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My personal view is that urban built form is designed around the pedestrian and suburban built form is built around the car.
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Urban all the way.
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Hybrids exist, and those Toronto neighborhoods are an example. Big US examples include most of Queens, Eastern Brooklyn, Central LA, Western SF, much of Chicago outside the Loop and core areas, and several central neighborhoods in Seattle.
Maybe these are the inner ring/ streetcar suburbs many have refer to. To me, the pedestrian and the car can coexist in harmony in these places. |
In the North American context, likely urban-leaning, but elements of both. It's very subjective. Streetcar suburbia in a 21st century boomtown.
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The main commercial drag: urban
The tighter bungalow style SFH residential streets: streetcar The large lot/large SFH residential streets: suburban The towers in the park: I guess urban, but like the worst kind. Not my cup of tea at all. It's an interesting mash-up any way you look at it. |
I really like this street and I'd happily live in one of those old apartment buildings.
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Some stats for the area. Lower Forest Hill (Forest Hill South), south of Eglinton Ave., is what people commonly associate with "Forest Hill" - it's where the big mansions and super-rich are, the average SFH is probably around $5 million. Upper Forest Hill (Forest Hill North) is north of Eglinton, on the border with North York, is mostly big apartment buildings with some "regular" rich SFHs (i.e. around $2 or $3 million).
Forest Hill South Detached house 34% Apartment <5 stories 22% Apartment 5+ stories 41% Median household income $94,536 Median family income $183,174 Per capita income $204,521 Drive to work 49% Public transit to work 38% Forest Hill North Detached house 27% Apartment <5 stories 7% Apartment 5+ stories 63% Median household income $70,920 Median family income $100,785 Per capita income $85,099 Drive to work 46% Public transit to work 43% |
Technically urban is any area with a population density of 1500 people per square mile, I believe.
Colloquially, It’s all subjective. One persons urban is another’s suburban and one persons suburban is another's rural. Here is the intersection I live on: https://goo.gl/maps/VqUEojjGd4wDqbJc7 I met a woman from manhattan staying in an Airbnb nearby last summer and she thought we were in the suburbs. I can just as easily imagine someone from a more rural/exurban area feeling the opposite. |
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A Manhattanite thinks Riverdale, Bronx or Forest Hills, Queens (areas with higher density than almost anywhere in the U.S. outside of NYC) are the country. But someone in exurban America would consider Forest Hill, Toronto to be intensely urban and incredibly packed-in. |
Berkeley, CA came to mind
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Population of Forest Hill is 23,500, with a density of about 15,000 people per square mile.
Forest Hill was incorporated as a village in 1924. It joined Metropolitan Toronto in 1953 and maintained semi-autonomous status until 1967 when the village was abolished. Lower Forest Hill was built up in the 1920s and 1930s, while Upper Forest Hill was built up in the 1940s and 1950s. The big apartments are from the 1960s. |
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Moving west from Forest Hill along Eglinton, you enter the old borough of York - largely a working class rump centered along Eglinton Ave. that held out until the amalgamation of 1998. The line between the "old" city of Toronto and York seems quite arbitrary, even when York existed it didn't really have a strong civic identity.
Moving west from Forest Hill along Eglinton, the class composition quickly changes. Here is the Oakwood-Vaughan area (aka Five Points), a multicultural working class neighborhood that includes an important Caribbean commercial area. https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.69705...7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.69681...7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.ca/maps/place/168...!4d-79.4457191 https://www.google.ca/maps/place/171...!4d-79.4467047 https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.69238...7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.69086...7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.69296...7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.69580...7i16384!8i8192 |
Fully urban: Both residential and commercial streets are oriented around pedestrians.
Fully suburban: Both residential and commercial streets are oriented around cars. Hybrid: One but not the other (and I can cite examples of both). |
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https://goo.gl/maps/d9wXk8ktjfgMzGMZ8 https://goo.gl/maps/cSX7bhf89X4ZSVR86 i do a significant amount of walking in this area including to a large suburban CBD to the south. |
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How about this area? Moving west along Eglinton and up Weston Rd., Mount Dennis and Weston are a bit further removed. These are struggling communities sometimes referred to as Toronto's "rust belt. One of the largest Black communities in Canada, with a lot of Caribbean and African businesses. To me, it's obviously very Toronto but with a bit of a rust belt meets the outer boroughs feel.
https://www.google.com/maps/@43.6870...7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.com/maps/@43.6881...7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com/maps/@43.6911...7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com/maps/@43.6926...7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com/maps/@43.6943...7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com/maps/@43.6982...7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com/maps/@43.6989...7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com/maps/@43.6990...7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com/maps/@43.6998...7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com/maps/@43.7000...7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com/maps/@43.7012...7i13312!8i6656 Some side streets: https://www.google.com/maps/@43.6904...7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.com/maps/@43.6898...7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.com/maps/@43.6956...7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.com/maps/@43.6993...7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.com/maps/@43.6989...7i16384!8i8192 |
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Generally a good way to judge it is to look at the overall percentage of land covered by buildings as opposed to roads, parking, and lawn type spaces. But this comes with one caveat. If you compare two areas of SFHs with the same lot coverage and same street widths but in one area the houses are built to the street with a big backyard while in the other the houses are in the middle or back of the lot with a bigger front yard, I'd consider the former to be more urban. |
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