allabootmatt
Senior Member
So--herewith a question I was thinking about, which might spur some interesting discussion here. Many cities have a distinctive city-ness that informs locals' ideas about how an urban place should function. In the Paris region, new developments (La Defense excepted) follow a basically Haussman-esque model, in southeast England new construction tends to be built out along the lines of outer London (red-brick semi-detached houses, etc). Both of these models work well in their respective contexts.
Which makes me wonder--is there a Toronto urbanism? A way of building and thinking about cities that instinctively makes sense to people in the city and region? I would argue that there is. For me, 'Toronto Urbanism' is best expressed in places like the Annex or Riverdale or the Beaches--compact single-family homes on narrow streets, giving way to 2-4 story commercial strips served by subway or streetcar. These are punctuated with pockets of extreme high-rise density. I would argue it's a pretty distinctive model, and one that almost everybody in Toronto claims to be OK with.
The closest analogue is probably inner Montreal, though it has considerably more triplexes and small apartment buildings mixed in, and almost no ex-downtown clusters of highrises--making it certainly of a somewhat different genus.
This leads, in my mind, to an interesting question: why is so much government-directed planning aimed at a different kind of urbanism? The 'Avenues' plan and the West Don/East Bayfront programmes are certainly laudable from a design perspective, and do draw on internationally accepted best practices. Yet they're trying to create urban spaces with almost no precedent in Canada. How do we know that they will work in our culture/climate?
So, if there is a Toronto Urbanism, can its lessons be applied to these new neighbourhoods? Or is it such a product of specific times and places, and 'Accidental City' happenstance, to be replicated reliably?
I know this contains more questions than answers, but perhaps others can develop the topic further.
Which makes me wonder--is there a Toronto urbanism? A way of building and thinking about cities that instinctively makes sense to people in the city and region? I would argue that there is. For me, 'Toronto Urbanism' is best expressed in places like the Annex or Riverdale or the Beaches--compact single-family homes on narrow streets, giving way to 2-4 story commercial strips served by subway or streetcar. These are punctuated with pockets of extreme high-rise density. I would argue it's a pretty distinctive model, and one that almost everybody in Toronto claims to be OK with.
The closest analogue is probably inner Montreal, though it has considerably more triplexes and small apartment buildings mixed in, and almost no ex-downtown clusters of highrises--making it certainly of a somewhat different genus.
This leads, in my mind, to an interesting question: why is so much government-directed planning aimed at a different kind of urbanism? The 'Avenues' plan and the West Don/East Bayfront programmes are certainly laudable from a design perspective, and do draw on internationally accepted best practices. Yet they're trying to create urban spaces with almost no precedent in Canada. How do we know that they will work in our culture/climate?
So, if there is a Toronto Urbanism, can its lessons be applied to these new neighbourhoods? Or is it such a product of specific times and places, and 'Accidental City' happenstance, to be replicated reliably?
I know this contains more questions than answers, but perhaps others can develop the topic further.