Tag: urbanity

• To stepback or not to stepback

  I was riding my bike on Bloor Street along the north edge of High Park over the weekend. And in between cyclists in spandex yelling at me for seemingly riding the wrong way in the bike lanes, I managed to safely snap this picture:

  

  It was a reminder of that thing we like to do in Toronto where we want lower-rise along our main streets and then we tuck the taller parts somewhere in the back so that we can pretend they are maybe not there. Here’s an aerial shot of the situation from Google Maps:

  

  It’s a very different condition from what you will find in New York along virtually all edges of Central Park:

  

  Now, New York and Toronto are not the same city. This much is obvious.

  But there is a grandeur and degree of urbanity that is present along Central Park that is not present along High Park. And I would argue that this feature isn’t exclusive to New York. It can be found in many other cities, including places like Montreal.

  I am sure that part of the rationale here on Bloor Street had to do with matching the lower-rise existing context. But we shouldn’t forget that the edges of public spaces are oftentimes just as important as the spaces themselves. Sometimes they can be even more important.

  So I thought I would put it out to all of you. To stepback or not to stepback. What do you think would be the most appropriate built form along this north edge of High Park? Leave a comment below.

  2021.08.19

• Houses with large yards and where you have to drive to places

  The National Association of Realtors in the US has a “Community and Transportation Preference Survey” that it conducts usually every two years. Last year (2020), wasn’t supposed to be a survey year, but given the pandemic, they decided to run it in June and see if people’s preferences had changed at all during that time.

  Last June feels like eons ago to me and I bet that if you asked people how they were feeling today it may be slightly different. Nonetheless, the survey asked 2,000 adults from the fifty-largest metro areas a bunch of questions about where and how they live and where and how they might want to live in the future.

  The topline results can be found over here. But for a bit of context, 58% of respondents were people who lived in a single-family detached house; 26% of respondents were people who lived in a building with two or more apartments and condos; and the rest of the respondents were split across townhouses, rowhouses, mobile homes, trailers, and other. (I’m kind of curious about the 2% who answered with other.)

  One of the questions that I thought might be interesting to this audience is this one here about housing preferences going forward:

  

  The question asks the respondents to imagine that they are moving into another home. It then asks about priorities and, more specifically, about their preferred trade-off between amenities and walkability versus a large detached house with a big yard.

  Overall the split in preferences has remained close to 50/50 over the last three surveys. But there appears to be a small uptick toward large homes and less amenities. I wouldn’t be surprised if the pandemic contributed to this thinking last summer. But who knows if this will persist. At the same time, actions speak louder than words.

  My response to the above question would be less space, greater walkability, and more amenities. I have no desire to live in a low-rise grade-related house, especially one that is disconnected from the city. I like urbanity. What about you?

  2021.05.15

• Long live the megacity

  Azeem Azhar’s recent newsletter, titled “Don’t call time on the megacity: cities will learn and adapt,” is a reminder of the tensions that cities face. There are forces of attraction. And there are also forces of repulsion.

  Cities all around the world continue to create wealth and lift people out of poverty. But they also repulse people through traffic congestion, housing supply shortages, and overcrowding (which is distinct from density). Generally though, the forces of attraction have tended to outweigh the forces of repulsion, which is why the world continues to urbanize.

  As Azeem points out, the first city believed to have reached 1 million inhabitants was Rome. It happened some 2,000 years ago. In the 1930s, New York then became the first city to reach 10 million inhabitants. And today, the 10 largest urban agglomerations in the world look something like this:

  

  Outside of Japan, all of these city regions are expected to add many more people by 2030. Missing from this chart, however, are cities such as Lagos, Nigeria. Between 2018 and 2050, the UN estimates that 35% of the growth in the world’s urban population will come from just three countries: India (+416 million), China (+255 million), and Nigeria (+189 million).

  Long live the megacity.

  2020.05.20

• Happy 100th Birthday, Jane Jacobs

  “We came to Toronto,” she says, “because it’s a place where you can work, it’s a place where you can live well, it’s a place where there is hope.” –Jane Jacobs (1971)

  It was my birthday this week (May 2nd). But it was also the birthday of someone far more noteworthy. This past May 4th marks what would have been Jane Jacob’s 100th birthday. (She passed in Toronto in 2006.)

  In commemoration of this, Toronto Life published a photographic essay, along with a short piece by Joe Berridge. Joe is a partner at the urban design and planning firm Urban Strategies. He’s also a great storyteller.

  Here’s an excerpt:

  Jane didn’t do nice—Toronto’s default emotional setting. She was cantankerous and argumentative: once you got on the wrong side of her, that was that. About 20 years ago, when I was working as an urban planner, we were on a panel together at Boston College. I was making some remarks about city planning she clearly thought rubbish—and she just interrupted me. “Joe, Joe, Joe,” she said (her squawky Scranton, Pennsylvania, accent made it sound like “jaw, jaw, jaw”). “You’re tacking nansense.” The audience agreed. After I spoke, an incomprehensible social science professor took the stage. Jane wasn’t fond of academics—she didn’t think they knew much—but to make matters worse, he kept addressing her as Professor Jacobs. “Staap calling me prafessa,” she barked. “I barely graduated high school.” He and I both slunk offstage in shame, clutching our notes.

  Jacobs was certainly a force to be reckoned with. Without a doubt, she left her mark on this city, as well as others, like New York. And I believe that she is part of the reason why – almost 50 years after she first moved to Toronto – we remain a city where you can work, live well, and where there is hope. I like that simple characterization.

  If you’d like to read/see the full piece by Toronto Life, click here.

  2016.05.05

• How megacities are changing the map of the world

  In advance of his new book, titled Connectography, Parag Khanna recently delivered an interesting TED Talk called, How megacities are changing the map of the world. It’s about 20 minutes long.

  A lot of what is covered won’t be new to this audience, but I like how he talks about the importance of urban connectivity, the shift from political to functional geography, and the idea that, in a megacity world, countries can actually be the suburbs of some cities.

  One thing you might notice about the talk is how he glosses over both Canada and Europe. This is a reminder to me that if Canadian cities are going to continue to compete against the emerging megacities of the world, we are going to need to think at the scale of the megalopolis. And a big part of that means a focus on extra-urban connectivity.

  Click here if you can’t see the embedded talk below.

  https://embed-ssl.ted.com/talks/parag_khanna_how_megacities_are_changing_the_map_of_the_world.html

  2016.04.09

• The future of housing in Toronto

  On Monday evening I gave a 45 minute talk at the Rotman School to a delegation of about 70 people from Portland. The talk was about Toronto housing, but more specifically about the history and possible future of high-rise housing in this city. 

  Thanks to everyone who commented on my lead-up post over the weekend. It was really helpful to hear what other people in this city (as well as people not from this city) are thinking. Many of the comments also echoed my own beliefs.

  The narrative I told in my presentation was about two significant, yet very different, periods of time when Toronto built more high-rise than low-rise housing. The first was our post-war suburban slab tower boom. And the second, which we are currently living through, is really the outcome of the Places to Grow Act (2005).

  But as I mentioned over the weekend, the really interesting question is: what’s next?

  In my view, what we are seeing today is fundamentally different than what we saw in the post-war years. Despite the fact that we were building towers then and we are also building towers now (albeit much taller ones), the ideology behind them has changed. It has gone from suburban to urban.

  Toronto’s post-war towers were built upon a particular dream. The dream of getting in your car, escaping the decay of the city, whisking up the Don Valley Parkway (nobody whisks on the DVP), and being rejuvenated by all the light, air, and green space afforded to you in your Ville Radieuse.

  But it turns out that people of means didn’t want that back then. They wanted a suburban house. That was the dream.

  Today, however, cities are back in vogue. 

  Companies are moving into city centers to compete for the best talent. Retailers are moving downtown to capture disposable income. And the most pressing problems are no longer about decay and urban blight, they are about housing affordability, gentrification, and too many rich people pushing out the poor.

  The narrative has changed.

  So in the context of Toronto, I feel as if we are at an inflection point when it comes to housing. The multi-family dream may not have stuck decades ago, but I believe it will stick for many, though not all, today. And this will happen for a variety of reasons ranging from sheer preference to sheer necessity. The alternative is no longer an affordable bungalow on a 50′ x 150′ lot that happens to be 10 minutes from the subway.

  But as a result of this shift, I also think a number of other things will happen. 

  Eventually, Toronto will look to loosen some of the land use restrictions on its single family neighborhoods. This could mean “gentle” low-rise intensification (new planning buzzword, take note), as well as the acceptance of laneway or accessory dwelling housing. This won’t be popular, as one person said in the comments over the weekend, but eventually the pressures will become too great.

  At the same time, I think we’ll be brought full circle with respect to our suburban towers. The suburban ideals in place at the time means that many of these tower communities have relatively low densities. That represents a tremendous opportunity for this city and it’s only a matter of time before we truly figure out how to unlock them.

  But for all the change and disruption that’s happening in Toronto, I think it’s also worth saying that those of us who live here should consider ourselves a lucky bunch.

  One of the things I actually asked the delegation from Portland was, what struck you the most when you arrived in Toronto? The response I got was: its vibrancy. 

  Everywhere you walk downtown, they said, people are on the streets – walking, cycling, and hanging out. In fact, some said it’s almost hard to remember which street is which because every street seems to be so full of activity. Most North American cities do not have this kind of sustained vibrancy in the core, I was told. And so that makes us a pretty special place. We must be doing something right.

  It’s easy to take those sorts of things for granted when you live somewhere. So today I’m trying to do the exact opposite of that. I’m trying to stop and appreciate the place I call home.

  2015.09.30