Rye and Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Shot on a Fujifilm X-T3 with a 23mm f/2 prime lens.
Tag: urbanism
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Les banlieues of Paris
One of the things that I notice about people from Paris is that they’re always very clear on whether they live in Paris or outside of Paris in the banlieues (the suburbs). They’ll say things like, “No I don’t live in Paris. It’s too expensive. I live in such and such a place in the banlieues.”
I suppose this isn’t entirely different than saying you don’t live in New York, you live on Long Island, or you don’t live in Toronto, you live in Burlington. Except that there seems to be a greater sense of division when they say it here in Paris (although it’s entirely possible that it could be my rusty French that is leading me to believe this).
There is a sense that you’re either inside the Boulevard Périphérique, or you’re really not. And this seems like a shame. Cities regions care less about administrative borders and more about the movement of people, ideas, and goods.
And as much as I love Paris (the central part), it is, from what I can tell, far more static than some of its surrounding areas in terms of new people (immigration), new buildings, and probably new ideas.
Paris can sometimes feel like a perfectly curated museum. It’s beautiful and precious and should not be touched — please stand behind the ropes mesdames et messieurs. But perhaps it’s time to equally celebrate les banlieues and recognize what they have to offer.
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An undignified bus stop in Toronto
I was driving to the office from the Junction last week, and I passed a brave individual waiting at this bus stop on Parkside Drive:
I immediately thought to myself, “what an undignified and silly bus stop.” There’s a little bit of paving so you have a place to stand while you’re waiting, but how do you even get there?
There are no sidewalks actually leading to said bus stop, and so you really only have two options: 1) jaywalk or 2) cross at some far away intersection and then walk unceremoniously on a narrow strip of grass and dirt on the side of a busy street.
Not surprisingly, this was the first time I had ever seen anyone waiting at this stop even though I take this route all the time on my way to and from Junction House.
I recognize that I was operating a motor vehicle when I saw this guy waiting for the bus. But I also took transit last week. And I know that we have it in us to do much better than what you’re seeing in the above street view photo.
It’s also a reminder that while High Park is really great, we need to work on its edges. Both the urban edge that I’m describing above, and the built form that surrounds our magnificent park. High Park is an urban park, but we seem to be a little uncomfortable with that idea.
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Sustainable living means living in a city
The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has just published its latest climate change report. Available here. As a follow-up to this report, Dezeen spoke with Hélène Chartier of the sustainable urbanism network C40 Cities. And she makes some very good points about the importance of cities in combatting climate change.
In fact, she goes so far as to say that sustainable living is only really possible, at scale, in cities. Because to live a more sustainable lifestyle, you need the right kind of infrastructure in place. And to have the right kind of infrastructure in place, you need density.
This crucial point is often forgotten (though never on this blog). If you are truly concerned about climate change, then you should be for urban density. And if you are out there fighting against urban density, then your actions are undermining this global imperative.
Chartier rightly points out that “architects have a huge responsibility” when it comes to addressing climate change. And this is entirely true. Their job is the built environment. But with all due respect to architects, the problems that need solving are ultimately much broader. Architects can only do so much if they’re hamstrung by dumb land use policies and angry neighbors, among other things.
This needs to be a coordinated effort. We all have a huge responsibility.
Photo by Kaspars Upmanis on Unsplash
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Canada is a suburban nation
Statistics Canada has started releasing some of the results from its 2021 survey and there is a new classification that is now being used in its analysis of Census Metropolitan Areas (CMAs). Instead of organizing city regions jurisdictionally, it is now using a new functional classification that is based on travel times to downtown.
This has resulted in five new geographic categories: Downtown, Urban Fringe (<10 min to downtown), Near Suburb (10-20 min to downtown), Intermediate Suburb (20-30 min to downtown), and Distant Suburb (over 30 min to downtown). Below is chart from a recent Globe and Mail article that summarizes these classifications, but keep in mind that percentage growth is different than total population growth (the next chart from New Geography covers this one).
This is more granular than their previous approach, which used to be fairly binary: city core vs. the suburbs. But at the same time, it reflects a very suburban and monocentric view of cities. Downtown is in the middle. People generally need to drive to said downtown for things like work and entertainment. And so how long does it take to do that?
Though in all fairness, this lens is our reality. When you apply the above classification and look at Canada’s 41 largest metropolitan areas, only 4.7% of us live in a downtown and only about 28.5% of us live in what is presumably an urban setting (downtown + urban fringe). And the numbers are actually less urban in a CMA like Toronto, where 11.5% live in the urban core (downtown + urban fringe) and 88.5% live in the suburbs, whether near or distant.
However, one could argue that we are at least becoming slightly more urban. Only 11.5% of Torontonians might currently live in the urban core (2021), but 16% of our growth from 2016 to 2021 went to it (see above chart). Of course, this is an incremental kind of shift. About 84% of our population gain also went to the suburbs, with the vast majority of it going to distant suburbs (a 30 minute commute in Toronto is nothing after all).
As Wendell Cox points out in this recent New Geography article, Canada remains a suburban nation.
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New Zealand just abolished single-family zoning (for the most part)
New Zealand has been in the news lately for sweeping housing legislation that effectively abolishes single-family zoning throughout most of Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga, Wellington, and Christchurch.
But before I get into how this will all work, here’s a bit of background from an article that Matt Gurney wrote talking about Toronto’s inability to build affordable housing and create safe streets:
Now it’s time to segue back to the New Zealand thing, and there’s no particularly graceful way to do it, so I’ll just be blunt and inelegant: the federal government in New Zealand intervened on local housing rules because there was a crisis that local leaders were unable or unwilling to address. New Zealand has severe housing-affordability challenges (though Canada seems determined to close the gap). This has been a problem in New Zealand for years, and not enough was done, so the federal government stepped in… The government expects this to immediately spur construction of new housing units.
It is no doubt a top down approach. But we all know how difficult it is to build anything at all when you start from the other end.
So the way this new legislation will work is that it forces local councils to allow landowners to build up to 3 homes and 3 storeys on most lots. This is instead of 1 home per lot. The maximum site coverage has also been increased to 50%. And all of this will be available on an as-of-right basis, so no special permissions or variances needed.
The pitch is that this will unlock as many as 105,000 new homes in already built-up areas. This is, of course, a good thing for a whole host of reasons. It uses land and infrastructure more efficiently, it makes public transit more viable, and it increases housing supply in a highly constrained market.
I suspect that we will be seeing a lot more of this in the coming years.
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A few observations from Paris
The last time I was in Paris was in 2006. That’s a long time ago and so it was great to be back in the city earlier this week. I don’t know the city as well as I do many other cities, but I speak enough French to be dangerous and we spent a good amount of time on this trip just exploring. On average, we clocked about 20,000 steps a day. So here’s a list of some of the things I was reminded of or learned of on this visit. If any of you are more familiar with the city, please feel free to speak up in the comment section below.
- I love Paris.
- The Parisian art of people watching is alive and well. One of my favorite things about Paris is how so much of the cafe seating faces out toward the street. That’s what you’re supposed to be watching: urban life.
- Most cities have a clear message. In Los Angeles, it’s probably that you should be more famous. In Boston, it’s arguably that you should be smarter. And in New York, it is perhaps that you should be richer. In Paris, the message feels loud and clear: You should be more fashionable.
- Compared to Toronto, the center of Paris feels far more static. Less construction. Less change. Less that is new. That’s not such a bad thing given how beautiful the city is. But in my view, cities are about balancing preservation and progress. From what I could tell, a lot of the new construction seemed to be happening in the suburbs and in the outskirts of the city.
- That said, COVID feels much further along in Paris. The city was very open and everyone seemed to be back in the office. Locals said that the city was operating at maybe 80%. It felt busy.
- Dress shoes are dead in Paris. Everyone wears cool sneakers no matter how young or old. Think business suits with Nike Air Maxes. My hypothesis is that it’s just far more practical given how much people walk in Paris. I plan to adopt this strategy immediately.
- In addition to walking, everyone seemingly bikes and/or uses an electric scooter. Again, it didn’t seem to matter how young or old. Paris also seems to have solved the scooter clutter problem, as has many other cities. There are designated spots (painted lines next to on-street car parking) and that’s where you’ll find the scooters. Toronto needs to get on board.
- Traveling at 300 km/h on a train is a highly civilized way to move between urban centers.
- There’s nothing wrong with having a picnic and drinking a bottle of wine (or two) in a park. In fact, it is probably something that should be celebrated. Let people be grown-ups.
- When you purchase a baguette, you should immediately take a bite out of it to see how fresh it is.
- The Eiffel Tower, much like the CN Tower, looks far better when illuminated.
- Balconies of any size can be wonderful. We had a small Juliet balcony off of our hotel room in Nice and we used it every day for croissant eating and to dry our bathing suits. In a more permanent situation, I am sure we would have started growing things on it.
- Midrise buildings do indeed create nice urban street walls. But it’s important to keep in mind that Paris’ midrise blocks are also deep and dense and with lots of courtyard conditions. That’s how the city is able to house so many people at such low building heights.
- Facing conditions between buildings is less of a concern when you employ less glass. Smaller punched windows allow you to better manage privacy. I would go so far as to argue that if Paris were an all-glass city, much of its current built form would be fairly unlivable.
What did I miss in this list?
Photo by Alexander Kagan on Unsplash
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🙌 La Bovida
Paris 1e
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[Book] Survival of the City
I jus pre-ordered a copy of Edward Glaeser and David Cutler’s new book called, Survival of the City: Living and Thriving in an Age of Isolation. (I’m usually a hard copy kind of guy, but I decided to try this one out on Kindle / my iPad). The official release date is September 7, 2021, so if you’re reading this post in your inbox, the book is now available online.
I’m not familiar with the writing of David Cutler (he’s a public health expert), but I am a follower of Edward Glaeser and have written about his work on a number of occasions. Glaeser’s last book, Triumph of the City, was a kind of celebration of the wonders of urbanism. After reading it, you couldn’t help but feel that cities are our best chance at creating healthy, sustainable, and wealthy communities.
But in listening to Glaeser throughout this pandemic I have noticed that his commentary on the future of cities hasn’t been filled with unbridled optimism. You get the sense from him that cities are at a crossroads. This is not to say that city life will not persist, because it will. Cities are powerfully resilient. But not all cities are created equal. Some will continue to flourish in this new economy, but others will not.
This is one of the arguments that they make in this new book and I’m looking forward to reading it once it lands in my Kindle app.
