Mississauga M3 at M City | 260.29m | 77s | Rogers Real Estate | Arcadis

Are Canadian suburbs like Mississauga (over 800,000!) unique in the Western world for their population sizes and skylines? I can imagine many parallels in East Asia, but I cannot seem to think of equivalents in North America, Europe, and Australia/New Zealand. Perhaps in Latin America?
Today a segment from a TVOThe Agenda discussion panel on Mississauga regarding its transition to being a proper city versus a suburb was uploaded on YouTube. Just an interesting point to continue our conversation.

 
Today a segment from a TVOThe Agenda discussion panel on Mississauga regarding its transition to being a proper city versus a suburb was uploaded on YouTube. Just an interesting point to continue our conversation.

This conversation doesn’t even make sense because it’s no longer about what people want or at least what the older traditional suburb people want. There’s simply no more land to build single detached houses. Which means we can only build up. And to make the finances work we’re building 50+ floors. So it’s not a little up. It’s really up. You put that many people in a small place you are going to need to do city like things such as make bigger sidewalks, add bike lanes, add amenities, add small parks. Also the more these towers go up the more these residents have power. I once lived in the entertainment district. There was very few residents in there. Then slowly more condos popped up and the residents were like we don’t love these clubs. They need to go. It didn’t matter that the clubs were there first. Eventually the clubs went. And that’s whats happening here. It doesn’t matter that the single detached houses were here first. The buildings are coming. And with every building the suburb changes and slowly becomes more of its own city.
 
You can't say that... in the future the entire Earth could become massively urban... nobody knows what the future holds.
 
True, but most of Mississauga, especially away from the main arteries, will always be suburban.
And that is literally Toronto. Most of Toronto will always be suburban. Agincourt. Downsview. Upper Forrest hill. All suburbs. Different types. But all suburbs.

Even the TTC on their map has a downtown section labeled out. Because not every part of Toronto is some urban utopia.
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I should've clarified that Mississauga will also always be more suburban in character even near its core area and will likely never have a true inner city.
 
I should've clarified that Mississauga will also always be more suburban in character even near its core area and will likely never have a true inner city.
I’m still a bit confused what you mean? Is it the juxtaposition of SFH vs 60 floor condos that make it more suburban than Toronto which is 60 floor condos then slowly down to 30 floor condos then down to semis then down to SFH?

Here is a map of both the square one lands and another map of Toronto both with the same scale. This shows how big an area that Mississauga is working with to make whatever its version of an inner city is.

are these maps correct? Something seems off. Can square one really fit that much stuff inside of it.

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I’m still a bit confused what you mean? Is it the juxtaposition of SFH vs 60 floor condos that make it more suburban than Toronto which is 60 floor condos then slowly down to 30 floor condos then down to semis then down to SFH?

"Inner city" refers to a much larger area than "downtown". Mississauga lacks and always will lack the first as the area surrounding MCC is too suburban-modern to get a Victorian homes nabe vibe.
 
"Inner city" refers to a much larger area than "downtown". Mississauga lacks and always will lack the first as the area surrounding MCC is too suburban-modern to get a Victorian homes nabe vibe.
The suburbs immediately out of the core just got zoned for four floor buildings. I could be wrong and it could be six. Those SFH houses can change.

Also places like Yorkdale which had that Victorian vibe are being ripped down for condos. And it’s all good to like Victorian vibe houses. I lived in one for a decade. But there are cities and downtowns without those style houses.
 
"Inner city" refers to a much larger area than "downtown". Mississauga lacks and always will lack the first as the area surrounding MCC is too suburban-modern to get a Victorian homes nabe vibe.
Victorian homes are a pre-requisite to be urban? I wonder if folks in Rome think Toronto doesn't have a true inner city because it lacks renaissance architecture 😉

I'm guessing what you mean is Mississauga's built form doesn't lend itself well to the way urban centers traditionally formed. To overcome this will be challenging in many ways, but not at all prohibitively so. Personally I'm excited to see how things unfold!
 
That's what I meant. And "master planning" likely won't help.
Planning will help MCC be more urban friendly. The rest of Mississauga is in a different situation. Port credit, dundas and hurontario have hope because they have transit and a lot to work with. But the rest won’t be urban friendly. Again though there is plenty of Toronto which isn’t very urban either.
 
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