This is an excellent article by Alex Bozikovic, Joe Castaldo and Danielle Webb about the 15-minute city. In it, they do a block-by-block analysis of how many Canadians actually live in what they are calling an "amenity dense" neighborhood.
Their definition of amenity dense:
Grocery store, pharmacy, and public transit stop within one kilometer
Childcare facility, primary school, and a library within 1.5 kilometers
Healthcare facility within three kilometers
Place of employment within 10 kilometers
Once you apply this filter to Canadian cities, it turns out that only about 23.3% of city dwellers live in this kind of amenity dense neighborhood. It's really only our three largest cities. For the most part, we have built environments that want you to have a car.
When it comes Toronto, and also Montreal, it is a tale of two almost equally divided cities. If you live in a central neighborhood, you're probably dense with amenities. But in the inner suburbs, it becomes pretty spotty. And though it can be done, this is not an easy change.
The full article has many more of these city maps and so I would encourage you to check it out. It's a great piece of journalism.
Photo by Chloe Evans on Unsplash
I recently discovered a company called Hinter (a colleague, who clearly knows me very well, sent it to me). It's exactly the kind of the company that I would love to start, if only there were 30 hours in a day. They're a non-traditional hotel in that they work with "iconic architects" to build unique spaces that are distributed and hidden in nature. (They also have a policy of planting 10 new trees for every booking.)
Today's post is a profile of their Hinterhouse (hh1) by Montréal-based Ménard Dworkind Architecture & Design. The space is located in La Conception, Québec, which is about 15 minutes from Mont-Tremblant. It's 980 square feet (which is all you really need) and has 2 bedrooms. There's also a private sauna and outdoor shower in a separate outbuilding. As soon as I saw it, I felt inspired and immediately opened up Realtor.ca to look for available land. Maybe it will do the same for you.
All photography by David Dworkind.
This is an excellent article by Alex Bozikovic, Joe Castaldo and Danielle Webb about the 15-minute city. In it, they do a block-by-block analysis of how many Canadians actually live in what they are calling an "amenity dense" neighborhood.
Their definition of amenity dense:
Grocery store, pharmacy, and public transit stop within one kilometer
Childcare facility, primary school, and a library within 1.5 kilometers
Healthcare facility within three kilometers
Place of employment within 10 kilometers
Once you apply this filter to Canadian cities, it turns out that only about 23.3% of city dwellers live in this kind of amenity dense neighborhood. It's really only our three largest cities. For the most part, we have built environments that want you to have a car.
When it comes Toronto, and also Montreal, it is a tale of two almost equally divided cities. If you live in a central neighborhood, you're probably dense with amenities. But in the inner suburbs, it becomes pretty spotty. And though it can be done, this is not an easy change.
The full article has many more of these city maps and so I would encourage you to check it out. It's a great piece of journalism.
Photo by Chloe Evans on Unsplash
I recently discovered a company called Hinter (a colleague, who clearly knows me very well, sent it to me). It's exactly the kind of the company that I would love to start, if only there were 30 hours in a day. They're a non-traditional hotel in that they work with "iconic architects" to build unique spaces that are distributed and hidden in nature. (They also have a policy of planting 10 new trees for every booking.)
Today's post is a profile of their Hinterhouse (hh1) by Montréal-based Ménard Dworkind Architecture & Design. The space is located in La Conception, Québec, which is about 15 minutes from Mont-Tremblant. It's 980 square feet (which is all you really need) and has 2 bedrooms. There's also a private sauna and outdoor shower in a separate outbuilding. As soon as I saw it, I felt inspired and immediately opened up Realtor.ca to look for available land. Maybe it will do the same for you.
All photography by David Dworkind.
I was in Montreal for the long weekend and I decided to take the time off from writing. I don't do that very often, but it was the right thing to do this past weekend.
Montreal is one of my favorite cities. I spent quite a bit of time there when I was in my early 20s and I almost ended up at McGill for my undergraduate degree. So I have a soft spot for the place.
One of my friends once described Montreal to me (and contrasted it against Toronto) by saying that it has grandeur. And I think that is exactly the right word.
There are so many moments throughout the city where you just feel its impressiveness. It's almost as if, from the very beginning, the city knew what it was destined to become.
In contrast to this, urban planner Joe Berridge has, in the past, referred to Toronto as an accidental metropolis. And I think that is a similarly accurate way of describing our city.
Sometimes in Toronto (or perhaps oftentimes, depending on who you ask), you have to scratch a little beneath the surface to find what makes Toronto a truly great city.
It's as if the city didn't know what it was destined to become, and built accordingly. Things just happened -- accidentally.
Grandeur isn't usually something that is discussed today in city planning circles. We instead talk about things like angular planes, context and, of course, building height.
But maybe it's time we rethink our list of requirements. Maybe it's time we ask ourselves: "Are we creating a city with grandeur?"
Image: Drone photo from the top of Mount Royal
I was in Montreal for the long weekend and I decided to take the time off from writing. I don't do that very often, but it was the right thing to do this past weekend.
Montreal is one of my favorite cities. I spent quite a bit of time there when I was in my early 20s and I almost ended up at McGill for my undergraduate degree. So I have a soft spot for the place.
One of my friends once described Montreal to me (and contrasted it against Toronto) by saying that it has grandeur. And I think that is exactly the right word.
There are so many moments throughout the city where you just feel its impressiveness. It's almost as if, from the very beginning, the city knew what it was destined to become.
In contrast to this, urban planner Joe Berridge has, in the past, referred to Toronto as an accidental metropolis. And I think that is a similarly accurate way of describing our city.
Sometimes in Toronto (or perhaps oftentimes, depending on who you ask), you have to scratch a little beneath the surface to find what makes Toronto a truly great city.
It's as if the city didn't know what it was destined to become, and built accordingly. Things just happened -- accidentally.
Grandeur isn't usually something that is discussed today in city planning circles. We instead talk about things like angular planes, context and, of course, building height.
But maybe it's time we rethink our list of requirements. Maybe it's time we ask ourselves: "Are we creating a city with grandeur?"
Image: Drone photo from the top of Mount Royal
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