jswag
Active Member
An interesting thread, although you must understand that urban sprawl, as a concept, is undefinable even for the experts (they all disagree).
The "urban sprawl" that I object to is large-block, single-use developments that offer no choices to the resident/employee. Your average Vaughan subdivision or office park would fit this mold: curvilinear and hard-to-navigate road pattern, the hard lines of separation drawn between road types (arterial, collector, local) and large tracts of residential before any areas of employment are found. In this situation, a resident has so-called choices: walk for 10-20 minutes to the bus stop and take the infrequent bus to another infrequent connecting bus to the office park, walk 10-20 minutes to work; OR, walk to driveway, drive for 10 minutes and arrive at work with a good parking spot. This is not a real choice. While it may be oranges and apples to compare the Annex to Vaughan (apples and oranges in my mind), places in Scarborough have a greater choice factor-- proof that either these choices can be grafted on to a poor suburban framework, or that suburban areas change over time.
I think the City's Avenues plan is a good one, and it's an example of grafting urban ideals onto a suburban framework. It recognizes that the street network we have will not change for the most part, so we have to work with what we've got. It needs tweaking because it isn't entirely working as it is right now, but it is a good step as it moves to focus development of employment and residential properties close to "choices".
Whatever it is, anti-sprawl is impossible to legislate because of the very fact it is a moving target. Ontario has been recognized as one of the leaders in this regard, but even the Places to Grow plan is modest in its scope. What it does manage to do is to encourage municipalities to move in the right direction. You cannot force people to move into a condo, rather, you must present them with choices so that they can make the necessary adjustments. We are already seeing it now as congestion gets worse and worse: people are weighing their options. The tradeoff is there-- 80 minutes a day in a vehicle, or a lesser amount of time in an alternative mode of transport. It all depends on what one values most. But that is where the GTA has improved by leaps and bounds over the past two decades-- finally, people have a choice between living in the burbs or living downtown.
While I personally object to the aesthetics of modern suburbs, railing against suburbs because of their architecture or urban design is a fool's game. Different strokes for different folks and all that. In addition, we have already seen with so-called "New Urbanist" developments that design really doesn't have much to do with a suburban lifestyle-- people in Cornell still drive to the local Wal-Mart. Also, the "sameness" that so many people talk about with suburbs isn't a problem for me. Old suburbs were built with every house being even more alike than today, but those are often some of the most beautiful streets we have in this city.
The "urban sprawl" that I object to is large-block, single-use developments that offer no choices to the resident/employee. Your average Vaughan subdivision or office park would fit this mold: curvilinear and hard-to-navigate road pattern, the hard lines of separation drawn between road types (arterial, collector, local) and large tracts of residential before any areas of employment are found. In this situation, a resident has so-called choices: walk for 10-20 minutes to the bus stop and take the infrequent bus to another infrequent connecting bus to the office park, walk 10-20 minutes to work; OR, walk to driveway, drive for 10 minutes and arrive at work with a good parking spot. This is not a real choice. While it may be oranges and apples to compare the Annex to Vaughan (apples and oranges in my mind), places in Scarborough have a greater choice factor-- proof that either these choices can be grafted on to a poor suburban framework, or that suburban areas change over time.
I think the City's Avenues plan is a good one, and it's an example of grafting urban ideals onto a suburban framework. It recognizes that the street network we have will not change for the most part, so we have to work with what we've got. It needs tweaking because it isn't entirely working as it is right now, but it is a good step as it moves to focus development of employment and residential properties close to "choices".
Whatever it is, anti-sprawl is impossible to legislate because of the very fact it is a moving target. Ontario has been recognized as one of the leaders in this regard, but even the Places to Grow plan is modest in its scope. What it does manage to do is to encourage municipalities to move in the right direction. You cannot force people to move into a condo, rather, you must present them with choices so that they can make the necessary adjustments. We are already seeing it now as congestion gets worse and worse: people are weighing their options. The tradeoff is there-- 80 minutes a day in a vehicle, or a lesser amount of time in an alternative mode of transport. It all depends on what one values most. But that is where the GTA has improved by leaps and bounds over the past two decades-- finally, people have a choice between living in the burbs or living downtown.
While I personally object to the aesthetics of modern suburbs, railing against suburbs because of their architecture or urban design is a fool's game. Different strokes for different folks and all that. In addition, we have already seen with so-called "New Urbanist" developments that design really doesn't have much to do with a suburban lifestyle-- people in Cornell still drive to the local Wal-Mart. Also, the "sameness" that so many people talk about with suburbs isn't a problem for me. Old suburbs were built with every house being even more alike than today, but those are often some of the most beautiful streets we have in this city.
