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Hume: City Building; Vancouver vs. Toronto

Re: Adma's comment about Vancouver: ... the *first* 20 years of Vancouver point tower development, even though all those 50s60s70s shafts overlooking English Bay must have their own distinctive archi-urban-historical appeal by now.... I have to say, that when I walk the waterfront along False Creek/English Bay and I pass from East to West under the Burrard Bridge, I give a sigh of relief to be transported back in time about 30 years. It's an interesting transition, from an environment so heavily current on the east side, to something that has changed hardly at all since 1979 on the west. And though I give a lot of credit to Vancouver for its waterfront promenades, perhaps sometimes they're just too too for my liking. Everything is so highly structured and planned that the west of this divide seems positively rustic.

Anyways, as much as I bash Vancouver, I think that transition, under that bridge, is certainly one of Canada's most unusual urban thrills. A weird sort of parallel perhaps to Detroit's famous transition between bad and good.
 
so many of you seem to be overly defensive of Toronto.
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Maybe...or perhaps...we're right??


Why not admit that much of Toronto has evolved without any overarching vision as to what the city (downtown & waterfront especially) should look like and function.
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I will fully admit to that. But then again, that's probably the single biggest reason the downtown core is so damned fabulous, so don't go taking a bow quite yet.

Overarching visions is so....not Jane Jacobs.

We tore a page out of the Vancouver book...and ended up with Cityplace. Nice little experiment...but let's not apply it to the whole city thanks.

We should stick with the Toronto model...experiment with all kinds of things...some will work...some won't. But at least if they go awry, they don't effect the whole so much.


SF is unfortunately becoming much like Vancover.... pretty postcard but generic (gene-rich) hollowing core. Weather sucks much of the time too (those in the know will agree). BTW, no black folks please.
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If you love October weather year-round...SF is the place to be. Funny...for scenic, ocean-front cities, big, narsty Toronto seems to have a much better beachy/boating component.
 
I actually like Toronto's variety. It would be kind of depressing if everything was the same. The problem isn't the variety of architecture, it's ensuring all the architecture is up to a minimum standard.
 
I have been thinking that the emerging Clubland condo district will be an interesting contrast to CityPlace. The scale will be similar, in terms of how many units will be built and the height of the buildings, but instead of a single developer building on a brownfield to a unified plan, we will have multiple developers building in an already established district. (Also, it looks like the psf will generally be higher with the Clubland developments, allowing for more money spent on design and finish.)
 
We tore a page out of the Vancouver book...and ended up with Cityplace. Nice little experiment...but let's not apply it to the whole city thanks.

To give Vancouver it's due, Cityplace is worse at street level than Vancouver developments tend to be. Whereas Toronto is harsh and concrety at times level at is worst (CityPlace), Vancouver is leafy and green, and they do spend a lot more on design at street level than we do.

I mostly agree with this comment, on the whole, but Vancouver has some strengths that we could learn from, and we should not be shy in doing so.
 
To give Vancouver it's due, Cityplace is worse at street level than Vancouver developments tend to be. Whereas Toronto is harsh and concrety at times level at is worst (CityPlace), Vancouver is leafy and green, and they do spend a lot more on design at street level than we do.
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Well, to give Cityplace its due, it is still a giant construction site, so evaluating its street-level curb appeal at this point can't be done, let alone giving it time to mature. From what I can see, the level of landscaping and public art ( $9 million worth when complete), I won't fault the developer in this area, and doubt very much this will turn out "harsh and concrety".

The other comparison issue between Cityplace and its Vancouver equivalent, is that in Vancouver, it's using the city's prime real estate, while Cityplace is making due with what is essentially a nasty chunk of land, wedged between the Gardner and the train tracks....hardly prime Toronto real estate.

And Toronto is still far leafier and greener than Vancouver, despite being a far bigger city. Especially if the comparison is of the entire city, rather than just downtown cores.
 
(Speaking as someone from BC)

Ah, yes. The grass-is-greener-over-there mentality.

Vancouver may be praised, but it's a victim of its success in many ways. The whole cityscape is meticulously planned, and the Downtown Peninsula is quite boring in terms of variety. It's also seen massive, massive, massive, gentrification since the 1980s and all the "undesirable" elements were squeezed to the Downtown Eastside. And now there's gentrification in the Downtown Eastside given the recent property boom. There's next to no place like Kensington Market or St. Lawrence (you'll have to go outside downtown by car for those places) because of this gentrification, making it a giant playground for yuppies.

And finally the lack of commercial development in the downtown forces the commercial development to move to suburban office parks, which creates a disjointed metropolitan area and hurts transit usage.

I would definitely recommend seeing No. 3 Road in Richmond. It's exactly like Hong Kong. There are many ethnic neighbourhoods scattered everywhere, though you need a car to see them.
 
urban, thanks for this. I hope I'm not too hard on Vancouver, I always admit that I am a bit irrational about it. But your observations are dead on, it seems like in central Vancouver you see yuppies and then complete derelicts and not much in between.

But it is nice not to have the gaps in planning that Toronto suffers from at its worst, or the real errors we have in places. I always feel like downtown Vancouver is a solidly thought out whole.
 
But it is nice not to have the gaps in planning that Toronto suffers from at its worst, or the real errors we have in places.
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Such as??? I think they are in your imagination.

What isn't imaginary though, is the simple fact that Toronto is a big city, with big city issues...whereas Vancouver is a small town.

Let me put this into plain, simple language...Vancouver is a planning disaster compared to Toronto. If strict planning departments are to account for what Vancouver is, then let's learn from other's mistakes...and not have them.

The fact that the real estate costs even more than Toronto's, is proof something must be less than perfect. It's almost like SF, where a housing shortage makes the cost of living beyond stupid. Sorry, but Vancouver isn't just NOT a model to follow, it fails miserably at even the most basic principals of city building (even for little cities).


I always feel like downtown Vancouver is a solidly thought out whole.
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Right...and we'll just neglect the fact that it contains the country's worst skid row. But you're right, Vancouver is consistent...consistently bland.
 
^So you're saying Toronto is a model of perfection while Vancouver is an unmitigated disaster? The approaches to planning in question are polar opposites. It seems to me that the ideal solution resides somewhere in between.
 
As someone who spent my formative years in Vancouver, I might like to add a few things here. Firstly downtown is not one bland whole. Anyone who says that has either not been there, or wasn't paying attention.

Granville Island market is quite similar to the St. Lawrence market, just smaller and with better fish, but no peameal sandwiches.

Here's a loose Identikit Guide to Vancouver:

Robson St.= Queen West/Eaton Centre
Howe St.=Bay St.
Pacific Centre=Eaton Centre
Yaletown=Distillery District
Chinatown=well...Chinatown
DES= Regent Park, sort of
Expo & Coal Harbour=Cityplace
BC Place= SkyDome
Granville St.= Yonge
Davie/Denman=Church
Commercial Dr.=Corso Italia
Shaughnessy=Forest Hill
SW MArine Dr=Bridle Path
Kerrisdale=Rosedale
Point Grey=Mount Pleasant/Deer Park
Main/Frase & 49th=Gerrard St. E.
Broadway=Bloor
41st=St. Clair
49th=Lawrence
Kingsway=Dundas


Those are all fairly loose equivalents, but my point is that there is a lot more variety to Vancovuer than you may think. The West End isn't all 60/70's towers, there are quite a few midsize blocks from the 20's-80's. False Creek isn't all new, as the south side was redeveloped in the 80's and the DES isn't all garbage; Strathcona is a great neighbourhood. I could go on and on.

Frankly, how anyone say one city is better than another? It isn't quantifiable, and it's all completely subject to personal taste and opinion.
 
freshcut, I can't believe that I'm being chided for being too easy on Vancouver! (I say this in a very jovial way as someone who dislikes Vancouver).

I should have said earlier that I agree with you about CityPlace, that it is raw and fresh now and will reveal itself in time. As well, CityPlace is between a railway and a freeway, whereas the parallel development in Vancouver borders the sea, so they are different creatures.

I guess when I say that Vancouver does some things right, it's in the small touches that I notice it. For instance, in the west end where they have prohibited through traffic on some streets, the "traffic barriers" are quite beautiful gardens. Where we have done the same in Toronto (Earl Street, in particular) there are a couple of concrete slabs across the street without even a through route for a bicyclist. They just seem more thoughtful at times.

I think it would be fair if we assume that one of the reasons their real estate is pricier than ours must be due in part to the geographic limitations of the central city, where the difference between south and north of False Creek is significant, and their downtown is constrained, whereas ours has three directions in which almost unlimited growth can occur.

Still, I have to admire the fierceness of your attack on the city. We share much more than we disagree on, believe me.
 
I loved Vancouver, in part because it wasn't Toronto. Not that I don't love Toronto, but why would I want to travel to Vancouver to see Toronto??
 
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