The neighbourhoods are just
done, and future change is expected to be minimal if anything. Growth is being directed to main avenues and intersections. I think it's unnecessarily restrictive, but I wouldn't want to see those Victorian avenues pulled up and destroyed either. So there's a middle ground, and I guess it involves cherry picking what you keep and what you lose.
(Like I said in another thread, knocking down the houses standing in the way of that proposed Wellington Street building is perfectly acceptable, to me. But knocking down
something like this would be a non-starter.