Not exactly news, mostly reiterating what we already know, but makes for an interesting discussion.
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- Thread starter Surrealplaces
- Start date
Not exactly news, mostly reiterating what we already know, but makes for an interesting discussion.
ByeByeBaby
Active Member
It's interesting work, although very planning-student-y, for good and for ill. Here's the actual projects.
"Missing Middle" is such an unfortunate thought-terminating cliche. One in three dwellings in the city are of this type; is that really missing? A lot of the student work was looking at the east Beltline; it's true that there's little of this housing there, but is lower-density housing really the best choice for a very urban area with a pretty good set of amenities and very good non-car transportation options? The other main area the students looked at was Kensington, where missing middle is in fact the dominant form of housing; if something is over 60% of the housing in an area, how can it still be missing?
It's something that was coined about the United States and people assume that it must apply to Canada even though Canada is a different country with it's own laws, customs and culture.
I do want to show the Hillhurst Sunnyside CA folks this design, although I do want to have a cardiologist and crash cart on hand as a precautionary measure. (Although note the most interesting things are not 'missing middle'):
It's also interesting to hear their discussion of areas; I honestly don't know if it's just a student who's never been somewhere commenting about something they're ignorant about with a very superficial look or if it's a refreshing hot take free from my blinkered North American preconceptions.
Like one project talks about a street in the East Beltline as having "relatively high traffic density" and "a car oriented street" that is "too wide at the moment for generating some kind of 'street-life'" and that should be narrowed. That street?
Another project talks about Hillhurst, between 10th and 14th as having "just a few shops and supermarkets" making the residents "dependent on cars". Another one talks about the need for a second high school in the Hillhurst area, even though they're only planning on increasing area population by like 10% and Queen Elizabeth has been bussing in students from Sandstone to keep the lights on for over 30 years now.
"Missing Middle" is such an unfortunate thought-terminating cliche. One in three dwellings in the city are of this type; is that really missing? A lot of the student work was looking at the east Beltline; it's true that there's little of this housing there, but is lower-density housing really the best choice for a very urban area with a pretty good set of amenities and very good non-car transportation options? The other main area the students looked at was Kensington, where missing middle is in fact the dominant form of housing; if something is over 60% of the housing in an area, how can it still be missing?
It's something that was coined about the United States and people assume that it must apply to Canada even though Canada is a different country with it's own laws, customs and culture.
I do want to show the Hillhurst Sunnyside CA folks this design, although I do want to have a cardiologist and crash cart on hand as a precautionary measure. (Although note the most interesting things are not 'missing middle'):
It's also interesting to hear their discussion of areas; I honestly don't know if it's just a student who's never been somewhere commenting about something they're ignorant about with a very superficial look or if it's a refreshing hot take free from my blinkered North American preconceptions.
Like one project talks about a street in the East Beltline as having "relatively high traffic density" and "a car oriented street" that is "too wide at the moment for generating some kind of 'street-life'" and that should be narrowed. That street?
2nd Street West. The one-lane-per-direction road with cycle tracks. Literally the least car oriented street in the entire area.
Another project talks about Hillhurst, between 10th and 14th as having "just a few shops and supermarkets" making the residents "dependent on cars". Another one talks about the need for a second high school in the Hillhurst area, even though they're only planning on increasing area population by like 10% and Queen Elizabeth has been bussing in students from Sandstone to keep the lights on for over 30 years now.
There's a bit of both I think. Much the way North Americans often don't understand the benefits of the European way of doing things, Europeans are often ignorant to the fact that things can be differently than Europe and still be good.
Yeah, the HSCA folks would literally go ballistic seeing those plans.
Which is a shame because the overall plan IMO is a good type of density mixture. I provides the high density where it counts - along 10th street and the LRT, and tapers down to a lower level along corridors, and still keeps a lot of the SFHs and duplexes.