I'll be the first to admit that I have an urban bias. I like walkable narrow streets. I like being able to cycle around. And I like not having to drive when I want to do things. But this can create a city-building blindspot and Paul Kulig, Principal at Perkins&Will Toronto, reminded me of that this week. Here's a tweet where he compares two streets, both of which have a right-of-way width somewhere around 40m:

The image on the left is Prenzlauer Allee in Berlin. And the image on the right is Finch Avenue West in Toronto. Despite both having light rail running down the middle, one of these streets is walkable, vibrant, and generally urban, and the other is very suburban. What this reminds us is that a wide street isn't necessarily an insurmountable challenge. It's ultimately how we design that street that is the make or break.

Here's another look at Prenzlaurer Allee:

In addition to transit running down the middle of it, it also has a ton of on-street parking. In many cases, the cars are parked perpendicular to the curb. So it's not like this street isn't also accommodating to motorists. The key differentiator is how the buildings are placed. They come right up to the street and are accompanied by a great pedestrian realm (note all the patios below).

This is one of the things that Toronto needs to be focused on following the investments made in public transit on streets like Finch and Eglinton. We don't want generous setbacks on these streets. Make them 0m. Towers in a park kill any chance of street life. We can talk all we want about "active frontages" on our arterial roads, but who wants to sit on a patio on a street like Finch? Nobody.

But as Berlin shows, there's absolutely no reason why we couldn't change that. Thanks for the reminder, Paul.

Cover photo via Google Street View

The street in front of our hotel is about 8.3m wide. (I actually measured it.) And this is generous for Palma's Old Town. The building directly in front of us is also 6 storeys tall and has exactly zero setbacks and stepbacks. It is one straight elevation all the way up. In other words, it is an urban condition that does not follow any of today's generally accepted rules of planning. The street should be wider. And the building should have a bunch of stepbacks, right? Maybe not. Lots of people seem to love this kind of dense, unplanned, and walkable built form in Europe. Eating outside on a narrow street is a feature. But for whatever reason, when people return home, many don't seem to want it anymore, or worse, they actively oppose it. It's an interesting dynamic that I don't fully understand. Because personally, I enjoy visiting places that I could see myself living in. What about you?

“Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency. Remember that our sons and grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us. Let your watchword be order and your beacon beauty. Think big.”

-Daniel Burnham, Chicago architect. (1846-1912)

I’m a big fan of Chicago. Having now visited the city, I can say that everyone was right when they told me that I was going to love it. It has great art and architecture, great food (with some of the largest portions I’ve ever seen), great nightlife, and great people. 

But I don’t want to talk about any of these things today. Instead, I want to talk about something much more specific that stood out to me last weekend: Chicago’s relationship to both the water and the street.

While Chicago and my hometown of Toronto share many similarities– including being situated on a Great Lake and having rivers flow through the middle of them–the relationship to these bodies of water is remarkably different. Here is a photo of people kayaking in the Chicago River on a Friday afternoon:

What impressed me about Chicago is how intimate and urban the relationship is with the lake and its rivers. If you look at the photo above, you’ll see that many of the buildings are built right up against the river, but that there’s space allocated for riverwalks, patios, and so on. It’s all about engaging and connecting with the water.

Toronto on the other hand, is only recently starting to reacquaint itself with its bodies of water. We spent much of the second half of the 20th century with our back turned to the lake and without a strong urban connection to the Don River. And if I had to guess why it’s because we built highways along them.

We built the Gardiner Expressway adjacent to Lake Ontario and we built the Don Valley Parkway adjacent to the Don River. This fundamentally changed our orientation and largely precluded us, I think, from creating the same kind of waterside urbanity offered in Chicago.

As an example, consider that in the first half of the 20th century, Toronto’s Parkdale neighborhood – which today still has a questionable reputation – was actually an affluent and desirable waterfront community filled with beautiful Victorian mansions. It was well connected to the waterfront, and so the area flourished. Here’s what Sunnyside Pavilion used to look like:

But then in the 1950s we built the Gardiner Expressway, disconnecting Parkdale from the lakefront and destroying many of its amenities, such as the Sunnyside Amusement Park. In turn, the rich people left and their large Victorian mansions got chopped up into rooming houses and other rental housing stock. And in my view, Parkdale still hasn’t fully recovered from this. 

Highways are divisive. There’s no question.

So unless you can afford to bury them, it comes down to trade offs: Do you want to make it easier for people to drive in from the suburbs or do you want a truly spectacular water or riverfront? In the 1950s we chose the former. But even still today, the thought of tearing down–even a portion of the Gardiner Expressway–is fraught with opposition. I guess not much has changed.

The second way that Chicago impressed me is through the relationship that many of its buildings hold to the street. They come down to ground level with authority and with great retail presence, and often make no amends about their mass and impressiveness. This frames the street and creates a level of urbanity that isn’t always found in Toronto – particularly outside of the downtown core.

In Toronto, the trend today is towards street level podiums, significant setbacks, and delicate point towers that minimize the impact of their height and allow for natural light to reach street level. It’s well-intentioned and perfectly appropriate in many urban settings. But sometimes you need a little urban assertiveness. Sometimes you want to impress and impose. And Chicago does that.

What I’m getting at is that Chicago architect Daniel Burnham was on to something. He famously advocated for man (that was the era) to think big. Make no little plans, he said. And it’s admirable advice. Toronto is going through a tremendous transformation right now. We’re North America’s boomtown, which is a title that Chicago would have held at one point.

But as we build for the future, let’s remember that, long after we’re gone, we’re going to be judged based on the plans we are making today. So why not make them big ones.