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flakeloaf posted:The first part I get, but my motivation for moving out was not having to endure the crash of rhinos endlessly penetrating all six sides of my living space. That six feet of air between me and the other guy is worth a few hours of shoveling and yard work. What type of apartment building has apartments with no external wall? There should only ever be rhinos on 5 sides of you.
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Jan 21, 2016 16:42
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PT6A posted:What's wrong with massive condo/apartment buildings? It's simply one type of housing. What Helsing is referring to is called the "missing middle" problem in north american housing. We build vast amounts of single family housing, and then we build forests of condo towers, but rarely anything in between. Going from the edge of the city to the centre shouold be a gradual increase in density and building massing rather than suburb suburb skyscrapers. Single family housing and skyscrapers are also the two most expensive ways to house people. SFH's are very land-price dependent and only make sense when land is cheap, but to "Open up" all that cheap land requires insane subsides in the form of highways and 10 lane bridges and all the utilities and poo poo they need. Condo towers are also a very expensive way to house people. A giant concrete tower is expensive to engineer and building, buildings get more expensive per sqft to build the taller they go. The only reason they are tall is because of insane land prices, but also zoning bylaws that demand all sorts of setbacks, leaving up the only expensive way to go. Plus the views command higher prices. The cheapest way of housing people, which again is very situational (mostly land prices) are low-rise apartments, walk-ups, and row-houses. The problem is, in many north american cities downtown is hedged in by a wall of neighbourhoods with powerful nimby groups who will die defending their SFH neighbourhood remaining how it is. We've locked entire districts in time, not allowing them to naturally densify over time. Instead we make little "density ghettos" and treat the very idea of anything other than SFH's as a bad thing which needs to be kept away to preserve our "nice" neighbourhoods. Shuffle them all off to the core and around some metro stations. This leads to tower slums and poo poo like yaletown. The alternative is to just increase the zoning in all neighborhoods based on their distance from downtown/transit and let them naturally grow over time. Single family houses being replaced with duplexes or row houses. Row houses being replaced with mid-rise apartments and so on. Also reduce local input in planing. Studies have shown that active powerful neighbourhood groups and an obsession with "listening to the locals" only serves to increase the rich/poor divide in cities and they rarely even represent the actual majority opinion of the area. Obviously listen to the locals, but focus on what's best for the city as a whole.
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Jan 21, 2016 16:42
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PT6A posted:What's wrong with massive condo/apartment buildings? Throwing a whole bunch up right next to each other is really bad urban planning. edit: Beaten, so I'll just add that we'd be better off if we tried to look more like Munich or Berlin instead of trying to cram bits of Midtown Manhattan in between bits of Oakland County, Michigan. tagesschau fucked around with this message at 16:51 on Jan 21, 2016 |
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Jan 21, 2016 16:46
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Pinterest Mom posted:Rona is ready to blaze it, the sooner the better. You had dank, sir. You could have blazed. You could have said, 'I'm going to hold this toke". This is wrong for BC, and I'm not going to ask your stay-at-home uncle to pay for shake. YOU HAD AN OPTION, SIR, and you chose to pass the spliff to the old men of the Liberal Party. That, if I may say regretfully, is some good poo poo.
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Jan 21, 2016 17:16
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Well of course high-rise apartment buildings should be in city centres instead of the middle of nowhere. It would also be very good if all new buildings were required to have commercially zoned space on the first few floors (and possibly office space) so you don't end up with big clumps of high-density residential with no businesses or services around. While mid-rise buildings and townhomes have their appeal, they're still far too low-density for truly desirable locations in and adjacent to downtown areas, in my opinion.
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Jan 21, 2016 17:23
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Didn't see this posted. http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/liberal-criminal-justice-pardons-1.3412533 quote:
I deal with this poo poo at my job sometimes and I really hope this is not the case of liberals only making like 2 changes, because getting a pardon is a huge pain in the loving rear end, and the fees and time associated with it are nuts.
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Jan 21, 2016 17:26
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Melian Dialogue posted:Nothing inherently, but all you gotta do is go to Burnaby around the Metrotown area to see sprawling, suburban like massive condo towers that were not planned well for the infrastructure that's surrounding it. The very benefit of densification done well is when its actually close enough to live a life in a community where you can walk to get groceries, to transit, to work etc. In Burnaby, everyone lives in these giant dense condos, but then drives everywhere anyways. Whats the point then? Burnaby is a terrible example of urban planning. It has gotten the greatest benefit of any municipality from rapid transit yet is the first to complain about funding for further initiatives because of a "gently caress you; got mine" mentality. If you think Metrotown is bad, Brentwood and Edmonds are worse IMO.
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Jan 21, 2016 17:47
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Baronjutter posted:It's simply one type of housing. What Helsing is referring to is called the "missing middle" problem in north american housing. We build vast amounts of single family housing, and then we build forests of condo towers, but rarely anything in between. Going from the edge of the city to the centre shouold be a gradual increase in density and building massing rather than suburb suburb skyscrapers. Single family housing and skyscrapers are also the two most expensive ways to house people. SFH's are very land-price dependent and only make sense when land is cheap, but to "Open up" all that cheap land requires insane subsides in the form of highways and 10 lane bridges and all the utilities and poo poo they need. Condo towers are also a very expensive way to house people. A giant concrete tower is expensive to engineer and building, buildings get more expensive per sqft to build the taller they go. The only reason they are tall is because of insane land prices, but also zoning bylaws that demand all sorts of setbacks, leaving up the only expensive way to go. Plus the views command higher prices. There are a series of debates being put on in Vancouver right now by this new non profit Urbanarium. I went to the first debate last night, which had the topic: Open all neighbourhoods to densification? On the yes side was former Vancouver planner Brent Toderian and Joyce Drohan, and on the No was MLA and former Mayor Sam Sullivan and Michael Goldberg. Toderian essentially argued what you're saying, even bringing out the classic "missing middle" image. He's strongly in favour of building increased density along arterials, as Vancouver has been doing, but sees no reason why we can't add "gentle density" across the city as well in addition. He brought up the 2100 laneway houses that had been built as a significant winning example of this.  Sullivan's position was interesting. He argued that by going for density everywhere politicians risk starting too many battles, and risk poisoning the well against density in general. Essentially you can get more done by using your political capital to build a big condo tower in quasi urban, lower-middle class, Mount Pleasant than by burning all that political capital to build a townhouse in rich, ultra low density, Dunbar. He sort of whined about politicians losing their jobs  . This all makes sense given his history of being ousted by his own party for pissing off too many people with his ecodensity initiative. I understand and see the value in Sullivan's approach, which is that you can get bigger wins by focusing more intensely on certain areas. He stated it as "densify a little a lot, or a lot a little." The problem though is the inequity of it, and it doesn't address the missing middle problem. Some people might hate living in towers and they're not addressed. It's a one dimensional massing of huge amounts of density in small places in order to preserve low density single family houses (for the rich). I wonder whether this approach in some ways could actually increase sprawl. If a person has a growing family and hates living in towers, they're essentially forced to move to Surrey and Langley, as townhouses or other forms being built Vancouver is frustratingly rare. Build Fewer Towers is the next debate. quote:Studies have shown that active powerful neighbourhood groups and an obsession with "listening to the locals" only serves to increase the rich/poor divide in cities and they rarely even represent the actual majority opinion of the area. Obviously listen to the locals, but focus on what's best for the city as a whole. This is an interesting issue for Vancouver because you're totally right that at this point many neighbourhood groups are incredibly disruptive, loud, anti-everything NIMBYs, but on the other hand the story of neighbourhood groups rising up and saving Chinatown and Strathcona from being totally destroyed to make a highway has become one of the legendary stories of the city. Those people are practically saints at this point. Femtosecond fucked around with this message at 17:52 on Jan 21, 2016 |
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Jan 21, 2016 17:50
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A feel good moment wrt Syrian refugees, children being children again. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6mXZTIdwn8
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Jan 21, 2016 17:52
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Helsing posted:Regulations should be structured in such a way that most suburbs would simply be illegal to build. They waste good farmland, they are designed in such a way that they inevitably don't have enough of a tax base to pay for their own needs, they are built so shoddily that many will being fall apart in a few decades and they are the most depressing and socially atomizing form of existence imaginable. Can't disagree with any of this. The problem is how you handle the problem of so many towns - mainly the ones surrounding the GTA - that have entirely suburbanized. There's no putting that genie back in the bottle, and trying to save the suburbs from themselves is probably beyond the municipal budget of most cities. There have been some interesting provincial efforts, but environmentalists and agricultural experts/farmers remain divided on a) what land to preserve and b) how to preserve it.
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Jan 21, 2016 18:01
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-- Melian Dialogue fucked around with this message at 05:35 on Feb 2, 2016 |
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Jan 21, 2016 18:01
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Melian Dialogue posted:Also PT6A, I know you say this with incredulity, but the devil's in the details. What constitutes the "city centre"? Lots of developers push out crazy amounts of PR to try and justify their high-rise developments and claiming that some area is now the "new" city centre or some other crap (In Vancouver, look at the cynical PR campaign to call the Downtown Eastside "Railtown" or whatever). I have no idea what the actual gently caress is wrong with Vancouver, but the two cities I've lived in (Calgary and Montreal) have had fairly well-defined city centres that haven't really changed that much in the last century or so. Further, this is exactly why we let the city do the zoning instead of leaving it to developers. PT6A fucked around with this message at 19:00 on Jan 21, 2016 |
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Jan 21, 2016 18:58
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PT6A posted:Well of course high-rise apartment buildings should be in city centres instead of the middle of nowhere. It would also be very good if all new buildings were required to have commercially zoned space on the first few floors (and possibly office space) so you don't end up with big clumps of high-density residential with no businesses or services around. Or do what east village is doing is have lots of small commercial, but no grocery store! So Calgary is trying to build an urban walkable neighborhood. The condo towers don't have parking, so they are really forcing car free. There are a couple busses that go through and it's probably on 10 minutes to the train. My favorite part is the nearest grocery store is probably a 20 minute walk away. Or take the train to the other end of downtown and walk a few blocks. It's also in the Super desirable rear end end of down town right across the street from the drop in centre neighborhood.
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Jan 21, 2016 19:12
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Demon_Corsair posted:Or do what east village is doing is have lots of small commercial, but no grocery store! Yeah, I find that quite odd. There's a grocery store in the west end built into an apartment building (Kay's), there's the Co-Op and the Safeway both quite nearby a bunch of condo towers, and there's an Urban Fare going into the ground floor of a new building in the Beltline, along with a Canadian Tire (according to the plans so far). I don't understand why they wouldn't put a proper grocery store in the plans for the East Village. And, yes, the East Village is a loving shithole. I wouldn't take a condo there for free at this point.
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Jan 21, 2016 19:40
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 ENERGY CITIZENS  The discussion is truly scintillating:    LEFTY SOCIALIST PROGRAMS 
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Jan 21, 2016 20:13
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 Canada you knuckle-beak, I told you a hundred times: you've got to sell the oil it cost you $57 a barrel to extract before it dips under $57! Before!
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Jan 21, 2016 20:39
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OSI bean dip posted:Burnaby is a terrible example of urban planning. It has gotten the greatest benefit of any municipality from rapid transit yet is the first to complain about funding for further initiatives because of a "gently caress you; got mine" mentality. On the other hand when I lived in Brentwood I could be downtown for work in about 25 minutes without using a car so that owned. Also I'm a terrible person because I got on Gilmore which was the boundary of Zone 2 so I just paid for Zone 1 fare. I don't see why you couldn't go car-less for most things if you lived in a Metrotown condo though.
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Jan 21, 2016 20:40
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THC posted:
It's only "Canada's energy" when Alberta is down and out. I imagine that these same people were scoffing at the idea of British Columbia asking for a portion of Alberta's royalties so that "Canada's" energy could go through the province. https://www.facebook.com/CanadasEnergyCitizens/ Lain Iwakura fucked around with this message at 20:50 on Jan 21, 2016 |
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Jan 21, 2016 20:47
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Burnaby is loving awful yes, but if you lived in the Metrotown or Brentwood areas you definitely could get rid of your car due to the transit availability there.
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Jan 21, 2016 20:48
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flakeloaf posted:
One of the reasons oil companies didn't immediately collapse is because of selling futures when the price was good.
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Jan 21, 2016 20:51
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Baudin posted:One of the reasons oil companies didn't immediately collapse is because of selling futures when the price was good. Yep, there were companies selling futures for $90 and getting laughed at for it. Now who's laughing?
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Jan 21, 2016 20:56
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Toronto City Council rewrote the transit development plan again and (essentially) went back to Transit City?? I'm feeling a mix of  and  rn.(Except for the hilariously wasteful subway extension to Scarborough with one [1] stop, ofc.)
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Jan 21, 2016 21:49
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Pinterest Mom posted:Toronto City Council rewrote the transit development plan again and (essentially) went back to Transit City?? Classic Toronto: elect someone with a plan, then panic and elect someone who undoes that plan, then elect someone who goes back to the first plan. Meanwhile ten years pass, nothing gets built, and billions of dollars get spent on cancelled projects.
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Jan 21, 2016 23:20
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If we're talking incredibly stupid decisions don't forget cancelling Eglington West https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eglinton_West_line
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Jan 21, 2016 23:30
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vyelkin posted:Classic Toronto: elect someone with a plan, then panic and elect someone who undoes that plan, then elect someone who goes back to the first plan. Meanwhile ten years pass, nothing gets built, and billions of dollars get spent on cancelled projects. I think that's all municipal governments. :ottawa:
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Jan 21, 2016 23:32
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flakeloaf posted:I think that's all municipal governments. In Ottawa it's actually 30 years. Jim Watson is Mayor4Life based solely on the fact that stuff appears to be happening, even if it's not happening entirely above board.
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Jan 21, 2016 23:48
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Baronjutter posted:Good stuff about city planning Now can you make a successful Sim City 
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Jan 22, 2016 00:12
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jm20 posted:If we're talking incredibly stupid decisions don't forget cancelling Eglington West https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eglinton_West_line The Eglinton LRT is fine. In fact, John Tory's SmartTrack (TM) plan would necessitate tunneling along Eglinton West and Tory just admitted that this would be outrageously expensive. So guess what, we're also going back to the Transit City plan of extending the LRT. Good job, anyone who voted for this useless old money suit for his half-bakrd transit fantasy.
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Jan 22, 2016 00:42
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Rebeccah Blaikie is doing some kind of phone ndp election debrief thing but I hung up pretty quickly because it was basically cross country checkup for ndpers. Turns out I don't care what the average Canadian ndp voter thinks anymore than what the average Canadian thinks. E: also the whole process was bizarre. I got a call out of the blue a couple days ago where an automated message told me to expect a call today if I wanted to participate, but I didn't hear the first couple words and they didn't repeat who was calling. So I thought it was actually a conservative thing. And the call today was another automated thing saying "we are now doing an NDP debrief stay on the line to participate". It was very NDP. Jordan7hm fucked around with this message at 01:17 on Jan 22, 2016 |
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Jan 22, 2016 01:14
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eXXon posted:The Eglinton LRT is fine. In fact, John Tory's SmartTrack (TM) plan would necessitate tunneling along Eglinton West and Tory just admitted that this would be outrageously expensive. So guess what, we're also going back to the Transit City plan of extending the LRT. Good job, anyone who voted for this useless old money suit for his half-bakrd transit fantasy. That was because Ford sold off the lands it was supposed to be built on to developers and Tory didn't realize it or just ignored it.
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Jan 22, 2016 01:23
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So is there any city in Canada where council actually runs the city in planning mode and not just constant catch up and whack a mole? Compared to a lot of US cities Canada is more like a libertarian utopia.
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Jan 22, 2016 01:43
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Jordan7hm posted:In Ottawa it's actually 30 years. If you add borders to the mix, 50 years How's that new bridge to Gatineau coming along 
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Jan 22, 2016 01:43
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Municipal councils are the puppets of developers and their competing interests. Clive Doucet told me this in 2006 and i'll never forget it.
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Jan 22, 2016 01:59
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RBC posted:Municipal councils are the puppets of developers and their competing interests. Clive Doucet told me this in 2006 and i'll never forget it. Some are puppets for very well organized local nimby and special interest groups! But yeah, none are actually planning ahead or trying to build a good city, they're just trying to stay ahead of the next scandal and avoid pissing any of their key voting groups off.
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Jan 22, 2016 02:50
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eXXon posted:The Eglinton LRT is fine. In fact, John Tory's SmartTrack (TM) plan would necessitate tunneling along Eglinton West and Tory just admitted that this would be outrageously expensive. So guess what, we're also going back to the Transit City plan of extending the LRT. Good job, anyone who voted for this useless old money suit for his half-bakrd transit fantasy. I don't know about you, but being 20 years or more late on a transit initiative on eglington doesn't seem fine. This timeline is assuming the current crop of mouth breathers in all level of government follow through and finish the project. Also renforth and eglington could've been a subway hub to connect directly to the airport alleviating Ontario of the unsuccessful UPE.
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Jan 22, 2016 03:01
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cowofwar posted:So is there any city in Canada where council actually runs the city in planning mode and not just constant catch up and whack a mole? Waterloo Region (minus Cambridge) is (sort of) trying to.  The LRT is happening, but I bet the Cambridge extension won't happen until their shithead mayor retires.
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Jan 22, 2016 03:22
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Friend of mine wrote a cool thing about the transgender guidelines in Alberta http://progressiveideasexplained.blogspot.ca/2016/01/gender-guidelines-in-alberta-schools.html
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Jan 22, 2016 03:32
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Baudin posted:Friend of mine wrote a cool thing about the transgender guidelines in Alberta A good blog post. Hopefully the idiot bishops in this province can take time off their busy schedule of buggering children and protecting people who bugger children to give it a good read.
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Jan 22, 2016 04:14
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cowofwar posted:So is there any city in Canada where council actually runs the city in planning mode and not just constant catch up and whack a mole? Vancouver tries to put together neighbourhood plans to guide development, which is good, though some are better than others. Unfortunately some start from deeply flawed initial assumptions, or they were derailed and ruined by misguided neighbourhood activism. These plans take years to develop. It seems that the implementation of the Norquay plan is about wrapping up and from a quick scan of the webpage it looks like they've been working on it since before 2010. It's clear that they take a huge amount of effort to make, so not every neighbourhood has a plan. At the moment the general vague Vancouver plan seems to be to protect industrial space, build commercial towers downtown, and densify residential along the arterials of Cambie, South Marine Drive, Broadway, Commercial and Kingsway. Filling out those areas will take a few decades. Femtosecond fucked around with this message at 06:20 on Jan 22, 2016 |
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Jan 22, 2016 05:03
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eXXon posted:The Eglinton LRT is fine. In fact, John Tory's SmartTrack (TM) plan would necessitate tunneling along Eglinton West and Tory just admitted that this would be outrageously expensive. So guess what, we're also going back to the Transit City plan of extending the LRT. Good job, anyone who voted for this useless old money suit for his half-bakrd transit fantasy. Yes, if only this hadn't been pointed out repeatedly during the election, when it was known by anyone with even a passing interest in the transit file that the entirety of SmartTrack (not just that western portion) was quite literally impossible to accomplish as pitched. It hasn't become any less impossible, and every revision has been slowly walking the plan back, to basically cover Metrolinx's plan for the RER, which will be built and funded by the province in the same time frame. Meanwhile John Tory has been glad handing every politician he can get near, "securing" funding for his impossible fantasy, and ensuring that the real transit needs of Toronto will never be met.
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