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Urban Sub: Can mass transit and smart design create viable downtowns in our centreless suburbs?
David Fleischer, National Post
Published: Saturday, July 08, 2006
Montreal-born artist Christine Montague has lived in Mississauga nearly 15 years, but when she looks for a place to take her three children, or to display her artwork, Mississauga's downtown is the last place she thinks of.
"There's nothing to do except for shopping," says Montague, who has lived in Brampton and the Beaches, and was driven to Erin Mills by the housing market.
"We love our community -- our neighbourhood -- but aside from that, I can't think of a lot we really liked when we moved in."
A landscape and portrait painter and photographer, Montague co-founded the Beaux-Arts Brampton co-operative, and now commutes to Georgetown's historic Williams Mill Visual Arts Centre. She tried to find something similar in Mississauga, but found only high rents and few forums for local artists.
For a woman with strong opinions on urbanity, Mississauga was a shock. "You discover it's pretty hard to go downtown [Toronto] with your kids every week," she says with an unmistakable mixture of passion and disappointment.
From his office in Greenwich Village, Ethan Kent is all passion. In talking about the creation of public spaces, and Mississauga in particular, Kent -- vice-president of the Project For Public Spaces (PPS) -- preaches the gospel of the "Power of 10."
Great cities, so the theory goes, have at least 10 real destinations. When a destination acquires 10 different uses -- library, cafes, funky little shops, a fountain -- it becomes special to residents, who then feel it belongs to them.
The number isn't as important as the idea -- when places engage people, places become engaging.
"Mississauga is unique in that it's such a big city but with no real destinations," says Kent.
PPS's offices are blocks from New York City's Washington Square Park. The park and its surrounding neighbourhood -- full of artists, chess players, skateboarders, university students and just about anyone else you can think of -- is a prototype of what PPS is trying to export: a lively, organic place for people to congregate.
Among the project's clients: Mississauga. The city is the vanguard of a GTA-wide movement to create downtowns in the suburbs. Instead of unlimited sprawl, the principles of Smart Growth and The New Urbanism are taking firm hold, from Markham in the east, up north in Vaughan and Mississauga in the west end.
It's just in time, too. On June 16, the Ontario government unveiled its "Places to Grow" plan, which calls for municipalities to create homes for the 3.7 million people expected to move to the Golden Horseshoe in the next 25 years. What's more, the government says they have to do it by building vibrant city centres and intensifying development, rather than simply spreading out some more.
In the 2001 census, Toronto had 2.5 million residents. The three surrounding regions (Peel, Durham and York) had a combined population of more than 2.25 million. So don't be surprised if the 2006 census shows that 416ers are now a minority population encircled by suburbanites who want a little more than cheap housing and a couple of good malls.
"Human scale is the key," says Frank Miele, Vaughan's commissioner of economic and technological development. "In the next decade, you'll see a modern, suburban downtown and people will be living there."
York Region is counting on its new rapid-transit system, Viva, to provide a catalyst for urbanization. The system is being used as a spine for mini-downtowns, "Transit Villages," where people can work, play and live.
Last year, the region passed Official Plan Amendment 43. Its goal is so simple it's hard to believe it hasn't been basic urban-planning theory for a century: Have populations live as close to where they work as possible. Then build a transit system that takes people where they want to go. And create dense centres around that transit system so there are riders.
Phase one of Viva, a series of express bus routes, has exceeded ridership expectations since operations began last year. Next will come median transit-only lanes. Within 20 years the region hopes to convert the system to light rail or even a subway.
Compact "downtowns," with street-level retail and denser housing, are being developed at several nodes along the lines, but the most ambitious projects are the Vaughan Corporate Centre and Markham Centre.
The Vaughan centre has begun sprouting big-box stores, hotels and theatres along Highway 7, but its heart is an undeveloped swath just to the south.
"We just need the housing, says Vaughan's Miele. "We need high-density residential and condominiums to make it a true downtown."
New plans to extend the TTC subway to Steeles Avenue and York University will be the keystone for fulfilling Vaughan's dream of creating a downtown that extends clear to the border with Toronto.
For a sneak peek at the new, urbanized 905, go have a latte in Cornell, a community of 30,000 built more like a small town -- main street and all -- than a subdivision.
There are small stores, the kind you walk to, across from houses, with apartments above the retail. The garages are in back of the tightly packed houses, with the fronts reserved for porches.
The community was designed by Andres Duany of Miami's Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company (DPZ), who Markham brought in more than a decade ago. Built largely on land purchased from the province, Cornell provided a tabula rasa for the ideals of DPZ's partners, who co-founded the Congress for New Urbanism and wrote the book Suburban Nation (2000).
Cornell is not quite Queen Street West or Yorkville -- even on a beautiful July afternoon it can be hard to spot someone walking. You still pretty much have to drive to get to work or to do full grocery shopping.
But it's a start. And Markham is applying the same principles, on a larger scale, to its new central downtown district.
Markham Centre has been underway since the province approved its official plan in 1997. Since then, Markham has been creating a downtown on 1,000 acres near Warden Avenue and the 407. There, the town's civic centre (consisting of a library, high school, Town Hall and the Markham Theatre) dates back to the early 1990s, but the attractive and well-used buildings are isolated and positioned around huge parking lots.
Now the town is filling the surrounding void with developments expected to house 25,000 residents and 17,000 employees. Many of those people are expected to live and work there, so there aren't hordes of commuters at rush hour.
IBM's opening of a software lab in the late 1990s ignited the development of Markham Centre. Its staff is largely young, single, and not necessarily looking for single family homes: The perfect recipe for a different kind of suburban neighbourhood.
At the nexus of Markham Centre is the Remington Group's 250-acre "Downtown Markham" development. Its plan includes "only townhomes and mid-rise condominiums ... [and] a park-like grand-allee that runs east-west the length of the development."
"We're trying to tame the car," says David Clark, Markham's town architect. Even something as simple as charging for use of municipal parking lots can be a big change for a suburban community, he says.
Clark is positively effervescent once you get him going on the possibilities, and he makes sure to note that it's not just a suburban downtown, it's "an urban downtown in a suburban centre."
This isn't a shake-and-bake community like Disney's quasi-faux town, Celebration. Markham's downtown will take nearly 20 years to build, but Clark says that they're off to a good start. It's up to governments to create plans and zoning, but they still need developers onside if they want to create something harmonious.
With relatively few, large landowners to deal with, and an active citizen's committee keeping an eye on things, a coherent puzzle is being pieced together in Markham.
"We want it to be vital," Clark says. "You're creating a city over time and you need that vitality to come through."
That challenge may be greatest in Mississauga, most often regarded as the 905's suburb ne plus ultra. With a population of 700,000, it typifies a city built around cars, malls and sprawl.
The "new Mississauga" project garnering the most attention is the "Marilyn Monroe" building. Aware of the suburbs' reputation for mediocre architecture, Mississauga decided it wanted something unique, striking and declaratory in its skyline.
A design competition -- judged both by a panel of experts and by the citizens of the city itself -- chose Yansong Ma's sleek and undulating design for the tower.
It has become a metaphor, lightning rod and catalyst for Mississauga 2.0. It will be built at Mississauga's city centre at Burnhamthorpe Road and Hurontario Street.
A lot of the elements of place are already there -- a beautiful, clock-tower-topped City Hall, the central library, the Living Arts Centre. But the area remains dominated by massive parking lots, wide streets and mega-sites: Square One Mall, a transit terminal, the Playdium and Coliseum movie theatre.
You might go see a movie or catch a concert, but you wouldn't stroll around afterward. When creating a dynamic pedestrian strip, parking lots and wide streets might as well be alligator-filled moats, and downtown Mississauga is filled with them.
Ethan Kent's Project for Public Spaces became involved with the city's plans to fix the city centre after Mississauga staffers attended a PPS training seminar.
PPS has helped revitalize downtowns in cities as diverse as Houston, Detroit, Miami and Newark. They have worked in 1,200 communities -- including at least a dozen in Canada -- and designed market districts for the likes of Moscow and Buffalo.
Kent says Mississauga has already done a good job creating infrastructure and facilities but now needs to think about making them people-friendly.
"There's a fair amount of density but no walkability," Kent says of the area. "There's a paradigm of isolation."
Erasing those moats around the civic centre is a prime goal of PPS, which submitted its first report to Mississauga in July, 2005. A final report is expected in the coming weeks, but some of the report's recommendations are already being implemented.
The city is creating a summer-long series of events that will give people a reason to drop by downtown: seniors' days, talks, a weekly closing of City Centre Drive to turn it into a "Sports Zone." As per PPS's suggestion, the Friday Farmer's Market, once relegated to a remote corner of the Square One parking lot, will move to the civic centre.
Kent says the library can have a real "front porch" as it shifts from being a free bookstore to a broader community institution.
"It's all about how they communicate what's going on inside outside, and let people in," he says.
Similar plans to open the Living Arts Centre's shops and restaurant to the street, as well as adding new studios that could provide venues for local artists have Christine Montague excited about the possibilities.
"It would be incredible. I think it would work and I would be there," she says.
The suburbs have long provided housing, and not much else for people like her but she's encouraged by the changes underway in her hometown.
"If they do it right it can be just fabulous ... It would be so great if Mississauga actually got a 'heart' to the city," she says.
Urban Sub: Can mass transit and smart design create viable downtowns in our centreless suburbs?
David Fleischer, National Post
Published: Saturday, July 08, 2006
Montreal-born artist Christine Montague has lived in Mississauga nearly 15 years, but when she looks for a place to take her three children, or to display her artwork, Mississauga's downtown is the last place she thinks of.
"There's nothing to do except for shopping," says Montague, who has lived in Brampton and the Beaches, and was driven to Erin Mills by the housing market.
"We love our community -- our neighbourhood -- but aside from that, I can't think of a lot we really liked when we moved in."
A landscape and portrait painter and photographer, Montague co-founded the Beaux-Arts Brampton co-operative, and now commutes to Georgetown's historic Williams Mill Visual Arts Centre. She tried to find something similar in Mississauga, but found only high rents and few forums for local artists.
For a woman with strong opinions on urbanity, Mississauga was a shock. "You discover it's pretty hard to go downtown [Toronto] with your kids every week," she says with an unmistakable mixture of passion and disappointment.
From his office in Greenwich Village, Ethan Kent is all passion. In talking about the creation of public spaces, and Mississauga in particular, Kent -- vice-president of the Project For Public Spaces (PPS) -- preaches the gospel of the "Power of 10."
Great cities, so the theory goes, have at least 10 real destinations. When a destination acquires 10 different uses -- library, cafes, funky little shops, a fountain -- it becomes special to residents, who then feel it belongs to them.
The number isn't as important as the idea -- when places engage people, places become engaging.
"Mississauga is unique in that it's such a big city but with no real destinations," says Kent.
PPS's offices are blocks from New York City's Washington Square Park. The park and its surrounding neighbourhood -- full of artists, chess players, skateboarders, university students and just about anyone else you can think of -- is a prototype of what PPS is trying to export: a lively, organic place for people to congregate.
Among the project's clients: Mississauga. The city is the vanguard of a GTA-wide movement to create downtowns in the suburbs. Instead of unlimited sprawl, the principles of Smart Growth and The New Urbanism are taking firm hold, from Markham in the east, up north in Vaughan and Mississauga in the west end.
It's just in time, too. On June 16, the Ontario government unveiled its "Places to Grow" plan, which calls for municipalities to create homes for the 3.7 million people expected to move to the Golden Horseshoe in the next 25 years. What's more, the government says they have to do it by building vibrant city centres and intensifying development, rather than simply spreading out some more.
In the 2001 census, Toronto had 2.5 million residents. The three surrounding regions (Peel, Durham and York) had a combined population of more than 2.25 million. So don't be surprised if the 2006 census shows that 416ers are now a minority population encircled by suburbanites who want a little more than cheap housing and a couple of good malls.
"Human scale is the key," says Frank Miele, Vaughan's commissioner of economic and technological development. "In the next decade, you'll see a modern, suburban downtown and people will be living there."
York Region is counting on its new rapid-transit system, Viva, to provide a catalyst for urbanization. The system is being used as a spine for mini-downtowns, "Transit Villages," where people can work, play and live.
Last year, the region passed Official Plan Amendment 43. Its goal is so simple it's hard to believe it hasn't been basic urban-planning theory for a century: Have populations live as close to where they work as possible. Then build a transit system that takes people where they want to go. And create dense centres around that transit system so there are riders.
Phase one of Viva, a series of express bus routes, has exceeded ridership expectations since operations began last year. Next will come median transit-only lanes. Within 20 years the region hopes to convert the system to light rail or even a subway.
Compact "downtowns," with street-level retail and denser housing, are being developed at several nodes along the lines, but the most ambitious projects are the Vaughan Corporate Centre and Markham Centre.
The Vaughan centre has begun sprouting big-box stores, hotels and theatres along Highway 7, but its heart is an undeveloped swath just to the south.
"We just need the housing, says Vaughan's Miele. "We need high-density residential and condominiums to make it a true downtown."
New plans to extend the TTC subway to Steeles Avenue and York University will be the keystone for fulfilling Vaughan's dream of creating a downtown that extends clear to the border with Toronto.
For a sneak peek at the new, urbanized 905, go have a latte in Cornell, a community of 30,000 built more like a small town -- main street and all -- than a subdivision.
There are small stores, the kind you walk to, across from houses, with apartments above the retail. The garages are in back of the tightly packed houses, with the fronts reserved for porches.
The community was designed by Andres Duany of Miami's Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company (DPZ), who Markham brought in more than a decade ago. Built largely on land purchased from the province, Cornell provided a tabula rasa for the ideals of DPZ's partners, who co-founded the Congress for New Urbanism and wrote the book Suburban Nation (2000).
Cornell is not quite Queen Street West or Yorkville -- even on a beautiful July afternoon it can be hard to spot someone walking. You still pretty much have to drive to get to work or to do full grocery shopping.
But it's a start. And Markham is applying the same principles, on a larger scale, to its new central downtown district.
Markham Centre has been underway since the province approved its official plan in 1997. Since then, Markham has been creating a downtown on 1,000 acres near Warden Avenue and the 407. There, the town's civic centre (consisting of a library, high school, Town Hall and the Markham Theatre) dates back to the early 1990s, but the attractive and well-used buildings are isolated and positioned around huge parking lots.
Now the town is filling the surrounding void with developments expected to house 25,000 residents and 17,000 employees. Many of those people are expected to live and work there, so there aren't hordes of commuters at rush hour.
IBM's opening of a software lab in the late 1990s ignited the development of Markham Centre. Its staff is largely young, single, and not necessarily looking for single family homes: The perfect recipe for a different kind of suburban neighbourhood.
At the nexus of Markham Centre is the Remington Group's 250-acre "Downtown Markham" development. Its plan includes "only townhomes and mid-rise condominiums ... [and] a park-like grand-allee that runs east-west the length of the development."
"We're trying to tame the car," says David Clark, Markham's town architect. Even something as simple as charging for use of municipal parking lots can be a big change for a suburban community, he says.
Clark is positively effervescent once you get him going on the possibilities, and he makes sure to note that it's not just a suburban downtown, it's "an urban downtown in a suburban centre."
This isn't a shake-and-bake community like Disney's quasi-faux town, Celebration. Markham's downtown will take nearly 20 years to build, but Clark says that they're off to a good start. It's up to governments to create plans and zoning, but they still need developers onside if they want to create something harmonious.
With relatively few, large landowners to deal with, and an active citizen's committee keeping an eye on things, a coherent puzzle is being pieced together in Markham.
"We want it to be vital," Clark says. "You're creating a city over time and you need that vitality to come through."
That challenge may be greatest in Mississauga, most often regarded as the 905's suburb ne plus ultra. With a population of 700,000, it typifies a city built around cars, malls and sprawl.
The "new Mississauga" project garnering the most attention is the "Marilyn Monroe" building. Aware of the suburbs' reputation for mediocre architecture, Mississauga decided it wanted something unique, striking and declaratory in its skyline.
A design competition -- judged both by a panel of experts and by the citizens of the city itself -- chose Yansong Ma's sleek and undulating design for the tower.
It has become a metaphor, lightning rod and catalyst for Mississauga 2.0. It will be built at Mississauga's city centre at Burnhamthorpe Road and Hurontario Street.
A lot of the elements of place are already there -- a beautiful, clock-tower-topped City Hall, the central library, the Living Arts Centre. But the area remains dominated by massive parking lots, wide streets and mega-sites: Square One Mall, a transit terminal, the Playdium and Coliseum movie theatre.
You might go see a movie or catch a concert, but you wouldn't stroll around afterward. When creating a dynamic pedestrian strip, parking lots and wide streets might as well be alligator-filled moats, and downtown Mississauga is filled with them.
Ethan Kent's Project for Public Spaces became involved with the city's plans to fix the city centre after Mississauga staffers attended a PPS training seminar.
PPS has helped revitalize downtowns in cities as diverse as Houston, Detroit, Miami and Newark. They have worked in 1,200 communities -- including at least a dozen in Canada -- and designed market districts for the likes of Moscow and Buffalo.
Kent says Mississauga has already done a good job creating infrastructure and facilities but now needs to think about making them people-friendly.
"There's a fair amount of density but no walkability," Kent says of the area. "There's a paradigm of isolation."
Erasing those moats around the civic centre is a prime goal of PPS, which submitted its first report to Mississauga in July, 2005. A final report is expected in the coming weeks, but some of the report's recommendations are already being implemented.
The city is creating a summer-long series of events that will give people a reason to drop by downtown: seniors' days, talks, a weekly closing of City Centre Drive to turn it into a "Sports Zone." As per PPS's suggestion, the Friday Farmer's Market, once relegated to a remote corner of the Square One parking lot, will move to the civic centre.
Kent says the library can have a real "front porch" as it shifts from being a free bookstore to a broader community institution.
"It's all about how they communicate what's going on inside outside, and let people in," he says.
Similar plans to open the Living Arts Centre's shops and restaurant to the street, as well as adding new studios that could provide venues for local artists have Christine Montague excited about the possibilities.
"It would be incredible. I think it would work and I would be there," she says.
The suburbs have long provided housing, and not much else for people like her but she's encouraged by the changes underway in her hometown.
"If they do it right it can be just fabulous ... It would be so great if Mississauga actually got a 'heart' to the city," she says.
