San Francisco Bay Blues by Stefano Termanini on 500px

I recently stumbled upon a great Treehugger article by Lloyd Alter called: The real triumph of the city will be seen in Buffalo (2014). The post is partially a response to economist Ed Glaeser’s popular book, Triumph of the City, which I’ve mentioned and cited many times before here on ATC.

Lloyd’s thesis is basically that Ed is wrong in arguing that reducing the barriers to building is the most effective way to maintain housing affordability; that cities are really made out of flesh, rather than bricks and mortar; and that urbanists need to move beyond the view that a city’s past should be preserved at all costs.

Lloyd then goes on to argue that rather than continuing to over-intensify cities like New York, San Francisco, and Toronto, we should be turning our attention to former powerhouses like Buffalo and trying to figure out how to reinvigorate those cities. The bones are already in place.

Now, I don’t disagree that there’s lots of potential in cities such as a Buffalo and Detroit. I’ve written a lot about Detroit and I’m genuinely rooting for the city. But I don’t think it’s as simple as it sounds to shift our attention, and I don’t agree with all of the critiques of Glaeser’s work.

As important as built form is, cities like Buffalo and Detroit remind us that architecture and buildings alone aren’t enough to build a city. There are countless masterpieces – such as Michigan Central Station in Detroit – that regrettably sit abandoned. You need people and communities.

There’s also a snowball effect. 

As a city becomes more successful, there’s a natural tendency for more people to want to be there. It’s no different than the network effect experienced by a social network. A social network without people has no value. But the more people you add to it, the more valuable it becomes and the more difficult it becomes to replace.

So it shouldn’t come as any surprise that people will put up with expensive real estate and small apartments just to live in cities like San Francisco. That’s where they want to be. And as long as the demand to live in those cities is increasing, I continue to believe that it makes sense to build more, not less, housing and to make it reasonably easy to do so.

At the same time, I believe whole heartedly in heritage preservation. As a trained architect, there’s a strong possibility that I would shed an actual tear should a building with heritage value be torn down in my city or in any city in the world. 

And that’s why when I was on CBC radio last week I said that neighborhood investment needs to be a balance between preservation and progress. The Twittersphere later blasted me for using the term “progress”, but I think you get my position.

My interpretation of Glaeser’s work has never been that he supports completely erasing a city’s past in order to make way for the future. If that is his position, then I too disagree with it. 

My interpretation has instead been that he supports removing unreasonable barriers to development so that cities are able to supply – or can at least try to supply – enough housing to meet growing demand. This also doesn’t exclusively mean high-rise intensification. It could mean removing the barriers in front of things like laneway housing. And I continue to believe that this is a good idea.

I don’t believe that this approach alone will solve all housing problems, but I do think it’s a great place to start.

Thank you Lloyd for the great post.

dupont survivor by Josemaria de Churtichaga on 500px

I was on CBC radio this morning talking about the revitalization of Dovercourt Village and Geary Avenue in Toronto. 

The funny thing about this topic is that it’s one I actually held off writing about. I’ve been thinking about this street and area for probably about 5 years now. However, I do have to keep some secrets to myself :)

But then I started feeling like the cat was already out of the bag. Everyone in my circle was talking about it. So I wrote a post calling Dovercourt Village the next Ossington. I had no idea it would get the traction that it has gotten, but in hindsight it makes total sense. It makes a great headline: “Toronto’s ugliest street to become the next Ossington.” Boom.

The tough question that Matt Galloway asked me this morning was: What happens to all the blue collar businesses when/if Geary Avenue and the area really takes off? My response – given that it was only a 5 minute radio piece – was that it comes down to preservation vs. progress. 

This is a topic that I’ve written about with respect to heritage buildings, but the same concept applies to communities as well. How do you allow neighborhoods to receive new investment while at the same time not erasing its past and the things that made it interesting in the first place?

It’s not easy, that’s for sure.

I absolutely believe that there are things that developers can do to respect the neighborhoods in which they build in. But at the same time there are economics at play. In business school, they teach you this:

It’s the lifecycle of businesses and industries. 

The key takeaway here is that the rise and decline of businesses is actually quite healthy for markets. History is littered with examples. The word processor replaced the typewriter. The mobile phone replaced the landline. Air travel replaced rail travel. And the list goes on.

Today, I think we’re at a moment in time where our relationship to cars is changing dramatically. How we get around and how we own and operate them is being called into question. 

So just because there’s auto shops on Geary Avenue today, doesn’t mean they’ll be there tomorrow regardless of whether the area takes off or not.

Some of you might be aware that I’m involved with a non-profit group here in Toronto called The Laneway Project. 

Our mission is to transform the city’s under-utilized laneways into safe, vibrant, and people-friendly spaces – which is something that has been done with a lot of success in other parts of the world (see Melbourne above).

Today I’m excited to announce two things.

First, the group has received funding from the Ontario Trillium Foundation. This is great news because it’s obviously a lot easier to execute on a mission when you have some resources behind you.

And that ties into the second announcement. 

The funding received from the OTF is going to be used for 2 laneway transformation projects here in Toronto. Think of them as pilot projects that will help to reorient Torontonians into thinking about laneways as viable public spaces and to demonstrate that this group is about real action.

Once the 2 laneways have been chosen, The Laneway Project will work with those local communities to come up with a vision and then an implementation plan. But before that can happen, there needs to be 2 laneways.

So if you’re a community group, resident association, business improvement area, or some other passionate group, now is your chance to nominate your laneway. Get in touch with The Laneway Project before February 7th, 2015 by clicking here.

Image: Melbourne Laneway via Flickr