I am really drawn to live/work spaces like these ones here in Oklahoma City's new Wheeler District. (Additional project info can be found over here.) We have some examples of this in Toronto, but I wouldn't say it's commonly done. And oftentimes they don't work at all. More often than not, these spaces seem to just get used as strictly residential (which is okay).

But there are some arguably successful examples that we can point to. CityPlace is maybe one. When the area was first getting developed, retail would have been an extremely difficult use to underwrite. It was a development island. And so live/work suites were introduced at grade along much of the area's main artery.

The area did eventually get new dedicated retail, but its live/work suites also started taking on more "work" as demand in the area grew. Today, nobody is going to confuse it with Bloor Street, but importantly, the ground floor was able to change and adapt. And this is one of the great benefits, or at least promises, of live/work: you get additional flexibility.

Personally, I would love to have a live/work space. I'd use it to incubate new ideas and sell random stuff. And I have a feeling that, given the opportunity, many others would do the same. So I plan to spend some more time thinking and writing about this topic. If any of you have shining examples of live/work successes, please share them in the comment section below.

I tweeted this out last week:

Not surprisingly, the responses were divided. Some responded saying that beauty is more important than density, and a lot of people were quick to point out that there's good density and there's bad density. And because I can appreciate both of these comments, it made me think that I should probably elaborate on my glib tweet.

The points I was trying to vaguely imply are the following.

More often than not (at least for North American cities), I think our problem is not too much density, it's too little. This translates into cities that aren't walkable, aren't conducive to transit, and that are overall less sustainable. Right now, every mayoral candidate in Toronto is promising to fix our crippling traffic congestion. I don't know how they're going to do it, but they're promising it because they know it's something people are pissed off about.

But here's my take: counterintuitively, the problem is not enough density. The problem is that too many people in our region have no reasonable way to get around without a car. So they're forced to drive. The way you fix this not as simple as more traffic enforcement or better signal timing. Good luck! You fix it through density, because density is what makes other forms of mobility suddenly possible.

All of this is not to say that density alone will render you a great city. Obviously things like beauty also matter a great deal. But in my opinion, density is a fundamental component. Because what good is beauty if you don't have any urban vibrancy? The answer is that you probably don't have a real city.

The other point I was trying to make is that space and density are both relative and oftentimes difficult to understand. We think building height and density are correlated, but that's not always the case. Look at Paris or Barcelona. We also like to make a lot of spatial rules that we think are right and make our cities better: streets should be at least this wide, buildings should be no taller than the width of the street, and so on.

But here (pictured above) is a street that narrows to around 6 meters and has buildings that are probably 2.5-3x the width of the right-of-way. Sure, it also happens to be beautiful, historic, and Italian. But what would happen if you maintained this same beauty and made the street 5x as wide and lined up parking in front of the stores?

Somehow it wouldn't be as enjoyable as what you see here.

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you'll know that I'm a fan of narrow streets. It's one of the reasons I have been such a supporter of laneway housing here in Toronto, and why I think they should ultimately allow for some non-residential uses.

If you have narrow streets and reasonably decent buildings that frame them, you have a base condition that has worked remarkably well since the creation of cities. Almost by default, and even if you don't have proper sidewalks, it is going to feel pedestrian-oriented.

The challenge, however, is that it's usually difficult to create these after the fact. Street networks are powerfully sticky; they generally don't change unless you have someone like Haussmann rebuilding your city. So if you have these in your city, try and take advantage of them. You're fortunate to have them.

The above two photos/measurements are from Milan. Both streets are around 20 feet wide (or 6 meters), which happens to be the required width of a standard two-way drive aisle here in Toronto. It's a good example of how differently cities can view and allocate space.

You can do a lot with 6 meters.