I usually always have a laser distance meter in my bag. I use it when I’m on construction sites and I need to confirm important dimensions. But they can also be useful when you’re traveling and you want to appear as nerdy as humanly possible to the locals.
This is a typical older street in Le Panier area of Marseille, which is the oldest part of the city in probably the oldest city in France. Greek settlers colonized this area around 600, and at that time it was called Massalia.
There is one major street in Le Panier — la rue de la République — which will make you feel like you’re in Paris. It was pierced through in the late 19th century, around the same time that Paris was doing its large-scale urban renewal things.
But there remains lots of examples of what you see here: streets that are 12 to 13 feet wide from building face to building face. This is wider than your typical Toronto condo living room, but not by much.
There are, I guess, sidewalks on these streets. But most of them tend to be taken over by potted plants and other urban accessories. Everyone who uses these streets really just has to figure out how to share them.
It would be illegal to build this close and compact in most modern cities. Part of this is, of course, because modernity used to view this kind of urban form as being unhealthy and generally undesirable. Humans needed light, air, and space.
This is true. But we also like intimate urban spaces that put people first.
https://twitter.com/donnelly_b/status/1548029348199813120?s=20&t=tom32izajkBfUjQZDAs43A
The Quebec City-Windsor corridor is the most densely populated region in Canada. The last time I checked Wikipedia, it was reported to house about 18 million people, or about half of Canada's entire population.
So it is not surprising that there have been numerous high-speed rail studies for this corridor over the decades, as well as studies for other important links in Alberta (Edmonton-Calgary) and other parts of the country.
And yet, Canada remains the only G7 country without any high-speed rail. Though to be fair, the US doesn't have all that much either; certainly with respect to the size of its population.
However, there is some good news. In March of this year, the Government of Canada announced a Request for Expression of Interest related to high frequency rail service between Quebec City and Toronto. More information, over here.
But from what I have read, it'll be a faster upgraded service (~200 km/h), but not true high-speed rail (~250-300 km/h). I took the TGV from Marseille to Paris last summer, and this is how fast we were going:
I usually always have a laser distance meter in my bag. I use it when I’m on construction sites and I need to confirm important dimensions. But they can also be useful when you’re traveling and you want to appear as nerdy as humanly possible to the locals.
This is a typical older street in Le Panier area of Marseille, which is the oldest part of the city in probably the oldest city in France. Greek settlers colonized this area around 600, and at that time it was called Massalia.
There is one major street in Le Panier — la rue de la République — which will make you feel like you’re in Paris. It was pierced through in the late 19th century, around the same time that Paris was doing its large-scale urban renewal things.
But there remains lots of examples of what you see here: streets that are 12 to 13 feet wide from building face to building face. This is wider than your typical Toronto condo living room, but not by much.
There are, I guess, sidewalks on these streets. But most of them tend to be taken over by potted plants and other urban accessories. Everyone who uses these streets really just has to figure out how to share them.
It would be illegal to build this close and compact in most modern cities. Part of this is, of course, because modernity used to view this kind of urban form as being unhealthy and generally undesirable. Humans needed light, air, and space.
This is true. But we also like intimate urban spaces that put people first.
https://twitter.com/donnelly_b/status/1548029348199813120?s=20&t=tom32izajkBfUjQZDAs43A
The Quebec City-Windsor corridor is the most densely populated region in Canada. The last time I checked Wikipedia, it was reported to house about 18 million people, or about half of Canada's entire population.
So it is not surprising that there have been numerous high-speed rail studies for this corridor over the decades, as well as studies for other important links in Alberta (Edmonton-Calgary) and other parts of the country.
And yet, Canada remains the only G7 country without any high-speed rail. Though to be fair, the US doesn't have all that much either; certainly with respect to the size of its population.
However, there is some good news. In March of this year, the Government of Canada announced a Request for Expression of Interest related to high frequency rail service between Quebec City and Toronto. More information, over here.
But from what I have read, it'll be a faster upgraded service (~200 km/h), but not true high-speed rail (~250-300 km/h). I took the TGV from Marseille to Paris last summer, and this is how fast we were going:
I went out this morning to grab coffee from around the corner and, on my way back home, I ran into two people in the elevator that, from what I could glean, had hit the same button in the elevator and then struck up a conversation. He asked if she had just recently moved into the building. She responded with no, and that she usually doesn't see anyone else on their floor. He was surprised by this response and said that he knows everybody on the floor.
Nearly a hundred years ago, architect Le Corbusier, as well as others, had the idea of creating "streets in the sky." Perhaps the most famous example of this concept is his Unité d'Habitation in Marseille (pictured above). Now a UNESCO World Heritage building because of its role in the development of modernist architecture, the building houses five "streets", two of which were intended to be fully-fledged shopping streets. These streets house(d) things like shops, restaurants, galleries, and even a hotel.
Le Corbusier was famous for his desire to create machines for living in. And these streets in the sky were part of this philosophy. The idea was that by having all of the things you needed under one roof, you would then be able to live an efficient, productive, and enjoyable life. Architecture and design could do that for you.
Of course, the other reason for this thinking was that we needed to get people away from cars. As the car became more commonplace in cities, conflicts arose. And architects began to grapple with how best to separate people and cars. One obvious solution was to simply lift people up and off the ground so that the street could be freed up for cars to do their thing. This was going to be the future.
The pitfalls of this line of thinking have since then been widely documented. And today, I think it's pretty clear that most cities are in fact taking the opposite approach. Instead of removing people, they are removing cars through pedestrianization projects. Some of these projects are temporary, but many are also permanent. This happening almost everywhere from Toronto to Sao Paulo.
The other problem is that it's extremely challenging to make retail uses work way up in the sky. And that's why even second floor retail spaces often struggle compared to those on the ground floor. As I understand it, the non-residential tenancies in Marseille's Unité d'Habitation have naturally evolved from being retail-centric to being more office-like. Supposedly you'll now find architects and medical offices, which is not at all surprising.
But that doesn't mean that Le Corbusier's instincts weren't directionally right. We now have lots of examples of tall buildings housing an intense mix of uses and public functions. And in the case of multi-family buildings, the corridors do often serve as a kind of street. I happen to live off of one that houses our building's amenities. And so in addition to just running into neighbors, I'll often run into the odd birthday party or Sunday afternoon sumo-suit party. True story!
It may not be the Champs-Élysées, but it is a kind of street for living.
Photo by Bernd Dittrich on Unsplash
If we're going to do this, let's be the absolute best in the world and not settle for mediocrity.
I went out this morning to grab coffee from around the corner and, on my way back home, I ran into two people in the elevator that, from what I could glean, had hit the same button in the elevator and then struck up a conversation. He asked if she had just recently moved into the building. She responded with no, and that she usually doesn't see anyone else on their floor. He was surprised by this response and said that he knows everybody on the floor.
Nearly a hundred years ago, architect Le Corbusier, as well as others, had the idea of creating "streets in the sky." Perhaps the most famous example of this concept is his Unité d'Habitation in Marseille (pictured above). Now a UNESCO World Heritage building because of its role in the development of modernist architecture, the building houses five "streets", two of which were intended to be fully-fledged shopping streets. These streets house(d) things like shops, restaurants, galleries, and even a hotel.
Le Corbusier was famous for his desire to create machines for living in. And these streets in the sky were part of this philosophy. The idea was that by having all of the things you needed under one roof, you would then be able to live an efficient, productive, and enjoyable life. Architecture and design could do that for you.
Of course, the other reason for this thinking was that we needed to get people away from cars. As the car became more commonplace in cities, conflicts arose. And architects began to grapple with how best to separate people and cars. One obvious solution was to simply lift people up and off the ground so that the street could be freed up for cars to do their thing. This was going to be the future.
The pitfalls of this line of thinking have since then been widely documented. And today, I think it's pretty clear that most cities are in fact taking the opposite approach. Instead of removing people, they are removing cars through pedestrianization projects. Some of these projects are temporary, but many are also permanent. This happening almost everywhere from Toronto to Sao Paulo.
The other problem is that it's extremely challenging to make retail uses work way up in the sky. And that's why even second floor retail spaces often struggle compared to those on the ground floor. As I understand it, the non-residential tenancies in Marseille's Unité d'Habitation have naturally evolved from being retail-centric to being more office-like. Supposedly you'll now find architects and medical offices, which is not at all surprising.
But that doesn't mean that Le Corbusier's instincts weren't directionally right. We now have lots of examples of tall buildings housing an intense mix of uses and public functions. And in the case of multi-family buildings, the corridors do often serve as a kind of street. I happen to live off of one that houses our building's amenities. And so in addition to just running into neighbors, I'll often run into the odd birthday party or Sunday afternoon sumo-suit party. True story!
It may not be the Champs-Élysées, but it is a kind of street for living.
Photo by Bernd Dittrich on Unsplash
If we're going to do this, let's be the absolute best in the world and not settle for mediocrity.
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