Joel Kotkin: Toronto falls into the pit of urban decline that's plagued U.S. cities
nationalpost.com
The GTA has been showing signs of the urban ills that are commonly associated with city life south the border

The GTA has been showing signs of the urban ills that are commonly associated with city life south the border.

Downtown infrastructure has been deteriorating, as have cleanliness and order, which were once the city’s strong suits.

In Ontario, growth has shifted to lower-cost places like Kitchener-Waterloo (110 kilometres from downtown Toronto), as well as Guelph (95 km), Peterborough (140 km) and London (195 km). Even long declining areas, like the Maritimes, have been gaining population in recent years.

Clearly a new approach is merited. Leaders in Toronto have to accept dispersion and find the city’s niche within a wider range of settlements. Downtowns themselves, as Calgary’s urban leadership now suggests, will have to morph from primarily business centres to places more oriented to housing, academic and cultural activities.

To be sure, swank high-rise projects may appeal to the wealthy and the childless. But the urban future lies in places that are walkable but not hyper-dense and can attract middle-income families.

  • NarrativeBear@lemmy.worldOP
    10·
    4 months ago

    This issue had become more visible ever since the early days of COVID. Cities and urban cores became “ghost towns”, plenty of local business that serves the local community actually only catered unspokenly to commuting office workers, failing to stay afloat and many closed down as a result. It became apparent no one actually lived in the surrounding areas.

    Our cities were and still area geared to single working individuals or couples without children. Nothing ties our city dwellers to their surroundings communities or business. What north america style cities are missing are a larger influx of families in cities.

    Families provide strong ties and a sense of community. Very rarely do we see children walking in the downtown area or even playing on neighborhood streets. Instead most families move outside of cities as they grow in size for many reasons, housing and affordability being one of the big ones.

    There are ways to fix this though. One of the main ways is city zoning policies. More “missing middle” style housing in needed.

    “Missing middle” housing is the many different housing styles that sit between the standard sized suburban single family home and a typical downtown condo unit.

    As we can see in north america families have limited choices and options when it comes to housing as they grow in size. Very rarely will a family be able to find a 3 bedroom apartment in a downtown core, and if they do a single family home in the suburbs will be priced more competitively and usually be larger in size.

    Here is a great video talking about some of these points.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRdwXQb7CfM

    And here is a great article as to why developers can’t build family sized units in north america.

    https://www.centerforbuilding.org/blog/we-we-cant-build-family-sized-apartments-in-north-america#:~:text=There are two factors driving,dictated by the zoning code.

    As an end note. Cities that design with a sense of place (referred to as “third place”) are always IMO more successful in providing a strong sense of community. You will see these “third places” all over European cities.

    I will drop this last video here for anyone that is interested in knowing more about this.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOc8ASeHYNw

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCOdQsZa15o