Subscribe
One of the things I noticed this past weekend when I was on my Porter Escape in Quebec City was that there’s still evidence of the seigneurial land use system. I saw it on île d'Orléans.
Established in 1627 in New France, the seigneurial system was a feudal way of distributing land and creating subsistence farming for those who occupied it. It was ultimately abolished in 1854, but you can still see vestiges of it.
With the seigneurial system, a typical farming lot was a long and narrow strip of land emanating from the water, which in this particular case was the St. Lawrence River. Here’s a map from 1641 showing what that looks like:
The reasoning behind this spatial arrangement was rather simple. By having long narrow lots, it meant that you could maximize the number of farmers who had direct access to water. This was needed for navigation, but also for many other obvious reasons. This was an efficient layout.
At the same time, the long strips meant that each farmer had access to a broad cross section of different kinds of land. They had fertile land for growing, land for their home, and frequently land with trees so that they had material to build, fuel to burn, and so on. It also meant that, despite the overall lot sizes, people actually lived fairly close to each other. It created communities.
Of course, there’s a lot more to the seigneurial system than just its physical form and there are reasons it was eventually abolished. But today I just want to focus on spatial layout. Because I think there are parallels to how we continue to plan our communities.
If you live in a city you’ve probably come across a narrow rowhouse, a narrow townhouse, and/or a long and narrow condominium – which many people like to pejoratively refer to as a “bowling alley” plan. In these cases, the width of the home could be somewhere between 10 and 13 feet.
If you stop and think about this, it’s exactly the same spatial principles as the seigneurial land use system. But instead of maximizing the number of people with access to the St. Lawrence River, it’s about maximizing the number of people who front onto the street and who have access to natural light.
In tight urban conditions, it’s not uncommon to have no “side yard windows.” In my case, I live in a condominium with 20′ feet of windows on one side only. The other 3 sides of my box have none. And that’s a fairly common urban condition.
I find this interesting because as much as the world is rapidly changing, some things don’t actually change all that much.
Image: Wikipedia
Before going snowboarding this morning, I got into a bit of a heated debate on Twitter about Porter Airlines’ plans to expand the Toronto Island Airport and fly the new Bombardier CS100 from it. The proposal is facing a lot of opposition and, since I’m generally for it, the conversation got a bit lively.
At one point, I called somebody a NIMBY, which was probably an unproductive thing to do. But I was trying to better understand that person’s position. The argument was that parks (ie. the Toronto Islands) and planes don’t mix and so the proposal is bad. However, since we already have planes operating out of the island today, I wanted to know if what we have today was considered acceptable and, if yes, what the precise concerns are regarding the expansion.
In other words, I was trying to get a better sense of the threshold in which people start to feel the airport is a detriment to Toronto’s waterfront. Is it already considered a hindrance to waterfront enjoyment (it certainly isn’t for me) or is it a question of increased noise and flight volume bringing it over the edge?
Today the airport moves over 2 million people a year. So I have a hard time buying the argument that this is only a boutique airport for the elite. Clearly, it’s filling a need in the marketplace. And so I think it would behoove us to figure out how to balance the economic gain with the concerns of urban livability. I hope that we’ll be able to do that.
What’s your position on Porter’s plans? I would love to hear from you in the comment section below.
I’m going to New York City tonight. I’ll be flying Porter from the island airport. And I’ll probably walk there.
I’m a big fan of Porter and, while I’ve noticed some minor slippage over the last few years, it’s still one of the best flying experiences in the city.
But the island airport has always been a contentious subject. Stopping a bridge to the island was a fundamental part of our last mayor’s original election campaign.
Today the contentiousness is around expanding the airport so that it flies further using “jets.” Primarily people appear concerned about noise and that the runway will need to be expanded out and into Lake Ontario to a certain extent.
As someone who lives along the waterfront, I really don’t share the same concerns.
For one, the “whisper jets” are supposed to produce the same amount of noise as the current fleet, which don’t bother me in the least. I hear yappy dogs barking more than I hear planes.
Secondly, I think the island airport is fantastic from an economic development standpoint. If we were in Europe, Toronto would have high speed rail connections to New York City, Montreal, and other cities.
But it’s not Europe and we don’t have those rail lines. What we do have though is short haul flights from the island which, similarly, allow people to leave the city from downtown.
This may not seem like a big deal, but an extra hour can mean the difference been making and missing a morning meeting or whether your trip needs to be overnight or not.
If you’re against the expansion, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comment section below. Debate is important.
One of the things I noticed this past weekend when I was on my Porter Escape in Quebec City was that there’s still evidence of the seigneurial land use system. I saw it on île d'Orléans.
Established in 1627 in New France, the seigneurial system was a feudal way of distributing land and creating subsistence farming for those who occupied it. It was ultimately abolished in 1854, but you can still see vestiges of it.
With the seigneurial system, a typical farming lot was a long and narrow strip of land emanating from the water, which in this particular case was the St. Lawrence River. Here’s a map from 1641 showing what that looks like:
The reasoning behind this spatial arrangement was rather simple. By having long narrow lots, it meant that you could maximize the number of farmers who had direct access to water. This was needed for navigation, but also for many other obvious reasons. This was an efficient layout.
At the same time, the long strips meant that each farmer had access to a broad cross section of different kinds of land. They had fertile land for growing, land for their home, and frequently land with trees so that they had material to build, fuel to burn, and so on. It also meant that, despite the overall lot sizes, people actually lived fairly close to each other. It created communities.
Of course, there’s a lot more to the seigneurial system than just its physical form and there are reasons it was eventually abolished. But today I just want to focus on spatial layout. Because I think there are parallels to how we continue to plan our communities.
If you live in a city you’ve probably come across a narrow rowhouse, a narrow townhouse, and/or a long and narrow condominium – which many people like to pejoratively refer to as a “bowling alley” plan. In these cases, the width of the home could be somewhere between 10 and 13 feet.
If you stop and think about this, it’s exactly the same spatial principles as the seigneurial land use system. But instead of maximizing the number of people with access to the St. Lawrence River, it’s about maximizing the number of people who front onto the street and who have access to natural light.
In tight urban conditions, it’s not uncommon to have no “side yard windows.” In my case, I live in a condominium with 20′ feet of windows on one side only. The other 3 sides of my box have none. And that’s a fairly common urban condition.
I find this interesting because as much as the world is rapidly changing, some things don’t actually change all that much.
Image: Wikipedia
Before going snowboarding this morning, I got into a bit of a heated debate on Twitter about Porter Airlines’ plans to expand the Toronto Island Airport and fly the new Bombardier CS100 from it. The proposal is facing a lot of opposition and, since I’m generally for it, the conversation got a bit lively.
At one point, I called somebody a NIMBY, which was probably an unproductive thing to do. But I was trying to better understand that person’s position. The argument was that parks (ie. the Toronto Islands) and planes don’t mix and so the proposal is bad. However, since we already have planes operating out of the island today, I wanted to know if what we have today was considered acceptable and, if yes, what the precise concerns are regarding the expansion.
In other words, I was trying to get a better sense of the threshold in which people start to feel the airport is a detriment to Toronto’s waterfront. Is it already considered a hindrance to waterfront enjoyment (it certainly isn’t for me) or is it a question of increased noise and flight volume bringing it over the edge?
Today the airport moves over 2 million people a year. So I have a hard time buying the argument that this is only a boutique airport for the elite. Clearly, it’s filling a need in the marketplace. And so I think it would behoove us to figure out how to balance the economic gain with the concerns of urban livability. I hope that we’ll be able to do that.
What’s your position on Porter’s plans? I would love to hear from you in the comment section below.
I’m going to New York City tonight. I’ll be flying Porter from the island airport. And I’ll probably walk there.
I’m a big fan of Porter and, while I’ve noticed some minor slippage over the last few years, it’s still one of the best flying experiences in the city.
But the island airport has always been a contentious subject. Stopping a bridge to the island was a fundamental part of our last mayor’s original election campaign.
Today the contentiousness is around expanding the airport so that it flies further using “jets.” Primarily people appear concerned about noise and that the runway will need to be expanded out and into Lake Ontario to a certain extent.
As someone who lives along the waterfront, I really don’t share the same concerns.
For one, the “whisper jets” are supposed to produce the same amount of noise as the current fleet, which don’t bother me in the least. I hear yappy dogs barking more than I hear planes.
Secondly, I think the island airport is fantastic from an economic development standpoint. If we were in Europe, Toronto would have high speed rail connections to New York City, Montreal, and other cities.
But it’s not Europe and we don’t have those rail lines. What we do have though is short haul flights from the island which, similarly, allow people to leave the city from downtown.
This may not seem like a big deal, but an extra hour can mean the difference been making and missing a morning meeting or whether your trip needs to be overnight or not.
If you’re against the expansion, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comment section below. Debate is important.
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
Share Dialog