Mississauga Celebration Square Redevelopment (CS&P Architects) COMPLETE

[taal]

You're missing the point. In central Toronto the parks and public spaces tend to be more widely used and better integrated into their communities than in the suburbs. People use the public realm more in central areas, while in suburban areas people are more restricted to the private realm. This is well documented and not exactly controversial. And it's one of the main reasons that the design of suburbs has been changing to a more traditional built form, like in Cornell or Oak Park.

To be fair, the same criticisms can be made of places like Etobicoke and Scarborough. It's not a municipal boundary issue, it's an issue of built form and how people use the spaces around them.

Your staying the obvious and I'm not sure what your getting at.
Of course parks are better used in central Toronto, of course there are more people on the sidewalks ... and there will always be no matter what happens in any of these developments i.e. MCC, Markham, NYCC even (although it's my favourite).

But at the same rate that doesn't mean such areas should have great squares - they're still used by people! Take NYCC for example - the square we have is used a lot in the summer! I think it's very nice. I've been to the one at MCC and it's lacking in many ways, I think this will help.

Anyway the point is, what exactly are you trying to argue here?
Other then stating facts which are obviously the case and will never change no mater what anyone tells you.

 

[MisterF]

^Read the thread. I was just pointing out that the kind of lifestyle that mjl08 described is a lot more common in the burbs than in the city. You and I may agree that that's stating the obvious, but some posters in this thread don't seem to think so.

For the record, I'm not arguing against the changes to the City Hall plaza in Mississauga. The more condos and offices get built in MCC the more demand there will be for that kind of public space, and it will only get busier. MCC has a lot of room to grow and urbanize.

 

[doady]

^Read the thread. I was just pointing out that the kind of lifestyle that mjl08 described is a lot more common in the burbs than in the city.

Prove it. Prove that people in Mississauga are less likely to use public parks and swimming pools and more likely to go to private schools than people in Toronto.

 

[adma]

It may be more of a chicken-and-egg situation in that Mississaugans are less motivated t/w "civic" activity--whether in using public facilities, or voting in municipal elections, or whatever...

 

[MisterF]

Prove it. Prove that people in Mississauga are less likely to use public parks and swimming pools and more likely to go to private schools than people in Toronto.

*Sigh*

That's not what I'm talking about. I'm not going to get into the multitude of reasons that people in the city tend to spend more time in the public realm than suburbanites. Like I said, it's well documented.

Taal....see?

 

[jeicow]

Like I said, it's well documented.

Then it shouldn't be hard to provide at least one piece of creditable evidence...

 

[khris]

The community centres around me are always full of people. The parks are always full. YMCA, libraries, pools. Always busy. So I'm not sure where this stuff is coming from.
Not to mention MCC is not exactly suburban... not quite urban either, but still not suburban. It's in transformation, and has been for some years now.

 

[Dan416]

I know it's not a major point, but about the private school thing anyway, I think more Torontonians send their kids to private schools than Mississaugans. There are hardly any private schools in Mississauga. A few small ones, but no well-known long-standing ones like St. Mike's and Upper Canada College. The only one that can even come close to those here is Holy Name of Mary which until last year was a public school and is now owned by St. Mike's.

 

[MisterF]

Well I for one didn’t bring up private schools, they don’t really have anything to do with how much people use public squares.

Then it shouldn't be hard to provide at least one piece of creditable evidence...

Areas in and around downtown tend to attract younger, more often childless people. Suburbs tend to attract families with children. You can compare census tracts on Statscan if you want. Young, childless people tend to be in public places more than people raising families. Do you need me to dig up some quotes from textbooks? That’s not exactly a controversial claim.

More evidence that’s easily verifiable – downtown area neighbourhoods have more people on the sidewalks, more retail that’s sidewalk-oriented (instead of malls and power centres), higher transit ridership, lower car ownership, higher densities, smaller dwelling sizes, and more mixed uses. Suburban residential areas are specifically designed to be away from activity. All these things contribute to more public realm-oriented lifestyles (eg, public squares). Transit ridership alone proves my point.

 

[khris]

Since every thread seems to go off topic like this one... people were protesting in MCC last night. Not something that happens very often!

http://www.mississauga.com/article/23510

 

[Anth]

I know it's not a major point, but about the private school thing anyway, I think more Torontonians send their kids to private schools than Mississaugans. There are hardly any private schools in Mississauga. A few small ones, but no well-known long-standing ones like St. Mike's and Upper Canada College. The only one that can even come close to those here is Holy Name of Mary which until last year was a public school and is now owned by St. Mike's.

It's funny that people always seem to superimpose the York/Halton image of suburbia onto Mississauga simply for sharing the same area code when in fact it's far more similar to Scarborough.

 

[Brian69]

Since every thread seems to go off topic like this one... people were protesting in MCC last night. Not something that happens very often!

http://www.mississauga.com/article/23510

I'm not impressed that the reporter stated a "hoard" of protesters showed up, but it's the Mississauga News. Aside from the misspelling and the negative implications of the term a few dozen doesn't exactly conjure up images of a horde either.

The protest itself was interesting--I can understand the feelings of many Tamils regarding what's happening in Sri Lanka, but on the other hand I've been to take out places in Mississauga that have posters of the terrorist LTTE (Tigers) displayed prominently.

More on topic I suppose it's a good thing the square is being used at all.

 

[doady]

have more people on the sidewalks, more retail that’s sidewalk-oriented (instead of malls and power centres), higher transit ridership, lower car ownership, higher densities, smaller dwelling sizes, and more mixed uses. Suburban residential areas are specifically designed to be away from activity. All these things contribute to more public realm-oriented lifestyles (eg, public squares). Transit ridership alone proves my point.

Higher rate of transit ridership and walking doesn't mean that more people are using parks.

 

[adma]

I'm not impressed that the reporter stated a "hoard" of protesters showed up, but it's the Mississauga News. Aside from the misspelling and the negative implications of the term a few dozen doesn't exactly conjure up images of a horde either.

The protest itself was interesting--I can understand the feelings of many Tamils regarding what's happening in Sri Lanka, but on the other hand I've been to take out places in Mississauga that have posters of the terrorist LTTE (Tigers) displayed prominently.

More on topic I suppose it's a good thing the square is being used at all.

Maybe in Mississauga's case, it's a matter of "hey, they gotta go somewhere"--and because Mississauga has no Yonge-type arteries or alternate public places where Tamil protesters would look anything but forlorn or or like invitations for security-guard bullying, this is *the* default zone par excellence...

 

[MisterF]

For the square to become a natural meeting place the urban fabric around it has to be condusive to that. The Burnhamthorpe right of way is so wide that even buildings built to the property line are set well back from the street itself. And there's little in the way of street level commercial uses in the residential buildings on that street - it's a major impediment to the City's goals for the square. The smaller streets in the area, like Living Arts Drive, look like they have more potential. And like the article alludes to, the parking lots on Duke of York need to be developed with something that would frame that side of the square.

Higher rate of transit ridership and walking doesn't mean that more people are using parks.

You missed the point. I'm not talking about parks specifically, I'm talking about people using the public realm. Transit and walking on sidewalks are a major part of that. Same with public squares.