The GTA has been showing signs of the urban ills that are commonly associated with city life south the border.
Downtown infrastructure has been deteriorating, as have cleanliness and order, which were once the city’s strong suits.
In Ontario, growth has shifted to lower-cost places like Kitchener-Waterloo (110 kilometres from downtown Toronto), as well as Guelph (95 km), Peterborough (140 km) and London (195 km). Even long declining areas, like the Maritimes, have been gaining population in recent years.
Clearly a new approach is merited. Leaders in Toronto have to accept dispersion and find the city’s niche within a wider range of settlements. Downtowns themselves, as Calgary’s urban leadership now suggests, will have to morph from primarily business centres to places more oriented to housing, academic and cultural activities.
To be sure, swank high-rise projects may appeal to the wealthy and the childless. But the urban future lies in places that are walkable but not hyper-dense and can attract middle-income families.
This issue had become more visible ever since the early days of COVID. Cities and urban cores became “ghost towns”, plenty of local business that serves the local community actually only catered unspokenly to commuting office workers, failing to stay afloat and many closed down as a result. It became apparent no one actually lived in the surrounding areas.
Our cities were and still area geared to single working individuals or couples without children. Nothing ties our city dwellers to their surroundings communities or business. What north america style cities are missing are a larger influx of families in cities.
Families provide strong ties and a sense of community. Very rarely do we see children walking in the downtown area or even playing on neighborhood streets. Instead most families move outside of cities as they grow in size for many reasons, housing and affordability being one of the big ones.
There are ways to fix this though. One of the main ways is city zoning policies. More “missing middle” style housing in needed.
“Missing middle” housing is the many different housing styles that sit between the standard sized suburban single family home and a typical downtown condo unit.
As we can see in north america families have limited choices and options when it comes to housing as they grow in size. Very rarely will a family be able to find a 3 bedroom apartment in a downtown core, and if they do a single family home in the suburbs will be priced more competitively and usually be larger in size.
Here is a great video talking about some of these points.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRdwXQb7CfM
And here is a great article as to why developers can’t build family sized units in north america.
https://www.centerforbuilding.org/blog/we-we-cant-build-family-sized-apartments-in-north-america#:~:text=There are two factors driving,dictated by the zoning code.
As an end note. Cities that design with a sense of place (referred to as “third place”) are always IMO more successful in providing a strong sense of community. You will see these “third places” all over European cities.
I will drop this last video here for anyone that is interested in knowing more about this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOc8ASeHYNw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCOdQsZa15o
I agree with a lot of what you’re saying here, but the author of the article doesn’t so much, I think. His thrust seems to be that we need to embrace urban sprawl, and in the course of doing that, rather than densifying urban residential areas, instead de-densify downtown cores and go all in on suburbs and exurbs.
You know, you’re right. I read the article once more over and there does seem to be more of a push into urban sprawl as a good thing.
Though as another commenter here has already stated urban sprawl is financially unsustainable in the long run and has had many studies done on the topic. Urban sprawl is also what feeds to an urban decline IMO specifically related to my point about families not being present in urban communities.
Just finished an “About Here” video looking at the absence of new “small” single-lot apartment buildings in North America.
Thought it was another interesting take on how zoning can contribute to housing prices.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
“About Here” video looking at the absence of new “small” single-lot apartment buildings in North America
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=iRdwXQb7CfM
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=AOc8ASeHYNw
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.