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Streetcar suburbs

In his book Creeping Conformity: How Canada Became Suburban, 1900-1960, Richard Harris makes a distinction between post-1900 and 19th century suburbs. The economic crisis of the 1890s was as severe as the Great Depression in many respects and few new houses were built.

Post-1900 suburbs were at a different scale, impacted by the electric streetcar as well as massive population growth. Prior to 1910, most people walked to work and only professionals and businessmen could afford to pay the fare for earlier horsecar suburbs. By 1910 streetcars were affordable for workers.
 
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In his book Creeping Conformity: How Canada Became Suburban, 1900-1960, Richard Harris makes a distinction between post-1900 and 19th century suburbs. The economic crisis of the 1890s was as severe as the Great Depression in many respects and few new houses were built.

Post-1900 suburbs were at a different scale, impacted by the electric streetcar as well as massive population growth. Prior to 1910, most people walked to work and only professionals and businessmen could afford to pay the fare for earlier horsecar suburbs. By 1910 streetcars were affordable for workers.

Most cities in Canada have had a few different 'changes of scale' in terms of how people got around. Yes, prior to 1900, cities were mainly confined to what was walkable, or at least the factories were in the neighbourhood in which the workers lived (or vice versa, depending on how you look at it).

The streetcar changed this dynamic, and walkability was redefined as 'are you within walking distance of the streetcar line?'. This is why most of the neighbourhoods through which streetcars run or used to run have the grid oriented lengthwise perpendicular to the main street, to maximize walkability to the main street.

After WWII, the scale was redefined once again to what was easily accessible by car, both in terms of distance and built form. Walkability became borderline irrelevant. But New Urbanism is trying to find the balance in terms of street layout and built form in order to maximize walkability first, transit second, and cars third.
 
Years of construction of housing stock by selected neighborhood:

South Parkdale: 1875-1895
Annex: 1880-1910
Riverdale: 1880-1924
North Parkdale: 1900-1910
Bloor West Village: 1912-1923
Regal Heights: 1912-1923
Humewood: 1910-1925
North Toronto: 1910-1940
Danforth Village: 1920s/1930s
New Toronto: 1910s-1950s
Birch Cliff: 1910s-1950s

http://www.torontoneighbourhoods.net/neighbourhoods

Not sure if the Annex, Parkdale and Riverdale would qualify or not.
 
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An interesting idea- could modern suburbs be retrofitted into neo-streetcar suburbs? With proper transit (BRT, LRT) along arterials, improved pedestrian access to larger roads and pedestrian-oriented retail replacing strip malls and unused right-of-ways, it could be possible in certain circircumstances.
 
The term "streetcar suburb" generally doesn't refer to the current situation, but to the circumstances under which that neighbourhood was first developed. If the construction of a streetcar line was the catalyst for a neighbourhood's development, it's a streetcar suburb.

But isn't it pleasantly reassuring that most of Toronto's still actually have streetcars servicing them?
 
An interesting idea- could modern suburbs be retrofitted into neo-streetcar suburbs? With proper transit (BRT, LRT) along arterials, improved pedestrian access to larger roads and pedestrian-oriented retail replacing strip malls and unused right-of-ways, it could be possible in certain circircumstances.

The areas immediately adjacent to the arterials (which is mostly suburban strip malls) could be in a lot of cases, but a lot of the inner areas between concession roads have irregular road patterns that are not very friendly to anything other than a car. To densify, there are really two options: small-scale infill (buying up a couple single detached lots, knocking the houses down, and putting in semis or towns), or large-scale demolition and redevelopment. Naturally, the former is going to be much more common. In fact, the City of Ottawa has specific Urban Design guidelines to address infill development, as they're stated in their OP that they want something like 25% of all growth to come from infill development inside the Greenbelt.

Generally, for most suburbs the maximum amount of demand you're going to drum up is for dedicated bus lanes along major arterials. That's about it.
 
An interesting idea- could modern suburbs be retrofitted into neo-streetcar suburbs? With proper transit (BRT, LRT) along arterials, improved pedestrian access to larger roads and pedestrian-oriented retail replacing strip malls and unused right-of-ways, it could be possible in certain circircumstances.

I think it could be done, there are a few important differences between today and 1910 to keep in mind though.

1. Commutes today involve travelling greater distances, the geographic extend of the Toronto area is much greater than 100 years ago.

2. Commute directions are more complicated, I think in the past, if you didn't work in your neighbourhood, you worked downtown, now it's more complicated. Part of this I think is because we change jobs often, so in order to live close to where we work, we would have to move more than we'd like. I suspect downtown also has a smaller share of total jobs today, but I could be wrong. In any case, streetcars back then seemed to be very much geared towards getting to downtown.

3. Streetcars now have the car to compete against, which means they will capture a smaller share of total trips, and therefore require higher densities to become viable (similarly for retail not needing lots of parking).
 
Wikipedia seems to have fixed up its streetcar suburb article:

"West Hill, Cliffside, Birch Cliff, Riverdale, The Beaches, North Toronto, Parkdale, New Toronto, Mimico and Long Branch are all streetcar suburbs. The Scarborough neighbouhoods of West Hill and Cliffside lost their radial streetcar service in 1936. Birch Cliff lost its streetcar service in 1954."

It also classifies the Beaches, Leslieville, Long Branch, Mimico, New Toronto, North Toronto, Port Credit and Runnymede as streetcar suburbs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Streetcar_suburbs
 
Wikipedia seems to have fixed up its streetcar suburb article:

"West Hill, Cliffside, Birch Cliff, Riverdale, The Beaches, North Toronto, Parkdale, New Toronto, Mimico and Long Branch are all streetcar suburbs. The Scarborough neighbouhoods of West Hill and Cliffside lost their radial streetcar service in 1936. Birch Cliff lost its streetcar service in 1954."

It also classifies the Beaches, Leslieville, Long Branch, Mimico, New Toronto, North Toronto, Port Credit and Runnymede as streetcar suburbs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Streetcar_suburbs
Uhhh... Wikipedia cannot fix itself. Vale of Glamorgan fixed it.
 
Some sign of what could be deemed "streetcar suburb" development. Population growth from 1901-1921 by "census district" (a combination of federal ridings and wards; unfortunately you end up with some bizarre "districts" such as the part of the city of Toronto that was in York South included Earlscourt, the Town of North Toronto and the "Midway" district north of Danforth.

Here is a ward map for 1910:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toront...nicipal_Wards_for_the_1910_civic_election.gif

Population (1901; 1911; 1921). Here are the post-1900 annexations:

York South: 2,883; 13,631; 44,907, +1458%

York East (ward 8 is created in 1918, east of Pape and south of Danforth): 4,633; 28,151; 66,204, +1329%

York West (ward 7 or West Toronto Junction): 6091; 18,860; 34,938, +474%

Here is the riding Toronto North, split by ward, north of Bloor St., with Yorkville and the Annex annexed in the 1880s, but other areas (Bracondale, the Hill District, Deer Park and most of Rosedale annexed after 1900):

Ward 2 (east of Yonge): 3,468; 7,171; 11,993, +246%
Ward 3 (Yonge to Avenue Rd.): 7,187; 12,158; 13,932, +94%
Ward 4 (Avenue Rd. to Bathurst): 5,773; 13,215; 18,210, +215%
Ward 5 (Bathurst to Dovercourt/Oakwood): 4,338; 18,752; 28,752, +563%

Riverdale and Parkdale:

Ward 1 (Riverdale): 11,179; 24,387; 33,747, +202%
Ward 6 (South Parkdale): 5,246; 8,345; 10,306, +97%
Ward 6 (Queen to CPR excluding Junction): 22,303; 59,609; 80,780, +262%

Another area that grew significantly, but in pre-1880 city boundaries:

Ward 5 (Queen to Bloor): 23,723; 38,158; 45,158, +90%

My figures are from Michael Piva, The Condition of the Working Class in Toronto - 1900-1921
 
Here are 1911-1931 populations for 2 streetcar suburbs, Mimico and New Toronto:

Mimico: 1,373; 3,751; 6,800
New Toronto: 686; 2,669; 7,146
 

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