If you hang around Park City long enough, you will come across things with the name Ontario. There's Ontario Avenue. There's the Ontario hiking trail at Deer Valley. And I'm sure there are other things.
As a Canadian, I couldn't help but wonder why. So today I looked it up. And it turns out that the mining company that first put Park City on the map was the Ontario Silver Mining Company (see above stock certificate).
Established in 1872, it was a major contributor to Park City's economy (when it was a mining town) and it is usually credited as the mine that generated the most consistent yield in Utah during the late 19th century.
Cool, so why was it called Ontario? Well, according to the Park City Museum, the mine was first discovered by prospectors from Canada (though they later sold off their claim to George Hearst for a handsome $30,000).
I can't seem to find any info about these Canadians, but the province of Ontario did get its name in 1867, so at least the chronology check outs.
Image: Park City Museum
I spent three years living in Philadelphia for grad school and one of the things that I appreciated the most was its walkability. I walked and took transit everywhere. Much of this has to do with the grid system that was laid out for the city in the 17th century. But there are also lots of more recent developments that help to reinforce this fabric.
CityLab, for example, just published this article on Penn's Landing Square, which is a housing complex in Philadelphia's Society Hill neighborhood. Built in 1970 and designed by Canadian-American architect Louis Sauer, the modernist complex occupies an entire 2.37-acre block and contains an assortment of 118 low-rise homes, many of which are connected through small interior laneways.
In addition to its handsome architecture, what is noteworthy about Penn's Landing Square is that its site plan makes it quite a dense low-rise development. At 118 homes, this translates into just under 50 units per acre. CityLab estimates that this means the development holds about 174 people per acre (~412 people total), which would make it more dense than Stuyvesant Town in New York (~158 persons per acre).
However, this is based on the assumption that there are almost 3.5 people living in each of these homes. While generally large, I don't know if this is the case. It would be higher than the average US household size. But regardless, from a unit per acre standpoint, it remains a great example of dense, family-oriented, and grade-related housing.
For fun, let's compare this to a more intense form of infill development. Our Junction House project, for instance, contains 151 homes and sits on a 0.48-acre piece of land. This translates into about 315 units per acre. I don't know off hand the average number of occupants per household, but I reckon that, given our larger average suite size, we should be on the higher end compared to most mid-rise condominiums. So I would say that we are probably 400+ people per acre.
It's unfair to compare a single development to an entire neighborhood, such as Stuyvesant Town. Circulation and other open spaces will necessarily pull down your average density. But these individual development examples do speak for themselves. There are many parts of North America where you might find 1 home or a handful of homes per acre of land. At Penn's Landing Square, this number is 50 units per acre. And at Junction House, it's 315 units per acre.
This afternoon we went to the Mucem (Museum of Civilizations of Europe and the Mediterranean) here in Marseille. By far, my favorite exhibition was one that dealt with the urbanization of five cities surrounding the Mediterranean — namely Marseille, Venice, Istanbul, Cairo, and Alger. At one point, this was the center of the commercial world. Great empires were forged and great fortunes were made here. But things have changed a little since then. And in some cases, what we are now left with are scenes like the one you see above (photograph by Martin Parr). This is easily the greatest photo of Venice I have ever seen. Venice is a tiny city, but it receives tens of millions of tourists each year. This photo does an extraordinary job of capturing what that might feel like.