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Urban Development and Proposals Discussion

Silence&Motion said:
Apologies if that came off as accusatory. It was merely a defence of the Greenbelt in general, since it has come under fire on this message board.

Growing up in the GTA, I spent my entire life seeing this get turned into this. Meanwhile quality of life had declined precipitously as people spend an ever increasing portion of their day sitting in a car in gridlock on the completely overwhelmed 400-series highway system.

Canadians are going to have to come to the realization that they do not have a God-given right to live in a metro area of over 7 million people AND have their own massive front and backyards, two-car garages, 4 or 5 bedrooms, etc. I full support blocking greenfield development until Ontario gets its sh*t together in terms of land use planning. However, my prediction is that Ontario continues to chip away at the Greenbelt, building the same car dependent subdivisions and power centres they always have. Continuing to drop 50-storey condominiums along the sides of highways and 7-lane arterial stroads. Continually drawing up new mass transit maps but not actually building anything. And the stations they do build will be placed next to highways, surrounded by parking garages and do nothing to increase the actual capacity over the already overburdened transit system. None of this will actually reduce real estate prices, though. The only real solution is to give Toronto Barcelona-level density. (End rant!)
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That's what is coming down the pipe. Outside of places in the US (which have the same issues with sprawl), most places in the world that have 7 Million people are built differently. We're already seeing some transition here in Calgary and other Canadian cities, as multi-family apartment/townhouse is becoming much more prevalent. As time goes on the large SFH with the two car garage will become increasingly expensive. At some point new development will be more like it is in Europe, etc..
 
artvandelay said:
There's no valid rationale for protecting farmland - it's a naïve idea that sounds good to the layperson uneducated in urban land economics. There is no shortage of farmland, and agricultural yields have been continuously improving and are forecast to continue to do so - more than offsetting the miniscule loss of production from farmland that is consumed by development.

If the highest and best use of the land is for agriculture, then it will be agricultural land.
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Actually, I'm a lot less optimistic about the global food supply in the coming decades, and we really should be prioritizing robustness of the system rather than specialization and efficiency (especially in places with reliable access to water). But even if food supply wasn't an issue, there are still all kinds of terrible outcomes that come with replacing farm fields with suburban subdivisions. Namely, dumping that many more cars onto the road network, greatly increasing GHG emissions, etc. And it may sound naive, but the loss of natural beauty is an actual thing to consider. We may consider it superficial, but how many times do we curse previous generations who destroyed wonderful places and replaced them with ugly, desolate landscapes.
 
Silence&Motion said:
Actually, I'm a lot less optimistic about the global food supply in the coming decades, and we really should be prioritizing robustness of the system rather than specialization and efficiency (especially in places with reliable access to water). But even if food supply wasn't an issue, there are still all kinds of terrible outcomes that come with replacing farm fields with suburban subdivisions. Namely, dumping that many more cars onto the road network, greatly increasing GHG emissions, etc. And it may sound naive, but the loss of natural beauty is an actual thing to consider. We may consider it superficial, but how many times do we curse previous generations who destroyed wonderful places and replaced them with ugly, desolate landscapes.
Click to expand...
I don't disagree that most of the GTA is a dump, but I think your gripe is more with the form of greenfield development in general (which I agree is terrible).
 
Silence&Motion said:
Apologies if that came off as accusatory. It was merely a defence of the Greenbelt in general, since it has come under fire on this message board.

Growing up in the GTA, I spent my entire life seeing this get turned into this. Meanwhile quality of life had declined precipitously as people spend an ever increasing portion of their day sitting in a car in gridlock on the completely overwhelmed 400-series highway system.

Canadians are going to have to come to the realization that they do not have a God-given right to live in a metro area of over 7 million people AND have their own massive front and backyards, two-car garages, 4 or 5 bedrooms, etc. I full support blocking greenfield development until Ontario gets its sh*t together in terms of land use planning. However, my prediction is that Ontario continues to chip away at the Greenbelt, building the same car dependent subdivisions and power centres they always have. Continuing to drop 50-storey condominiums along the sides of highways and 7-lane arterial stroads. Continually drawing up new mass transit maps but not actually building anything. And the stations they do build will be placed next to highways, surrounded by parking garages and do nothing to increase the actual capacity over the already overburdened transit system. None of this will actually reduce real estate prices, though. The only real solution is to give Toronto Barcelona-level density. (End rant!)
Click to expand...
All fair!
 
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