Should cities start blocking urban sprawl?

[Action Jackson]

YES let's stop them! Let's eliminate all new land for development! But do you know what happens when you do this? Housing prices go up. Look at Vancouver: They ran out of development land and the average house price is what? $700,000?

Do you want to pay $700,000 for a house? (or $400,000 for a one bedroom condo with a view out the window of someone else's 1 bedroom condo?)

Supply/Demand people. Let's not forget the fundamentals here.

Land prices in Toronto won't grow that much even if you just made local areas much more dense, for a variety of reasons. Toronto's density is by the standard of many cities fairly low, and that becomes much more so in the suburbs. Even more modern developments still have very large homes, which even if they have smaller lots than they used to, still require a lot of land. I do not for the life of me understand the appeal of a 3500-square-foot home, unless you have a problem with the size of one of your genitals. I have a lot of crap - a car, electronics, vast model car, CD and DVD collections, a lot of other stuff - and yet, me and three others share a 950-square-foot place in one of Oshawa's older neighborhoods. The place cost the owner (my dad, admittedly) $175,000 to buy. It's got a very long (95') lot, but other than that is a fairly small place. I travel most of the time by transit, and I do not spend as much of my time at home as a lot do. In the modern world, both parents usually work with their children at a babysitter or daycare when they are not at school. Does a family of four need a house like that?

Then you have the additional wasted space in many parts of the city. (Parks don't count as wasted space, FYI.) There is a massive hydro corridor through Scarborough that isn't used for anything other than spaced-out power lines - one proposal I've seen would put a highway there, which I think is quite sensible. There is many industrial areas which haven't got many clients (some have none at all) and the parking lots themselves. Here in Oshawa, there is a few buildings where parking lots have buildings above them. We don't have problems with Earthquakes or Tornadoes, so why is this not done more? (Bonus: You don't get wet or as cold going from your car into the store/office.) Another such example is the area around the 401/404 intercharge, which has a number of the "Tower in the Park" style developments in the SW corner. At the DVP and York Mills, there is a part of an interchange that isn't used that is just there, empty land. There are dozens of examples of space not utilized well in Toronto. Like I said, you could drop another million people into Toronto's borders and still have many single-family neighborhoods. One doesn't have to have highways at ground level - put 'em underground, or even just build a shed over them and use the area above for a park.

As for the price rises, I don't support penalizing people for living in suburbs, as I would prefer that the city appeal to them - and to many, it does. I do think that if the city wants to encourage development of these areas, they need to provide incentives to get people to do that. Remove zoning restrictions on multi-use buildings, charge higher taxes on large plots of land, tax vacations for properties built on underutilized land, stuff like that. Providing good TTC service to these parts of the city would be beneficial, too. There is no way average land prices in the GTA will ever get to $700,000. Toronto is higher than the rest of the GTA, but that's because the city is somewhat short on residences, particularly in high-demand areas - that's why we have thousands of condo units under construction. If anything, increasing the density, which will result in greater numbers of housing units, will bring the price down, for the same reason you point out.

 

[Action Jackson]

Thanks to the wonders of Google Earth, I can show you what I mean.

This image is roughly centered on the Eglinton/DVP area. The big ugly stripe running NE is the hydro corridor I was talking about, while two rail lines run through this picture, both of them used by regular GO Transit service and less frequent CN freight service. The massive properties on the top left of the screen is the Bridle Path/High Point Road area, where the properties all cost seven figures, minimum. It doesn't look very dense, does it? There are several of the irritating "Tower in the Park" developments, but at least in this case, there is some density. But overall, from a space usage POV, this isn't terribly good. It's also worth noting that the older neighborhoods to the West side of the DVP are higher-density, while those to the east in Scarborough are lower-density. That's what I mean when I say use space more efficiently. There are probably 150,000 residents in the area in this picture, and its not short of green space, is it? Simply using land better could easily put thousands more here.

And to contrast that, I give you another shot:

This is Whitby, centered on the corner of Anderson and Manning NE of the town's center. This is suburbia at its absolute worst. Whitby's town center is to the bottom, slightly off to the left. The gray area of commercial properties toward the bottom right looks more promising, but that area is almost all car dealerships - there are eight car dealerships in that stretch. Virtually all the rest of it is low-density residential housing, with the density getting lower as you go further north. Telling the new neighborhoods from the old is also quite obvious - when you can make out the roads at 20,000 ft+, you haven't got beans worth of tree cover - which from an environmental standpoint is BAD. It's also potentially troublesome for homeowners - shade trees reduce the felt temperature in an area, which means a house in a well-shaded area won't need the air conditioning as much. The distance across the picture is about four kilometers, which is more than the vast majority of people would walk to get somewhere. This neighborhood could be served by transit (and it is), but its going to be infrequent buses, because it hasn't the density to support cars. In this neighborhoods, without a car or at the very least a bicycle, you're kinda housebound. This development is good for the McMansion types and their SUVs, but how does it work for anyone else? It doesn't.

From the views of most of us here, the Whitby development is BAD. It has many flaws, most of them to do with automobile reliance. I'm a certified car nut coming from a line of them, but I still think that a car-oriented development frequently ends up being inefficient from a land use standpoint and poor from a social one. The car dependence is also why a growing number of North Americans are obese, which is bad on many levels. When you hear somebody say "these sort of developments have to be stopped!" the Whitby development is what he's talking about. Nobody is going to object to redeveloping areas for homes - two massive lots near where I live in Oshawa, which used to be GM metal stamping plants, are wide open for development purposes. No, not everyone wants to live in a condo. But they don't have to. We can easily have many more single-family homes in the GTA without sucking up more farm land. It's just done because developers find it cheaper and easier to buy a huge chunk of farmland and build houses on it. People here want to stop that practice. I couldn't agree more.

 

[W. K. Lis]

Questions any new home buyer should ask (and what I asked myself) is can I walk to any store to buy an ice cream cone or a lottery ticket? Can the kids walk to school or park? Can it be done in winter?

 

[W. K. Lis]

I finally was able to start reading Jane Jacobs' The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Came across an interesting paragraph:

One reason why low city densities conventionally have a good name, unjustified by the facts, and why high city densities have a bad name, equally unjustified, is that high densities of dwellings and overcrowding of dwellings are often confused. High densities mean large numbers of dwellings per acre of land. Overcrowding means too many people in a dwelling for the number of rooms it contains. The census definition of overcrowding is 1.5 persons per room or more. It has nothing to do with the number of dwellings on the land, just as in real life high densities have nothing to do with overcrowding.

There are suburban neighbourhoods where there is more overcrowding than in downtown neighbourhoods. Even though they are low density, the overcrowding can be more of a problem than the high density elsewhere.

 

[Memph]

I agree that the loss of farmland sucks, at least in some areas. A lot of the PYO fruit farms I went to in Brampton and South Caledon are now very close to the urban boundary. Two very unique agricultural areas are within the Golden Horseshoe, the Niagara Fruit Belt and Holland Marsh, and I hope they continue to be protected.

But is habitat destruction really that much of a problem? It seems like most of the sprawl is on farmland, which isn't that great of a habitat. And leafy suburbs like where I live (Oakville) can have a lot of wildlife. Here's the wildlife that I've seen in my garden:
-chipmunks, red squirrels, black/gray squirrels, mice
-toads, garter snakes
-rabbits, foxes, racoons, skunks, opposums, moles, even deer (a fluke since they probably came from the farms in Clarkson and got lost)
-hawks, corvids, tons of smaller birds (ex finches, chikadees, cardinals, orioles, swallows, robins), hummingbirds
-in the creek running through our backyard: muskrats, frogs, ducks, crayfish, suckers, snapping turtles, herons
It helps that I live in a 50 year old neighbourhood with mature trees, and large lots, but having gardens with a wide variety of trees, bushes, fruits, flowers.. and birdfeeders seems to attract lots of wildlife. There's certainly a lot more than in most forests, except for large animals like moose, wolves and bears of course.

re global warming: more like 1-2 feet more water, but I'll agree that it has significant downsides.

re sense of community: I think it depends on the suburb. I spent my childhood in Heart Lake in Brampton in townhouses. We lived down the street from Conestoga, which had a daycare, grocery store, hairdresser, dental/doctor's offices, banks, restaurants and almost everything we'd need. Equally close was a libary and rec center. Our houses backyard was on the Etobicoke creek ravine, so we went to there all the time. The school was on the same street. It's quite affordable too, around $250,000. I spent tons of times with kids in my neighbourhood, and my parents spent quite a lot of time with neighbours too. The townhouses were only 7-8m apart though, which helped.

In my current neighbourhood in Oakville, the average age is around 60... so obviously there isn't as much of a sense of community since there's very few people my age. And the houses are about 30m apart. Although I would see any given neighbour less frequently, I still knew them. I think there's a lot of factors, in addition to density for a sense of community: shape of lots (narrow and long being better than square), age (the elderly stay inside), social status (working class being better from my experience). One advantage of suburbs in this regard is that there's a better change of people being outside of their house and within sight of their neighbours, sitting on their porch, washing the car, gardening, BBQing, playing street hockey or basketball which wouldn't happen in a condo. I've never lived in a condo/appartment, do people meet their neighbours a lot in common facilities (pools, gyms, lounges) and in stores and cafes and such? How much are the common facilities used? I think if suburbs had more townhouses or narrow lots, mixed use neighbourhoods (and buildings) and a grid oriented street network, that would be good.

re your other posts: I'd rather compare the price of high density living of European cities than the East Asian ones. I don't think anyone wants to live in an overcrowded tower with terrible air quality

But you'd lose an entire 1.3% of Southern Ontario to suburbia, which isn't even including actual farmland. If we were judging by actual farmland, it'd be over 2.5% of the arable land in Ontario just to house 5 million more people (which isn't actually the case because free suburbanization will yield a far lower density than we currently have, with not as much new high density development due to lower housing costs in the suburbs.) So really, it'd be closer to a full 5% of all arable land in Southern Ontario for the GTA to double in population with unchecked suburbanization (a reasonable expectation given current growth rates,) of which a significant portion (at least another 4 or 5%) is already urbanized.

And even 1% is huge. If that 1% of farmland was going towards feeding the city itself, would you stand by to let 50,000 people die of starvation? How about the huge amount of toxic runoff that'd be seeping straight through the soil into the lake that we drink water from? Or the amount of gasoline it'd take to accommodate so many trips across such large distances? Or the increased amount of salt and dirty snow we'd be throwing around everywhere in the wintertime? People in the GTA would have to travel much farther to go out to the woods or country for the day. Nature would become even more isolated and fragmented than it is now.
What about habitat destruction? Through this "we're such a tiny impact on the earth" idea, we've managed to cause one of the largest global extinction events ever, as well as start the chain of events that will likely lead to an over 1 degree increase in global temperature and tens of feet more water in the oceans.

And what's that for? So we can all live "comfortable" lives in 4 bedroom houses with a 3 car garage and swimming pool out back? Firstly, it's been noted that you're under the delusion that's what everyone wants, and secondly, human society exists within the global ecosystem. If we have to hunker down and live a bit more meagrely in order to stop the Earth from being destroyed, it should be a no-brainer what the proper solution is.
And we wouldn't be hunkering down and living more meagrely; you'd be able to walk anywhere you wanted! No more arduous hour long trips down the DVP. You could have magnitudes more friends and family local to you than you ever could in a suburban environment. You could just walk down the street with your kids to a local restaurant instead of driving for 20 minutes to McDonalds. You'd be able to enjoy a vibrant and more local community.
What exactly is so bad about a more urban lifestyle that you're hell bent on building as much suburb as possible?

@Action Jackson: How do you propose to increase density of the Don River area? The hydro corridor only seems to take up something like 2% of the map, so that's not much. Would you build more condo/appartment towers? Or would you redevelop large swaths or the area to have more townhomes and lowrises? Could that be done without losing too much tree cover? And about Whitby, obviously trees take a long time to grow, I'm not sure what you're trying to say. Back to increasing density, +1 million within Toronto is quite a lot, but how viable is it to buy a house and build a 2-unit townhouse for example? And if you completely halt urban sprawl, including in commuter belt cities, I could see Toronto getting +1.5million ppl/20 years. The Portlands might be able to handle +150,000 or so in that period if they get completely built out in European level of density. The mixed use nodes of Toronto might be able to handle +400,000 by build out with condo towers. So close to 1 million more people would have to go along the avenues and in mixed use neighbourhoods. Should the older residential neighbourhoods like the Annex, Parkdale, Leslieville be redeveloped from row houses to mid rises, causing the loss of historic neighbourhoods and tree cover? Or should the focus be mainly redeveloping the inner suburbs? Would it be economically viable to buy a house, and built 2 units of townhouse/duplex in it's place?

@lafard: I don't think Vaughan and Brampton have even close to 30 years before they run out of space. I'd give Vaughan at most 10 years and Brampton at most 15 years.


-----------
I don't think new developments should be stopped completely, but I do think they should be denser(semi detached homes, townhouses, stacked townhouses, midrises), mixed use and have a street system that doesn't require too many detours to get from A to B. I think Oakville's Uptown Core is a pretty good new development, same with Cornell in Markham.

Why don't planners don't use more mixed use though? I was looking at the plans for downtown Markham and Mississauga. They both plan for one mixed use area, one residential area and one area along the highway with offices. Do the office's tenants really dislike the idea of sharing a building with residents? Or is the demand that much higher near the highway?

 

[Second_in_pie]

I agree that the loss of farmland sucks, at least in some areas. A lot of the PYO fruit farms I went to in Brampton and South Caledon are now very close to the urban boundary. Two very unique agricultural areas are within the Golden Horseshoe, the Niagara Fruit Belt and Holland Marsh, and I hope they continue to be protected.

But is habitat destruction really that much of a problem? It seems like most of the sprawl is on farmland, which isn't that great of a habitat. And leafy suburbs like where I live (Oakville) can have a lot of wildlife. Here's the wildlife that I've seen in my garden:
-chipmunks, red squirrels, black/gray squirrels, mice
-toads, garter snakes
-rabbits, foxes, racoons, skunks, opposums, moles, even deer (a fluke since they probably came from the farms in Clarkson and got lost)
-hawks, corvids, tons of smaller birds (ex finches, chikadees, cardinals, orioles, swallows, robins), hummingbirds
-in the creek running through our backyard: muskrats, frogs, ducks, crayfish, suckers, snapping turtles, herons
It helps that I live in a 50 year old neighbourhood with mature trees, and large lots, but having gardens with a wide variety of trees, bushes, fruits, flowers.. and birdfeeders seems to attract lots of wildlife. There's certainly a lot more than in most forests, except for large animals like moose, wolves and bears of course.

Because this is a very minimal ecosystem. It's like saying that humans are living in a natural habitat as we are now. Suburbia introduces cars, abundant food sources, far more human hunting, and also very small species diversity in fragmented populations, broken up by roads, highways, and houses. Farmland is like suburbia, except with less unnatural dangers, more room for species habitat, and less fragmentation. Forestland is the best, but farmland produces food.
And if it's not a farm in Southern Ontario producing food, it may well be a farm in Brazil or Central Africa built on rainforest land.

re your other posts: I'd rather compare the price of high density living of European cities than the East Asian ones. I don't think anyone wants to live in an overcrowded tower with terrible air quality

It shows the economics. Asian cities are geared towards high density, so high density's cheap. North American cities are geared towards low-density suburbia and so high density's expensive. European cities contain sought-after high density historical regions and have experienced far less city growth in general (new suburban houses, new mid rises,) so costs are higher all around.

@Action Jackson: How do you propose to increase density of the Don River area? The hydro corridor only seems to take up something like 2% of the map, so that's not much. Would you build more condo/appartment towers? Or would you redevelop large swaths or the area to have more townhomes and lowrises? Could that be done without losing too much tree cover? And about Whitby, obviously trees take a long time to grow, I'm not sure what you're trying to say. Back to increasing density, +1 million within Toronto is quite a lot, but how viable is it to buy a house and build a 2-unit townhouse for example? And if you completely halt urban sprawl, including in commuter belt cities, I could see Toronto getting +1.5million ppl/20 years. The Portlands might be able to handle +150,000 or so in that period if they get completely built out in European level of density. The mixed use nodes of Toronto might be able to handle +400,000 by build out with condo towers. So close to 1 million more people would have to go along the avenues and in mixed use neighbourhoods. Should the older residential neighbourhoods like the Annex, Parkdale, Leslieville be redeveloped from row houses to mid rises, causing the loss of historic neighbourhoods and tree cover? Or should the focus be mainly redeveloping the inner suburbs? Would it be economically viable to buy a house, and built 2 units of townhouse/duplex in it's place?

The inner suburbs are what need the most help. I don't think anyone's suggesting to redevelop the Annex or Parkdale. But with those older suburban houses with larger lots, you definitely could redevelop to townhouses fairly easily. Especially with plenty of houses requiring renovations to modernize already, maybe doubling the amount of housing you have, as well as "investing" in better insulation, electrical wiring and plumbing, and more modernly laid out floor plans as per a normal renovation, could be a boon for developers. Some families are already just tearing down houses and building a new one, I doubt it'd be much trouble to turn an aging house into a modern townhouse.

So, let's say you could get a couple communities in which you could double the population density like that. Then, along suburban arterials like Kennedy, Sheppard, Finch, Islington, Lawrence, etc, you could redevelop for mid rise, boosting population density hugely. Get more big condos going up in North York and Scarborough, and allow for redevelopment in non-heritage areas around those city centres for mid density similar to what's being built in Markham right now. You could easily get 1 million extra people into the city through suburban avenues.

But the outer suburbs as well could absorb a huge number of extra people, definitely more than Toronto could. Just because suburbanization stops doesn't mean the outer suburbs are dead. Redeveloping business parks into mid-rise communities entirely, and doing the aforementioned mid rise avenues could make room for huge amounts of people while also putting suburban homeowners much closer to density that allows for proper transit, local stores, and better community services. You'd have to improve transit service to the outer suburbs, but I'd like to think that that's a bit of a given. And in doing so, the GTA could double in population without growing outwards a single metre. After that, we could just continue to build up downtown areas, continue to split up larger lots, and spread mid rise avenues further out from the avenues themselves.

 

[Action Jackson]

@Action Jackson: How do you propose to increase density of the Don River area? The hydro corridor only seems to take up something like 2% of the map, so that's not much. Would you build more condo/appartment towers? Or would you redevelop large swaths or the area to have more townhomes and lowrises? Could that be done without losing too much tree cover? And about Whitby, obviously trees take a long time to grow, I'm not sure what you're trying to say. Back to increasing density, +1 million within Toronto is quite a lot, but how viable is it to buy a house and build a 2-unit townhouse for example? And if you completely halt urban sprawl, including in commuter belt cities, I could see Toronto getting +1.5million ppl/20 years. The Portlands might be able to handle +150,000 or so in that period if they get completely built out in European level of density. The mixed use nodes of Toronto might be able to handle +400,000 by build out with condo towers. So close to 1 million more people would have to go along the avenues and in mixed use neighbourhoods. Should the older residential neighbourhoods like the Annex, Parkdale, Leslieville be redeveloped from row houses to mid rises, causing the loss of historic neighbourhoods and tree cover? Or should the focus be mainly redeveloping the inner suburbs? Would it be economically viable to buy a house, and built 2 units of townhouse/duplex in it's place?

What I had in mind for the area is going to more homes in the same area, say, three houses where there used to be two. Towers can be useful, but they don't work everywhere, and not everyone wants to live in a skyscraper. Lowrises can be used in places where appropriate, but my Don Valley picture was more to make a point about "this can be improved", and it can, if one was trying to do so. The older city neighborhoods tend to have smaller houses, which get bigger as you move into the inner suburbs, and keep on growing out to the 905 and its many McMansions. The point I was trying to make is about space utilization. As far as Whitby goes, I was showing off the problems with suburbia. It's kilometres to anywhere you'd want to go, and the low density makes transit a iffy proposition - thus forcing people to have cars. Many people here, myself included, think society as a whole and communities themselves would be better off if cars weren't a neccessity. You can't easily do that with suburban neighborhoods, though one could see lots of motorcycles being an option.

Your population growth scenario is a bit much - two million will land in the GTA, but not all of them will land in the city of Toronto. This isn't just a Toronto question - all of the suburban areas, particularly ones that have grown into major cities in their own right (Missassauga, Brampton, Markham, Vaughan, Oshawa), are gonna have to deal with this, too. Nobody's expecting to put a million new people into the City of Toronto. I in this case was just pointing out that it's possible to do so. I figure that of those two million, maybe 300,000 or 400,000 will land in the city of Toronto itself. The others will land in the suburbs. And if Places to Grow holds up, and I expect that it will even if the provincial government changes next year, developers will have to start working on increasing density and/or developing brownfields. Redoing brownfields is easier, which is why I figure they'll get done first. Mixed-use buildings have in many cases worked quite well, and I can see some people thinking the idea of their going to work being going down a few floors as being quite appealing. Personally, if I could dictate all of the developments of Toronto, the Portlands and Ontario Place/CNE Grounds would be rebuilt into true, incredible destinations, Yonge Street would be tower city all the way from Steeles to downtown, the tower in the park developments would be offices, retail stores and schools right near them. But then again, if I had that power, I'd build a couple buildings about the size of the Sears Tower in Chicago to use as new Toronto landmarks along with the CN Tower.

@lafard: I don't think Vaughan and Brampton have even close to 30 years before they run out of space. I'd give Vaughan at most 10 years and Brampton at most 15 years.

I agree, and the costs of these new developments are going to go skywards. The massively-growing area in the GTA in a decade is going to be in Durham Region, particularly once the 407 extension is built. If the Pickering Airport is built, and Buttonwillow's shutdown increases that possibility, Ajax and Pickering are going to explode much like Missassauga and Brampton did in the 80s and 90s. Oshawa is starting to come back, though GM's problems still hurt. Once UOIT is done building here (and they've been at it for a decade and apparently still have some ways to go - eeep), that may slow down, but I'm doubting it.

 

[Memph]

What I had in mind for the area is going to more homes in the same area, say, three houses where there used to be two. Towers can be useful, but they don't work everywhere, and not everyone wants to live in a skyscraper. Lowrises can be used in places where appropriate, but my Don Valley picture was more to make a point about "this can be improved", and it can, if one was trying to do so. The older city neighborhoods tend to have smaller houses, which get bigger as you move into the inner suburbs, and keep on growing out to the 905 and its many McMansions. The point I was trying to make is about space utilization. As far as Whitby goes, I was showing off the problems with suburbia. It's kilometres to anywhere you'd want to go, and the low density makes transit a iffy proposition - thus forcing people to have cars. Many people here, myself included, think society as a whole and communities themselves would be better off if cars weren't a neccessity. You can't easily do that with suburban neighborhoods, though one could see lots of motorcycles being an option.

Your population growth scenario is a bit much - two million will land in the GTA, but not all of them will land in the city of Toronto. This isn't just a Toronto question - all of the suburban areas, particularly ones that have grown into major cities in their own right (Missassauga, Brampton, Markham, Vaughan, Oshawa), are gonna have to deal with this, too. Nobody's expecting to put a million new people into the City of Toronto. I in this case was just pointing out that it's possible to do so. I figure that of those two million, maybe 300,000 or 400,000 will land in the city of Toronto itself. The others will land in the suburbs. And if Places to Grow holds up, and I expect that it will even if the provincial government changes next year, developers will have to start working on increasing density and/or developing brownfields. Redoing brownfields is easier, which is why I figure they'll get done first. Mixed-use buildings have in many cases worked quite well, and I can see some people thinking the idea of their going to work being going down a few floors as being quite appealing. Personally, if I could dictate all of the developments of Toronto, the Portlands and Ontario Place/CNE Grounds would be rebuilt into true, incredible destinations, Yonge Street would be tower city all the way from Steeles to downtown, the tower in the park developments would be offices, retail stores and schools right near them. But then again, if I had that power, I'd build a couple buildings about the size of the Sears Tower in Chicago to use as new Toronto landmarks along with the CN Tower.




I agree, and the costs of these new developments are going to go skywards. The massively-growing area in the GTA in a decade is going to be in Durham Region, particularly once the 407 extension is built. If the Pickering Airport is built, and Buttonwillow's shutdown increases that possibility, Ajax and Pickering are going to explode much like Missassauga and Brampton did in the 80s and 90s. Oshawa is starting to come back, though GM's problems still hurt. Once UOIT is done building here (and they've been at it for a decade and apparently still have some ways to go - eeep), that may slow down, but I'm doubting it.

The 300-400k in 20 years seems reasonable if it's business as usual in the suburbs, but if you prevent new subdivisions from being built in the GTA and commuter belt, land will have to be redeveloped, and I would expect that to happen more in Toronto than in the suburbs.

Topham Park: 12km from Union Station (18min drive, 23min drive +GO train, 45min transit only) and 10min walk from retail. Neighbourhoods like this are common through Toronto's inner suburbs and some of the older suburban neighbourhoods of the outer suburbs. They seem more suitable for redevelopment with deep lots, little trees on the front lawn and being closer to downtown.

River Oaks: 40km from Union Station (36min drive, 40min drive+GO train, 70min transit only) and 15min walk from retail, this is a pretty typical subdivision for the last 20-30 years. The houses are big, 2 stories and occupy much of the lot. I don't think it would make sense to redevelop them, although maybe if they get too expensive they could be divided into 2 smaller units. But people would rather live in a row/townhouse/small apartment closer to downtown Toronto or other centres where they likely work than the outer suburbs. Considering the GTA grows by about 2mil per 20 years and the commuter belt cities (Cambridge, Hamilton, Barrie) are growing quite fast, if new subdivisions in all these areas were completely stopped, I could see Toronto taking most of the growth.

I agree on Durham, even Milton, Markham and Caledon will probably run out of space within a decade or two as growth shifts from other suburbs to these. Although Ontario Municipal Affairs just ruled against a new development in North Pickering (I assume this is Seaton?) so maybe Durham's growth will be limited.

How about employment lands? Not office and retail which can be high density but industries, warehouses and large scale commercial (ex Rona). All of the newcomers will need places to work and it seems like a lot would get redeveloped meaning more new ones would have to be built. Will they still be needed or would Toronto's economy shift more towards services in the future? Or is the current land allocated for employment lands enough if the walmarts, dealerships and offices are moved into higher density areas and the replaced with industrial/warehouses or if the employment lands are made denser? It's not as if the parking lots are excessively large though.

 

[W. K. Lis]

One problem with cul-de-sacs with only one entrance is that there is only one exit as well. This story is from Human Transit:

cul-de-sac hell, continued

What's so great about living on a cul-de-sac again? From the Oregonian:

Fallen tree blocks access to Lake Oswego neighborhood

A fallen tree blocked access to about 50 Lake Oswego homes for more than two hours this morning, authorities said.

The large tree toppled at 8:11 a.m. today, landing across Lakefront Road and McVey Avenue, according to the Lake Oswego Fire Department. It took out power and utility lines with it, causing some homes to lose electricity.

Crews from Portland General Electric had power mostly restored by 10:15 a.m., said the Fire Department's David Morris. PGE also took care of the tangled power lines on the ground, while firefighters and maintenance personnel worked to clear the downed tree.

People were able to get in and out of the neighborhood again about two hours after the tree fell, Morris said. Crews expected to have the street completely clear by 11 a.m., he said.​

(Obvious question to the journalist: Were the residents really trapped, or was it just their cars that were trapped?)

From the look of it on Google Earth, the good burghers of Lakefront Road seem to have freely chosen their imprisonment. It's a very long cul-de-sac.

Does nobody understand the principle of redundancy in networks? Note to the real estate industry: I will never buy a house that cannot be escaped in at least two directions -- and preferably also by at least two modes of transport. We'd build much more resilient suburbs if everyone took this view.

 

[adma]

I dunno--it may please "intensification geeks"; but to me, it seems heavy-handed to insist so much upon the intensification of a Topham Park-type neighbourhood. Redevelop the retail strips and gas station sites, maybe; but otherwise, it's the kind of urban overidealism that breeds a Rob Ford demographic in reaction...

 

[W. K. Lis]

When Metropolitan Toronto was created in 1954, the old city of Toronto had a lot more power than today. Along with some of the inner suburbs (Swansea, Forest Hill, etc.) they were able to influence higher density, especially along the arterial roads for the benefit of the TTC. Over time, the outer suburbs got more power, and the old city had less influence. That resulted in more sprawl over time, but the early influence of the old city helped in certain parts of Metro but not completely. The car still has a great influence on new developments or renewals in Toronto, which is still not as bad as in some parts of the 905.

 

[spider]

I dunno--it may please "intensification geeks"; but to me, it seems heavy-handed to insist so much upon the intensification of a Topham Park-type neighbourhood. Redevelop the retail strips and gas station sites, maybe; but otherwise, it's the kind of urban overidealism that breeds a Rob Ford demographic in reaction...

I concur.
It doesn't seem to sink in that most people in the suburbs live here because we want to, not because we can't afford to live in the inner city. My daughter bought a home in the Bloor-Keele-Dundas area this summer, they love the neighbourhood, my wife and I don't but we wouldn't dream of saying so.

 

[Memph]

Because this is a very minimal ecosystem. It's like saying that humans are living in a natural habitat as we are now. Suburbia introduces cars, abundant food sources, far more human hunting, and also very small species diversity in fragmented populations, broken up by roads, highways, and houses. Farmland is like suburbia, except with less unnatural dangers, more room for species habitat, and less fragmentation. Forestland is the best, but farmland produces food.
And if it's not a farm in Southern Ontario producing food, it may well be a farm in Brazil or Central Africa built on rainforest land.

I did use the adjective "leafy" for a reason, but I guess I wasn't too clear. I'm talking about 40-60 year old suburbs with large lots and large trees. The really low density ones like South of the QEW in Mississauga or Oakville, and Rouge Hill. The "country living in the city" neighbourhoods which is what suburbs were originally meant to be. There are cars but little roadkills, I wouldn't be surprised if it's similar to the countryside. There are more streets but people drive half as fast and can avoid animals. In any case it doesn't seem to be denting the wildlife population. And save for very busy roads, roads don't really act as borders for wildlife. Within the 1.5x3km area my neighbourhood is in there are no roads wildlife is not comfortable crossing. I'm not sure what you mean by human hunting, you can't hunt in the suburbs, but people do hunt/kill animals in the countryside.

Regarding species diversity, I just listed most of the common animals in Ontario's forest as having been seen in my backyard... Diversity is more than just the big mammals, because those account for only 5-6 species out of thousands. If you go for a 1 hour hike in Algonquin park or another park in Ontario, you might see 3 chikadees, 1 finch and 2 red squirrels. If I'd sit in my backyard for 1 hour, I'd probably see dozens of each of the common urban birds (robins, sparrows, blackbirds and black/gray squirrels, crows, doves, seagulls), a couple of each of the less common ones (red squirrels, chipmunks, woodpeckers, cardinals, blue jays, toads) and dozens of each of the bird species that are most common in forests but not as common in urban areas (chikadees, finches, warblers, etc) and have a good chance of seeing less common birds like orioles, goldfinches, cedar waxwing, hummingbirds, hawks, turkey vultures. You'd also have a good chance of seeing animals you'd usually expect to see in city parks or ravines in my backyard like foxes, rabbits, ducks, raccoons. Then there's the nocturnal animals you don't see but are still there: opposums, skunks and owls. There are also other animals that are a bit rarer and more likely to be in ravines/municipal parks that I've seen in the area like pileated woodpeckers, coyotes, deer and even beavers.

I guess another way to look at it is what species I've seen in Ontario outside of urban areas versus in the ones I saw in Oakville.
Saw in outside of urban areas but not Oakville: moose, black bears, otters, minks, grouse, loons, common mergansers, ospreys, 5-lined skink, wild turkeys, porcupines
Saw in Oakville but not outside urban areas: groundhogs, foxes, rabbits, coyotes, muskrats, opposums, skunks, pileated woodpeckers, racoons, kingfishers, orioles, and probably several species of passerines (I'm not familiar to keep track, but the diversity comes off as quite a bit greater in my backyard)

Diversity also includes plants and insects. Different homeowners have different tastes, and also like a diversity of plants, and while people control what species there are in their yards, that (imo) means more diversity since that's desirable for people. In the wild, you might have a section of forest with only a few types of plants because those are the ones that are most suitable to the area. There's also lots of domestic or non-native plants grown, which still support a greater diversity of insects and other herbivores I think. I think the mix of different kinds of plants, and different kinds of habitats (hedges, wooded areas, lawns, flower beds..) are a plus for suburbs. Also while low density suburbs take up lots of land and aren't very good for transportation, the people who live in them generally intend to make use of their large properties and garden or hire a gardener, so they tend to be more interesting than just a house and swimming pool in the middle of a lawn.

And I've been comparing these mature, low density suburbs to park/wild areas, which is not what new developments are built on, the ravines and forests are usually preserved. They're usually built on farmland. Certainly acre after acre of fields with the same single species of GM corn sprayed with herbicides, fungicides and insecticides and where burrows and nests would get destroyed by farm machinery don't have much diversity of animal life. To me, these low density neighbourhoods should play the role of semi-natural living space for those who can afford it, and should be zoned a bit like an extension to natural areas. Their place in the GTA should be (and more or less already is) for the upper-middle class and upper class. So not having much transit in those sections would be fine in my opinion since I don't see many millionaires taking the bus.

And then you could have townhouses and denser detached home areas surrounding the low density ones for people who are attracted to the suburbs more for the opportunity of a small garden or vegetable patch, deck, porch and space for the kids to play outside. This could be done without taking much space in my opinion, just add a third storey instead of the typical 2 to reduce the building's footprint, and remove the underused areas of lots like the front lawn, areas in between houses (too narrow for anything) and most of the driveway by bringing the house/townhouse closer to the street. For kids play area, I think either a common courtyard in the middle of a townhouse block or more small parks would be fine. The street/sidewalk could still be used depending on the activity. When I was a kid, most of the time we'd play games that can be played on relatively little space like tag, four square, basketball or street hockey, biking, roller blading or snowforts. As long as the street isn't too busy, those can go on the sidewalks.

It shows the economics. Asian cities are geared towards high density, so high density's cheap. North American cities are geared towards low-density suburbia and so high density's expensive. European cities contain sought-after high density historical regions and have experienced far less city growth in general (new suburban houses, new mid rises,) so costs are higher all around.

The inner suburbs are what need the most help. I don't think anyone's suggesting to redevelop the Annex or Parkdale. But with those older suburban houses with larger lots, you definitely could redevelop to townhouses fairly easily. Especially with plenty of houses requiring renovations to modernize already, maybe doubling the amount of housing you have, as well as "investing" in better insulation, electrical wiring and plumbing, and more modernly laid out floor plans as per a normal renovation, could be a boon for developers. Some families are already just tearing down houses and building a new one, I doubt it'd be much trouble to turn an aging house into a modern townhouse.

So, let's say you could get a couple communities in which you could double the population density like that. Then, along suburban arterials like Kennedy, Sheppard, Finch, Islington, Lawrence, etc, you could redevelop for mid rise, boosting population density hugely. Get more big condos going up in North York and Scarborough, and allow for redevelopment in non-heritage areas around those city centres for mid density similar to what's being built in Markham right now. You could easily get 1 million extra people into the city through suburban avenues.

But the outer suburbs as well could absorb a huge number of extra people, definitely more than Toronto could. Just because suburbanization stops doesn't mean the outer suburbs are dead. Redeveloping business parks into mid-rise communities entirely, and doing the aforementioned mid rise avenues could make room for huge amounts of people while also putting suburban homeowners much closer to density that allows for proper transit, local stores, and better community services. You'd have to improve transit service to the outer suburbs, but I'd like to think that that's a bit of a given. And in doing so, the GTA could double in population without growing outwards a single metre. After that, we could just continue to build up downtown areas, continue to split up larger lots, and spread mid rise avenues further out from the avenues themselves.

Although it would be interesting to do the math, I agree that it's realistic to increase the GTA's density significantly. But about business parks being redeveloped, for me the question is still where to put the warehouses and industries.

 

[Second_in_pie]

I'd like to do it to night, but I shall be responding to that post tomorrow. Interesting points, and a quite valid one at the end.

 

[doady]

One problem with cul-de-sacs with only one entrance is that there is only one exit as well. This story is from Human Transit:

I'm not sure why you keep putting US examples? You do realize that most suburban subdivisions in the GTA either don't have any cul-de-sacs, or have a very small amount of them, don't you?