reviewed earlier<\/a>) presented the dynamics of ethnic communities in the suburbs helped to crystallize some concerns I have about the way the City of Toronto proposes to develop its suburbs in its official plan.<\/p>\nThe exhibit pointed out the importance of small, affordable retail and office space in allowing ethnic communities to provide services for themselves, and creating accessible and affordable avenues for building businesses. This kind of retail can be found both in old strip malls, and in newer condominium-style large malls where business owners can buy their own shop space (or lease from individual owners).<\/p>\n
At the same time, ethnic communities are transforming the original use-concept of suburban housing, often fitting in extended families, or, in houses, renting out rooms to other members of their community. The result is that the housing is both more affordable, and also that local densities are much higher than originally conceived by planners.<\/p>\n
The city’s official plan calls for the currently hostile, unappealing suburban arterials to be transformed into attractive and sustainable “Avenues” oriented around rapid transit and friendly to pedestrians, by encouraging the building of dense mixed-use mid-rise (e.g. 6 storey) buildings along them. I’m very much in favour of this concept in principle, as I have consistently found that this is the most appealing and lively kind of urban streetscape in any city.<\/p>\n
The problem, however, is that whenever I’ve seen this kind of building built in Toronto in recent years, the result in inevitably the same — a dull building with expensive small condos on the upper floors and the familiar chain retail stores on the ground level. My colleague Sean Marshall describes this phenomenon as “Rabba, dry cleaner, Subway, Blockbuster. Repeat.”<\/p>\n
If suburban arterials had their strip malls demolished to be populated by these kinds of buildings, the effect would be to drive the existing communities and their businesses off the main streets, because many would not be able to afford either the retail space or the residential spaces. For those who can afford them, the residential spaces may be too small for their needs, and the retail spaces will be designed for easy leases to chains rather than leases to independents. Also, these streetscapes would be dull and sterile — much less hostile than the existing streets, certainly, but instead merely anodyne, rather than streets with vitality and a real sense of place that genuinely attract people and serve as the centre of their community the way older main streets do.<\/p>\n
If the Avenues strategy is going to work, Toronto needs to re-think the kind of development it will encourage along them.<\/p>\n
First, it needs to think of ways to integrate affordable older buildings such as strip malls into new streetscapes. As Jane Jacobs points out, the presence of old, affordable buildings where people can start their businesses or their families is crucial to building a vibrant community. There are several ideas in the Fringe Benefits<\/em> exhibit that point to how this could be done, but there is a lot more thought that could be put into it — and much of it could come from the communities themselves.<\/p>\nSecond, Toronto needs to find ways to make new mixed-use buildings more accessible and individual. A key measure would be to make sure that retail\/office outlets on the street level are built in a variety of sizes, including small ones, and are at least sometimes sold as condominium retail spaces, so that each one becomes individualized and they are accessible to business owners from the local community. It would also help a great deal if buildings were built on smaller lots, so that there was a wider variety of approaches to buildings along each block, creating both more visual interest, and also more opportunity for a variety of developers to try a variety of strategies. This approach would replicate the successful development of main streets in Toronto and in many other cities earlier in the century.<\/p>\n
The city’s “Avenues” strategy will only work if it results in distinctive communities with a real sense of place, and that will only happen if it enhances existing communities, rather than displacing them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The way the new exhibition Fringe Benefits (reviewed earlier) presented the dynamics of ethnic communities in the suburbs helped to crystallize some concerns I have about the way the City of Toronto proposes to develop its suburbs in its official plan. The exhibit pointed out the importance of small, affordable retail and office space inContinue reading “Fringe Benefits continued: How should “Avenues” develop?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4006,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,33,32,20],"tags":[9735,9734,9731,9733,504,12,2426,5642,3473,9732,7531,19],"class_list":["post-3359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events","category-housing","category-streetscape","category-urban-design","tag-avenues","tag-blockbuster","tag-chain-retail-stores","tag-condominium-retail-spaces","tag-jane-jacobs","tag-planning","tag-retail","tag-retail-space","tag-retail-spaces","tag-retailoffice-outlets","tag-sean-marshall","tag-toronto"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nFringe Benefits continued: How should "Avenues" develop? - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/07\/16\/fringe-benefits-continued-how-should-avenues-develop\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Fringe Benefits continued: How should "Avenues" develop? - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The way the new exhibition Fringe Benefits (reviewed earlier) presented the dynamics of ethnic communities in the suburbs helped to crystallize some concerns I have about the way the City of Toronto proposes to develop its suburbs in its official plan. 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![\"Mayor](\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/images\/fringebenefits-mayor.jpg\" "\\"Mayor")
<\/p>\n