21 responses so far ↓

• 1 Tiktaalik // Aug 8, 2011 at 10:52 am

  I’m not sure designers are paying attention to creating good retail spaces any more. I’ve noticed recently that many hip “live, work, play” condo developments are focusing on having a big box anchor tenant (ie. Mt Pleasant Rize, the Olympic Village). The big retail presence doesn’t create the same walkable neighbourhood atmosphere, is only appropriate for big retail brands, and creates lousy jobs.

  As well, many new condos don’t have any ground floor retail at all. This is suitable in some areas, but I find that there are many condos in great retail areas that have ground floor residence, and this creates a weird dead zone in what could be a vibrant area.

  The Village has both of these issues and so it completely fails at living up to its name. It’s an empty dead zone and because of the lack of mom n’ pop retail/restaurant space there’s no reason for anyone to go there.

  In contrast I was biking along Union St by Main and I noticed that the V6A condo development there, with its small retail spaces, had produced a number of new interesting looking independent clothing stores. These small retail spaces can be launching pads for people’s retail and design careers and these stores have the potential to become internationally notable, (eg. Marche St. George, Roden Gray and Inventory being noted in recent issues of Monocle magazine) which helps Vancouver tourism.

• 2 Bill Lee // Aug 8, 2011 at 11:21 am

  Fabula writes: “Although the thinking about urban planning has undoubtedly improved as it’s taken a different direction since the 30s, 40s an 50s, I can’t believe that there isn’t SOMETHING about today’s planning beliefs that will come to be seen as a fatal mistake by future generations:…”

  The macadamizing (tarmac) of streets, creating huge heat generators, killing and preventing local plant growth, and billions of sour run-off to our formerly salmon/smelt/oolichan rich rivers (of which all are under tarmac or pipes)
  I have just been reading “Horses at work: Harnessing power in industrial America” by Ann Norton Greene.
  Portland (a smaller city then) had 633 horses per square mile, for one city in our climatic zone.
  And as I go up Hamilton from Hastings or down Homer from Pender, I am reminded of the extant cobblestones downtown and their use for horses’ hooves gripping.
  And why are roads so wide these days other than the grand vista when “planned” And I am talking about side streets here which were part of a district promotional style a la Condo names.

• 3 brilliant // Aug 8, 2011 at 11:42 am

  Bill Lee I suggest you read up on New Yorks problems with horse manure at the close of the nineteenth century. The biggest blunder of todays urbanists is the demonization of the car with no attempt to understand what made it so popular in the first place.

• 4 boohoo // Aug 8, 2011 at 11:47 am

  Brilliant,

  I would suggest similar (with clear differences) reasons for switching to the automoble could be made for switching from, or at least significantly reducing, automobile use. I would venture a guess the horse and buggy industry may have used the ‘war on horses’ type shtick back then.

• 5 A Dave // Aug 8, 2011 at 12:01 pm

  I’m no expert, but I do think we should be questioning a few of the current greenwashing mantras being pushed locally, at least. The main one being Transit Orientated Development (TOD).

  While the TOD theory seems to make sense, the reality of building long strips of residential along Cambie or Broadway (the local manifestation of TOD being pushed by the Planning Director) doesn’t make any urban design sense at all, since the residential is being fronted on heavy auto arterials that won’t likely be reclaimed for decades. Noise, pollution, and wide streets are not particularly welcoming places for a quiet coffee or dinner on your patio, or to locate a central shopping area, green space or square, or for a game of road hockey with the kids. There’s a reason that the houses and apartments fronting high-traffic streets traditionally sell for less than those a block or two back, and have far lower levels of neighbourly mixing. It would have been fine — and even a status symbol — during horse and buggy days, but since the auto took over these streets, they are hell to live on, and certainly not healthy places to spend a lot of time in.

  The other one is high-rise density = sustainable development. Again, sounds logical in theory, but a little digging reveals a number of cracks in the facade. But that would take an essay…

• 6 Richard Campbell // Aug 8, 2011 at 12:31 pm

  @A Dave

  The linear higher density along arterials makes little sense. Instead there should be very high density nodal development around transit stations (400m to 800m). This would really encourage walking and transit use. The linear development that is being planned really only encourages driving. Unfortunately, some people resist the needed development off arterials leaving development along arterials as the politically easier route. Although even that is proving tough these days.

  I’d like to see some serious real-world analysis of your contention regarding high rise development. It is probably the wrong question to ask anyway. It would be better to compare it to other forms of development in a particular context. If one was developing a new city from scratch, it maybe correct that low rise would perform better. That definitely is not the context we are in right now in Vancouver. There are really very, very few large sites left so the choice is between developing high densities on a relatively few sites and leaving most single family housing intact or redeveloping a much larger amount of single family housing for medium rise development. I suspect in the end that the high rise development is much more likely to happen and that it is more sustainable than tearing down large amounts of single family housing.

• 7 A Planner // Aug 8, 2011 at 12:46 pm

  I would respectfully disagree that linear density makes little sense. Nodes of density similar to what Richard proposes is a major problem in the suburbs – pockets of high density not connected to anything else by urban structure aside from roads – yet wanting to be served by transit. And politically transit agencies having a hard time saying “not good enough” and so supplying service anyway and resulting in transit sprawl.

  We need linear infill density to build up the connections between high density pockets to make for interesting walkable areas and to avoid further sprawl outward. We need to start “filling in” the low density bits before more greenfield development.

• 8 Bill Lee // Aug 8, 2011 at 1:22 pm

  Yes @Brilliant. I know about that, the knacker wagons picking up dead horses and so on.

  I was trying to get the idea forward that things haven’t always been this way, and they were designed in a different transportation era. See the wide New Westminster avenues for turning around horse-drawn gun carriages, (so the story goes)

  Again, everyone should have a copy of Bruce MacDonald’s “Vancouver: a visual history” the map based book showing the decades of Vancouver’s development, or degradation as you will, and see that vast areas could have been changed at one time.

  Yes, and for the horses and the olden, supposed golden days, we recommend the antidote of Otto Bettman’s 1974 (ISBN-13: 978-0394709413 ) ” The Good Days-They Were Terrible!” [ " debunking the wrongly nostalgic view of the Gilded Age, describing in vivid detail hazards of pollution, dangerous traffic, low-quality housing, rural hardships, serf-like labor conditions, rampant crime (police corruption indemic), unhealthy food or drink, lack of public health (helped by horrible sanitation problems), brutal education methods, grindingly difficult, slow traveling and even perils in leisure activities which menaced people"]

  Yes, the Otto Bettman (1903-1998) of the Bettman picture archive, now the Corbis Bettman archive.

• 9 T Ian McLeod // Aug 8, 2011 at 2:12 pm

  A stimulating back-to-basics post, Frances. I have been marching in the densification parade for 20 years, but every time I go for a 30-minute run out here in Burbland, I am reminded of the seductive attractiveness of big houses, big yards and deserted streets. In all parts of the region there is resistance, and some resentment, towards the gospel of urban planning as you describe it.

  So are the planners wrong? I think if there’s a problem, it might be that the story is spun out in terms of cultural biases. I would like to see more discussion of the costs of different models of development, and who pays — not only financially, but also in terms of health, housing quality and access to services. This, to me, would form a better basis for public decision-making than the question of whether a planner finds something “interesting.”

• 10 boohoo // Aug 8, 2011 at 2:14 pm

  A Planner,

  I think we need both. The Cambie Plan is based on the principle of TOD. But, for example, it calls for 4-6 stories at 30th and Cambie. 5 blocks from skytrain. Yet at 24th and Yukon, 1 block away, it is to remain single family. How does that make sense if the raison d’etre of the plan is to take advantage of skytrain?

  Plus, you have no transition. Imagine the lane backing all these 4-6-8 story buildings on Cambie and the single family home on the other side.

• 11 Joe Just Joe // Aug 8, 2011 at 2:40 pm

  Over 90% of drivers beleive they are better then the other drivers on the road. Planners are no different.
  Planners are pretty smart people and have studied the mistakes of their predecessors in order not to repeat them. The problem is they almost always create new problems for their successors to deal with.
  The biggest mistake made is thinking they know better and trying to correct exisiting issues w/o completely understanding the future issues that the corrections will cause.
  Unfortunately we don’t know what these future problems will be until they’re here. That’s why going slow shouldn’t be seen as a negative but as a positive.
  Our planning dept has done better then most, but it still creates enough issues to ensure they will never be out of a job.

• 12 Ron // Aug 8, 2011 at 2:43 pm

  I agree that there should be nodal development around the stations rather than just linear development along the arterials (note that nodal development would include development along the arterials).

  You need the flexibility of having developments (including retail) off the main street. Who doesn’t know of a charming courtyard or retail street off the main street?

  Linear retail is like taking a shopping mall approach to the City – it’s a bit too contrived – funnelling and directing people.
  Other cities (i.e. downtown Seattle) don’t have the linear retail focus you see in Vancouver (i.e. Robson, Granville, Davie, Denman).

• 13 Richard // Aug 8, 2011 at 2:43 pm

  @A Planner

  I’ll restate and clarify that a bit. Nodal density should be the priority especially around transit stations. Linear density should be used in cases where it will discourage motor vehicle trips.

  Please note that transit is nodal transportation while driving is linear, so it initiatively makes sense that nodal developments support transit better.

  I would suggest that in a lot of cases, linear development does encourage driving though. It is simply much quicker driving than having to take the bus if you are trying to shop a stores that are a fair distance apart because the development has been strung along the corridor rather than concentrated in one node. I expect even if people are driving, nodal development is better. People can just park in one place and do a bunch of shopping rather than driving from store to store along a corridor.

• 14 CTS // Aug 8, 2011 at 3:37 pm

  Live, work, shop, play all in the same neighbourhood is either a small town or an urban autarky (no trade/exchange, so kind of like Albania under Hoxha). I have a bigger problem of trying to freeze cities at some point and not recognize that chaotic dynamism is what defines a city

• 15 Baran // Aug 8, 2011 at 5:25 pm

  @Richard #13,

  Development around transit can be nodal or linear, depending on many factors, most importantly the type of transit. Nodal development only makes sense around rapid transit stations (i.e. Canada Line), where you should plan higher density for a radius of up to 800 m around the station which is believed to the max distance people are willing to walk to use high-quality (rapid and frequent) transit service. If rapid transit stations are far apart (say 2 km), then yes, you’ll have transit-oriented nodes around the stations. But, in case of Cambie St, the distance between some of the stations is 6-8 blocks, so the nodes around the stations overlap, and you end up with what looks like a linear development.

  Linear development, where it makes sense, does have advantages. You can end up with steady blocks of retail at the ground level, similar to Main St, which makes the street interesting and encourages walking to destinations / running errands on foot rather than driving.

  Another point with Cambie St, is that high density nodes will likely face serious neighbourhood opposition. Whereas steady rows of 4-6 storey buildings can achieve similar densities at a scale that is more appropriate for the neighbourhood.

  Going back to Fabula’s post, I think one of the biggest challenges facing us (planners and not), and which will continue to haunt us and make us regret decisions, is finding the balance between private and public interests. Cities and many other public agencies (e.g. TransLink) have to accommodate private interests to be able to achieve public interests and that’s never easy and clean. Some of these decisions might be seen as “fatal mistakes” by future generations…

• 16 Chris B // Aug 8, 2011 at 6:25 pm

  I think the idea of density = high rises is one that should be examined. There are all kinds of densities that are appropriate, and we seem stuck on two conceptions – the 3 units per acre of the suburbs or the high rise. In between are all sorts of appealing configurations: 12 units per acre of the streetcar suburbs or the miles of 4 – 6 storey buildings of paris, or the rows of townhouses in London. All nice, but all more or less excluded from our debate about densification.

• 17 Living in Marine Gardens // Aug 8, 2011 at 7:15 pm

  As someone living in a multi-family, flat, rental complex near a Canada Line Station in the Cambie corridor, I feel that the replacement of existing structures with new ones might make for a walkable neighbourhood,
  however:
  -it will also drive away families with lower incomes (rents in the new rental units that the City of Vancouver makes obligatory in any new multi-use high- or midrise project replacing the existing complex are going to be much higher)
  -this will then result in more urban sprawl, as these families are forced out of the Marpole/Oakridge neighbourhood, probably in some more Easterly Vancouver neighbourhoods, or forced to leave the City of Vancouver and move further out the valley.
  -while this might be seen as a not-in-my-backyard argument, this is true for all the planning along the Cambie corridor, where existing rentals will be replaced with higher-yield rentals (read: not affordable to the people living there today).

  And the subsidized housing addresses a different market-segment of renters alltogether, so is no substitute.

• 18 A Dave // Aug 9, 2011 at 11:40 pm

  “I’d like to see some serious real-world analysis of your contention regarding high rise development.”

  Well Richard, if we were to analyze it properly, we’d measure cradle to grave. The key building material used in high-rise construction is concrete (and to bind that, cement). Here’s what Wiki says about cement:

  “The cement industry is the second largest CO2 emitting industry behind power generation. The cement industry produces about 5% of global man-made CO2 emissions, of which 50% is from the chemical process, and 40% from burning fuel.[23] The amount of CO2 emitted by the cement industry is nearly 900 kg of CO2 for every 1000 kg of cement produced.”

  This alone appears to put the sustainability of hi-rise tower construction into serious doubt, and we have barely begun the analysis. Like I said, it would take an essay…

  A Planner, you are comparing a suburban problem to a metropolitan city street that already has rapid transit. I’m not sure it’s a valid comparison to Cambie or Broadway.

  Irregardless, I’m not really taking issue with linear vs. nodal here, I’m arguing that developing blocks of residential FRONTING commuter arterials (the Cambie Plan, and soon Broadway), or what our Director of Planning likes to call “Vancouverism 2.0″, is potential folly. Noise, pollution, traffic is fine for commercial frontage, but for living directly on?

  Again, residential units fronting busy streets are worth less, invested in less, and sell for less, for obvious reasons. So I am wondering if Vancouverism 2.0 is just going to produce a linear ghetto through the heart of Vancouver in 15-20 years?

• 19 Bill Lee // Aug 11, 2011 at 8:40 pm

  @A Dave // Aug 9, 2011 at 11:40 pm #18

  Mix limestone and silicon (sand) and somre iron bits, then fire up to make the cement (Portland cement)of the gre ater concrete mix
  CaCO3 (heat) > CaO + CO2
  Add water to CaO in mixing concrete
  CaO + H2O + CO2= CaCO3 + H2O plus heat
  Carbon dioxide sequestered.

• 20 A Dave // Aug 14, 2011 at 11:59 am

  Bill, I’m not an elementary school teacher, just a parent. So, while I’m sure The Fraser would approve of you digging up this post-production formula and committing some “silicone” in the grand scheme of things, it still pains me to know that my kids’ overtaxed School District spawns half a million dollars a year in carbon offsets to the likes of Lafarge.

  LEED, as you probably know, encourages the use of concrete in new construction, assigning significant points to its profligate use. Sequestered CO2, and so much more, is released when old concrete structures are demolished, crushed and repurposed – also earning LEED bonus points.

  Like you, LEED isn’t concerned about spawning beds or production emissions, just the trucking distance from plant to building site.

  And neither LEED nor the COV building code even mention CO2 sequestering concretes anyway, do they?

• 21 Wendy // Aug 15, 2011 at 7:10 am

  Been on vacation and came to this late. Great post and question Frances.

  I’ll think more about this question of what are we missing, but my gut reaction is that Tiktaalik is right (Comment 1). In the future we’ll bemoan the lack of small CRU retail spaces that work for independent retailers / cafes etc. and at the same time create a more interesting streetscape and neighbourhood experience. Contrast Cambie near the Rise to parts of Main St. or Commercial Dr.

  Maybe there needs to be some “maximums” on the size of retail units in some developments in order to allow for these independent businesses. A land owner may prefer to have a big space they can lease to Shopper’s Drug Mart or a big Grocery chain (“national covenant tenants” to use the industry term), but they’ll actually likely make more money leasing several smaller units (tho leasing to independents tends to be more management intensive).

Leave a Comment