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MisterF said:
You can design high rise districts to allow the sun to reach the street while creating a proper urban streetwall. Since New York seems to be the standard everyone's comparing to, they pioneered that kind of design. Blocking out the sun from downtown streets is completely unnecessary.
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Oh I know, and if anything Toronto needs more setbacks like that. I thought that was your argument for having shorter buildings in the CBD.
 
arvelomcquaig said:
Whether it was invented there or not, I don't remember any parts of Manhattan having an abundance of the sort of setbacked, skinny-tower-sprouting-from-fat-podium form that I complain about. I use Manhattan as an example because everyone I encounter seems to believe tall buildings preclude good neighbourhoods, vibrant retail, etc., and Manhattan is the only place I've been where tall buildings are the overwhelming norm, and yet the neighbourhoods are simultaneously the most beautiful and vibrant I've ever seen.
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Right, I largely feel the same. And I also don't see the reasoning behind the claim that tall buildings preclude a neighborhood feel. Southcore might be a counter-argument here, as the street level is a bit anti-septic, but that's the fault of the architects/planners, not of tall buildings per se.
 
Miscreant said:
Right, I largely feel the same. And I also don't see the reasoning behind the claim that tall buildings preclude a neighborhood feel. Southcore might be a counter-argument here, as the street level is a bit anti-septic, but that's the fault of the architects/planners, not of tall buildings per se.
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I miss the old slab - a la Imperial Plaza.
 
arvelomcquaig said:
Whether it was invented there or not, I don't remember any parts of Manhattan having an abundance of the sort of setbacked, skinny-tower-sprouting-from-fat-podium form that I complain about. I use Manhattan as an example because everyone I encounter seems to believe tall buildings preclude good neighbourhoods, vibrant retail, etc., and Manhattan is the only place I've been where tall buildings are the overwhelming norm, and yet the neighbourhoods are simultaneously the most beautiful and vibrant I've ever seen.
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I never claimed that high rises preclude a neighbourhood feel. BTW, Manhattan is mostly low and midrise.
 
arvelomcquaig said:
Whether it was invented there or not, I don't remember any parts of Manhattan having an abundance of the sort of setbacked, skinny-tower-sprouting-from-fat-podium form that I complain about.
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MisterF is referring to New York City's 1916 Zoning Resolution which mandated setbacks on skyscrapers to minimize street shadowing. There's a Wikipedia entry on it here.

Almost all New York skyscrapers either have those characteristic setbacks, or are set behind a podium or on a plaza to allow sunlight to reach street level. Very few skyscrapers in NYC start at the sidewalk and go straight up to the top without a break.

I never claimed that high rises preclude a neighbourhood feel. BTW, Manhattan is mostly low and midrise.
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Exactly. The best neighbourhoods in Manhattan are all mid - lowrise (<8 stories). Of course, the difference is that those neighbourhoods consist of continuous streetwalls of buildings that are directly adjacent to one another, go right up to the sidewalk and rarely are lower than 4 stories. These areas also happen to be very dense; denser than any highrise neighbourhood in Toronto except St. Jamestown.
 
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Part of the joy of big city living - as opposed to small town living, where "everyone knows everyone else ..." - is that you can opt out of the "neighbourhood feel" and live anonymously in your little box in the sky. Nothing wrong with that, and the highrise form is the ideal form for doing so.
 
Urban Shocker said:
Part of the joy of big city living - as opposed to small town living, where "everyone knows everyone else ..." - is that you can opt out of the "neighbourhood feel" and live anonymously in your little box in the sky. Nothing wrong with that, and the highrise form is the ideal form for doing so.
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You can also live anonymously in your little box in the midrise. There's nothing inherently better about a highrise design from that perspective.
 
Well, it's certainly nothing to be ashamed of. And with an increasing proportion of people now living alone, and a dearth of "family" units being built in condo buildings, and a declining proportion of traditional single family houses available to buyers or renters as a result of the large number of multi-unit residential buildings under construction, it's an approach that'll go from strength to strength. So I found it quite odd, in another recent thread, where people in a younger age demographic than mine were complaining that they are a generation or two too young to have been able to buy a traditional family home on a little street in the Annex, or Cabbagetown, or Riverdale or the Beach or wherever. It seems to me that there's a new wave to catch!
 
Hipster Duck said:
There's nothing inherently better about a highrise design from that perspective.
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I disagree. I think that, considering the countless benefits of density, all else being equal, a building fitting more people (like 20 storeys) is better than less people (like 5 storeys). I'm not saying midrise neighbourhoods aren't dense, or that high-rises are enough to make a great city, but I think that taller is generally better for the world so that we take up less space, can more easily get around the city by foot, transit, etc.
 
How are 20+ storey towers better for cities than midrise buildings built in a dense form (like St. Lawrence neighbourhood etc.)?
 
Because high-rises in a dense form are more dense than mid-rises in a dense form. I love the St. Lawrence neighbourhood, but I think it would be even better (for the city/world, at least) if the same buildings were taller.
 
But what advantage is that? Does a city such as Toronto with relatively lots of land open to development really require 50-floor towers as opposed to midrise neighbourhoods?

I would certainly take that over the current mode of accepting every single project exactly as it is proposed (or with laughably few changes/demands for the developer) while we leave our infrastructure (notably transit) to rot? The demands being placed on our infrastructure and on the city itself are too many.

I'm all for density, for creating vibrant urban neighbourhoods, etc. etc., but I don't understand this idea with some people on UrbanToronto that a city isn't urban unless it builds "tall, tall, taller!".

I'm all for towers in certain places/neighbourhoods but I'm getting more and more frustrated by the tiresome "build tall EVERYWHERE" attitude. And they are certainly not required to--- and can even run against our plans to--- be a great, liveable, vibrant urban centre.
 
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arvelomcquaig said:
Because high-rises in a dense form are more dense than mid-rises in a dense form. I love the St. Lawrence neighbourhood, but I think it would be even better (for the city/world, at least) if the same buildings were taller.
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And yet the St. Lawrence neighbourhood is one of the densest neighbourhoods in the country. Skyscrapers are not necessarily more dense. Paris has a comparable population density to Manhattan; the densest half of Barcelona is more than 1.5X denser than Manhattan and consists almost exclusively of midrises.

Finally, when we say that density is a "good thing" we generally refer to a density that can support urban uses and street level vibrancy while still allowing for city services to be maintained relatively easily and efficiently. At some point, density crosses a threshold where we don't see it as a generator of vibrancy and all that "good stuff", but a massive annoyance and quality of life issue. This can come from the added heat expelled by a thousand more air conditioners on a hot day, or the added street level pollution from the inevitable gridlock (even the most pedestrian-friendly cities have cars and it's a numbers game), or the constant din of noise. I've been to midrise cities that were already reaching those levels of density, so I don't think we need skyscrapers to make the world a better place.
 
Manhattan has a surprising number of 1-2s buildings. Yes Manhattan. NYC feels dense because you've got a consistant pattern of 8-12s buildings in a relatively small area. Most of NYC is closer to Montreal in terms of density/feel.

Bay Street may have the tallest buildings but does it feel alive with action like Ossington, the Annex, the Danforth or King East?
 
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