I like the built form aerial photography of Jeffrey Milstein. Here is one of Stuyvesant Town in New York City:
Yesterday after my post on leveraging LRT, I stumbled upon an interesting and timely article written by Richard Joy, who is the Executive Director of the Urban Land Institute (Toronto).
The article talks about some of the transit-oriented development that we’ve seen at various nodes along Toronto’s Yonge subway corridor (St. Clair, Eglinton, Sheppard, and so on). But it goes on to argue that these are exceptions to the rule. For the most part, we’ve missed the boat:
The tragic history of our massive capital investments into transit infrastructure is massive under-development.
Indeed, the Bloor-Danforth subway corridor is a land use crime scene.
His main argument is that until we expand the supply of transit-oriented land (through increased intensification), we will continue to undersupply the kinds of walkable and transit-oriented neighborhoods that many, if not most, people actually prefer. And that, out of necessity, will force people into their cars. Because affordability trumps location preference.