Suburban Skylines

[mrnyc]

have a google earth lakewood gold coast on lake erie (cleveland)
tallest is 29 stories

[Labtec]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

which of these pseudo-downtowns have dense pedestrian traffic? That, to me, is the true litmus test...not banal tall glass office buildings or condos.

Cobb Galleria / The battery has foot traffic, especially when there's an Atlanta Braves game but even when there isn't a Braves game it has decent foot traffic:

• Video Link

The area in Sandy Springs will get more foot traffic as it is connected to transit and a walkable shopping district will be built there. It will be basically the same as Avalon which is in Alpharetta (around 10 miles north of Sandy Springs), here is a video of Avalon which isn't connected to transit:

• Video Link

[TWAK]

The Dub Sea

source

source
Contra Costa Centre TOD

source

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

which of these pseudo-downtowns have dense pedestrian traffic? That, to me, is the true litmus test...not banal tall glass office buildings or condos.

North York Centre is fairly vibrant, I'd say. No substitute for an inner city street, but it has a pretty busy, densely packed array of fine-grained businesses.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSa41CU-7CU


A beautiful day at Yonge St. and Finch Ave. by A Great Capture, on Flickr


https://www.flickr.com/photos/torontosmurf/


https://www.flickr.com/photos/torontosmurf/


https://www.flickr.com/photos/torontosmurf/


https://www.flickr.com/photos/torontosmurf/


https://www.flickr.com/photos/torontosmurf/


https://www.flickr.com/photos/torontosmurf/


https://www.flickr.com/photos/torontosmurf/


https://twitter.com/g_meslin/status/926115143599230976


It'll get better - or at least a little more attractive - once the Yonge St. revitalization is done though:


https://urbantoronto.ca/news/2020/12...h-yonge-street

[MolsonExport]

Yeah, I have been to that Korea town numerous times. Not as good as the one near the Annex, but still pretty good.

[BnaBreaker]

Originally Posted by TWAK

Wasn't the angular building in the middle there a landmark building on Sim City 3000?

[Klippenstein]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

North York Centre is fairly vibrant, I'd say. No substitute for an inner city street, but it has a pretty busy, densely packed array of fine-grained businesses.

Isn’t that technically in the city of Toronto though?

[suburbanite]

Originally Posted by Klippenstein

Isn’t that technically in the city of Toronto though?

Following amalgamation North York became part of the City of Toronto. The surrounding area would definitely be classified as suburban though. I would think it's better to base the definition of suburban skylines off of the built form that they arise from, and not arbitrary municipal boundaries. Otherwise, a city like Phoenix technically couldn't have a "suburban skyline" even if it was located in Deer Valley, 15 miles away from downtown.

[mhays]

True. "Suburban" is about form, not how they divide the city administratively.

[Klippenstein]

Hmmm… so then Hyde Park in Chicago would be suburban?

[suburbanite]

Originally Posted by Klippenstein

Hmmm… so then Hyde Park in Chicago would be suburban?

You consider the built form around Hyde Park and the University of Chicago to be suburban in nature?

[Klippenstein]

It was founded as a suburb of Chicago, but I guess those definitions change over the years. So you mean primarily SFHs as a definition of suburban?

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Klippenstein

It was founded as a suburb of Chicago, but I guess those definitions change over the years. So you mean primarily SFHs as a definition of suburban?

don't worry too much about it.

in chicagoland, "suburb" and "suburban" are used in a fashion that is heavily biased towards the political understandings of those terms. ie. there are only two kinds of places: "the city" and "the burbs". built form is MUCH lower in the equation.

sauganash is pretty suburban in form, but it lies within chicago city limits, so it's in "the city".

parts of evanston are far more urban in form, but it lies outside of chicago city limits, so it's in "the burbs".


people in other places don't always use these words as black and white as we tend to do.


if the north york skyline was scooped up completely as is and dropped into the northwest side of the city of chicago, nobody here would call it a "suburban skyline", but if you moved it 10 miles up milwaukee ave. to glenview, boom, it would instantly become a "suburban skyline". absolutely nothing about it could change other than location, and that's still how people here would see it.

[suburbanite]

I would tend to think of Hyde Park as more of a traditional "streetcar suburb". It was built as a suburb, but before automobiles were the primary means of transportation. I think most of us with our modern perspective probably view these areas as thoroughly urban nowadays. You would not likely find street facing garages, winding arterial roads without sidewalks, large parking lots, etc.

[Doady]

North York may have been a suburb once, but North York City Centre in particular and Willowdale surrounding it is old. Maybe not on the same level as Evanston, but the old foundation is there, even built upon a grid. Not sure it is all pre-war, I do see some 50s style multi-storey strip malls, but I wouldn't call it "suburban" any more than Etobicoke City Centre either, also at the terminus of a subway line, built around Islington Village. If you talk about suburban skylines in North York and Etobicoke, you can talk about Rexdale and Jane-Finch instead. And of course, these places probably represent less than 10% of the suburban high-rises in the Toronto area, and the suburban high-rises probably represent most of the high-rises in the Toronto area.

I have to emphasize, North York City Centre wasn't based on a strong foundation. It was the beginning of the 50s, right when the car was about to take over, but they didn't allow that to happen, so some attention must given to that achievement. Chicago area has a much stronger foundation than Toronto area, much older city, much bigger rail system, but they never built upon it. Mississauga Transit ridership reached 27.3 million linked trips in 2004, probably around 40 million boardings (unlinked trips), surpassing Pace. Brampton Transit ridership reached 18 million linked trips, or 29 million unlinked trips, in 2012, probably surpassing Pace a couple of years later. Of course, TTC serves mostly post-war suburban area too and ridership is double that of even CTA. You can say Chicago area failed, but maybe that was the intent, so it was actually the success, Toronto is the failure.

What is "suburban" in Toronto is just not as clearly defined. It's not such a black and white term here, but the difference is not so black and white to begin with. Chicago stands out as a bastion of urban living. See other inner cities in the US that have been decimated by the car, parking lots everywhere, but Chicago has remained intact. That is a remarkable achievement too. But I think to be truly urban, an inner city or downtown can't be isolated like an island forever. The suburbs of Toronto seem strange? So much high-rises and skylines and transit in the suburbs? That's Toronto's influence. They are suburbs, so they are extensions of Toronto, reflecting the culture of Toronto, rather than being separate. People might call places like Mississauga and Brampton "edge cities", but they arguably fit the definition of "suburb" better than places like Naperville or Schaumburg. A place like Mississauga City Centre doesn't divert attention away from Downtown Toronto, it only helps to strengthen Toronto's downtown and bring even more attention to it. Even if the streets of Mississauga City Centre and other suburban pseudo downtowns are not packed with pedestrians, they still help pack the streets of real downtowns with pedestrians.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by suburbanite

I would tend to think of Hyde Park as more of a traditional "streetcar suburb". It was built as a suburb, but before automobiles were the primary means of transportation. I think most of us with our modern perspective probably view these areas as thoroughly urban nowadays. You would not likely find street facing garages, winding arterial roads without sidewalks, large parking lots, etc.

my point was that in chicago, the phrase "suburban skyline" would 100% exclusively rely on whether said skyline existed within or outside of the city of chicago's city limits.

toronto's a bit different in that you have the "old city" and then a shit ton of former suburbs that got amalgamated in 1998 into the new "megacity".

chicago went on massive land annexing sprees in the past as well (the city was more or less "annexed out" by 1930, with the exception of the ORD tumor out on the extreme NW side in 1960), but that was so long ago now that we don't really have those kinds of "3rd space" areas that people think of as being "the burbs" and also still part of "the city" at the same time. you can only be one of two mutually exclusive things in chicagoland. it's just a different psychology here.

[Nite]

Humber Bay - Etobicoke (Toronto)

Frozen Humber Bay by Dave Wong, on Flickr

[Nite]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

which of these pseudo-downtowns have dense pedestrian traffic? That, to me, is the true litmus test...not banal tall glass office buildings or condos.

Yonge And Eglinton is a very walkable area of Toronto.
• Video Link

[Klippenstein]

Originally Posted by Doady

I have to emphasize, North York City Centre wasn't based on a strong foundation. It was the beginning of the 50s, right when the car was about to take over, but they didn't allow that to happen, so some attention must given to that achievement. Chicago area has a much stronger foundation than Toronto area, much older city, much bigger rail system, but they never built upon it. Mississauga Transit ridership reached 27.3 million linked trips in 2004, probably around 40 million boardings (unlinked trips), surpassing Pace. Brampton Transit ridership reached 18 million linked trips, or 29 million unlinked trips, in 2012, probably surpassing Pace a couple of years later. Of course, TTC serves mostly post-war suburban area too and ridership is double that of even CTA. You can say Chicago area failed, but maybe that was the intent, so it was actually the success, Toronto is the failure.

What is "suburban" in Toronto is just not as clearly defined. It's not such a black and white term here, but the difference is not so black and white to begin with. Chicago stands out as a bastion of urban living. See other inner cities in the US that have been decimated by the car, parking lots everywhere, but Chicago has remained intact. That is a remarkable achievement too. But I think to be truly urban, an inner city or downtown can't be isolated like an island forever. The suburbs of Toronto seem strange? So much high-rises and skylines and transit in the suburbs? That's Toronto's influence. They are suburbs, so they are extensions of Toronto, reflecting the culture of Toronto, rather than being separate. People might call places like Mississauga and Brampton "edge cities", but they arguably fit the definition of "suburb" better than places like Naperville or Schaumburg. A place like Mississauga City Centre doesn't divert attention away from Downtown Toronto, it only helps to strengthen Toronto's downtown and bring even more attention to it. Even if the streets of Mississauga City Centre and other suburban pseudo downtowns are not packed with pedestrians, they still help pack the streets of real downtowns with pedestrians.

Chicago has failed to design, build and even support existing transit oriented development outside the core, which has hurt the urbanity of the metro area in general. There are some nodes that stayed desirable even during Chicago’s decline (which Toronto I don’t believe has really experienced in the same way) making it easier for those areas to already bounce back, but for large parts of the city the groundwork that will allow for strong, continued, urban growth outside the core is only being planned and laid now. To a certain extent, this is happening because the core is so strong and providing funding to further develop the urbanity and vibrancy of many outer neighborhoods of the city. On the other hand, it is only necessary because the existing urbanity has fallen apart or been hollowed out and needs to be reconstructed at least to a certain extent. Though the loop has faired well compared to other Midwestern cities that’s not true for the city as a whole. I wouldn’t count Chicago out of course. I’m an optimist when it comes to Chicago. And it seems the city as a whole is finally getting over the effects of the 2008 housing crisis, the destruction of public housing and reversing the effects of white flight without relying on white people to move back.

From what I remember from the last census the growth of the suburbs has been slowing and I’m hopeful this indicates a turning point where the suburbs stop growing out as much and start growing their own stronger cores. I seriously hope more metros start to follow at the least the transit oriented aspects of the Toronto model. I know there are some problems with it at the moment, but it seems to be an important foundation for future growth… which Toronto obviously will need.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by Nite

Yonge And Eglinton is a very walkable area of Toronto.

I wouldn't call Yonge & Eg a "pseudo-downtown" (or suburban) though - it's really just a pre-war, inner city neighbourhood that developed a bit of a high-rise node around a transit hub. But yes, it's otherwise probably the most vibrant & walkable of Toronto's non-downtown skylines.