Recent designs give us some hope (Hume on condos)

[tudararms]

I wish I could be a little more academic about this but City Place just doesn't do it for me. As a whole it definately looks better from a distance or at night when illuminated, though I don't know if that's a recommendation exactly. I guess there will always be a bit of a 'what if' question mark hanging over it, that our imagination of what could have been done with such prime real estate will always trump what actually is there. I do definately think the new park will give further context to City Place, maybe lending somewhat of a "Park Avenue"-type canyon of buildings along the eastern perimeter, which wouldn't be all that bad.

 

[adma]

Be careful with over-using St. James Town as a comparison point/scratching post; at least within the former city of Toronto, it actually may be more exceptional than typical. After all, the apartment clusters around High Park, Davisville etc have remained by and large demographically stable since they were built...

 

[alklay]

"don't think a highrise condo district like City place is immune from forces similar to those that have historically plunged once fashionable Toronto lowrise neighbourhoods into the depths of undesirability within a generation or two."

- what neighbourhoods are you thinking of? I can't think of one non-rental "once fashionable Toronto lowrise neighbourhood" in Toronto that has declined during the last generation.

And pride of ownership does not apply to landlords. In fact, it is the exact opposite. Pride of ownership means the tenants who actually live in the place, own it.

 

[building babel]

Riverdale, for one. It was a suburban market garden neighbourhood built across the valley from the grime and poverty of the Ward and the downtown factories in, say, 1910; much of it then declined, with rooming houses and genteel poverty by the 1970's; and now it is the height of trendiness. Parkdale is another example. Cabbagetown is the most famous. The earlier, declining, part of the cycle is seen in parts of Scarborough today.

 

[building babel]

Paying the mortgage for your landlord by renting his property doesn't count as ownership in my books.

 

[alklay]

^ Exactly. Renting is never 'pride of ownership.'

Those neighbourhoods cited are perfect examples of how ownership encourages an area from totally sliding. Rental neighbourhoods don't 'bounce back.' They get knocked down.

Ownership is also a reason mixed neighbourhoods like the St Lawrence neighbourhoods are so successful and why Regent Park is being redeveloped like it is.

 

[Archivistower]

Re: rental vs. owned. It's more complicated than that. As adma already noted, there are many rental buildings and communities in the city that are thriving, beautiful, and well cared for, and he cited some of those.

When I was out photographing tall buildings, I realized after a while that there was no predicting the state of a suburban building cluster before I got to it. In some cases, I would find highrise communities in excellent shape with well tended-grounds, in other cases very marginal buildings. Often in the same neighbourhood. I realized that there were complex factors involved of which I understood little.

 

[tudararms]

There are always some basic truths I guess. I live in a street of heritage row housing. Among all the units here it is the one unit that is rented that is noticeably the one somewhat rundown, unloved unit. The renters in question are great people but they just don't 'care' the way those of us who own in the street do.

 

[beaconer]

Is Christopher Humes...

the RealEstateJunkie??

 

[scarberiankhatru]

^ Hume, even if he's not a posting member, reads this forum regularly.

 

[beaconer]

^perhaps I should clarify, my remark was not intended as disrespect, just a pointed way of acknowledging that a previous poster stated some very similar points on this board and ssc(that were deemed unpopular and used the St Jamestown analogy as well) that Christopher Hume mentioned in this article.

Again, the statement was not made to disrespect.