Mike in TO said:
There are good reasons why the development community is lobbying to have the city remove or reduce parking requirements & it's because it's a money losing requirement that makes little sense in an urban environment..
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If building additional levels are so expensive, why not half the number of levels and use parking lifts in each spot?
 
Sir Novelty Fashion said:
^ That's very true. People - especially Europeans - complain about Toronto having an "American-style" downtown, which is superficially true next to your average European city. But it's a simulacrum - an imitation of something that doesn't really exist. How many big American cities are there where the urban lifestyle is actually liveable?

Not many. Rule out NYC because it's NYC, and is less an "American city" than a global anomaly. We can rule out LA because it's LA. That leaves, what? Boston, Chicago, and SF?
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All good points SNF. What's also ironic is how difficult it is for many European cities to develop livable suburban areas. They often fall victim to the same car-oriented design which we North Americans been wrongly promoting for years. The areas outside of Nice, Florence and Madrid come immediately to mind as windswept, traffic-facilitating, big-box-promoting nightmares, sometimes worse than our own suburbs. At least in Europe they tend towards 5-9 story apartment buildings while our own planners and developers seem keen to propagate the suburban dream until the disaster is too obvious to ignore.

These photos show what I'm on about.

Suburban Madrid
celosia_mvrdv070408_1.jpg


Suburban Nice (with Alsop's fantastic, if isolated, Hôtel du Départment des Bouches-du-Rhône of 1993)
arcnows.jpg


39WONDER.jpg
 
The fact remains we have a woefully inadequate rail/metro system, a almost completely non existent express rail/metro system and likely will remain so for the rest of our lifetimes.

Europe deserves credit for their medium rise, high density suburbs but it's not like they have a choice. I know my family would be perfectly content in Vaughan although the Germans are as auto-centric suburbia as Europeans probably come.
 
better launch date yet .... 2012 12 21

(LOL free advertising for Sony Pictures :D)
 
What mystifies me is where all these mortgage paying condo dwellers are supposed to be working. Not at Starbucks I assume. There simply haven't been nearly enough office developments in recent years to absorb all these new condo dwelling workers.
So there must be a substitution effect whereby commuters are being replaced by people living downtown - or people moving from suburbs into the core.
 
buildup said:
What mystifies me is where all these mortgage paying condo dwellers are supposed to be working. Not at Starbucks I assume. There simply haven't been nearly enough office developments in recent years to absorb all these new condo dwelling workers.
So there must be a substitution effect whereby commuters are being replaced by people living downtown - or people moving from suburbs into the core.
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I completely agree with this sentiment! The increase in the number of people living downtown is greater than the increase in the number of people working. One explanation is 'reverse commute', in that people in white collar office professions who are purchasing these downtown condos actually work in the 905 (like Markham and Missi). For example, I have purchased a unit at Lumiere on College & Bay and am planning to move to Toronto once completed (I currently live in Calgary), and while I would love to work in downtown, I'll most likely end up working in the outer edges of 416 or the 905 given the location of head offices of the companies I want to work for. So not only does it suck that I wouldn't get to work downtown but the lack of a proper subway line to say Missi (which I believe is necessary) makes it worse! :( But to live downtown is appealing to me and hence I'm willing to sacrifice the commute time (which is the opposite of many 905ers who want a big suburban home and are willing to sacrifice commute time accordingly) :)
 
My guess would be that people currently moving into condos downtown are suburbanites who already have jobs downtown, but are seeking the convenience of living close to their work place.
 
Don't forget that the number of people who work downtown is still a lot higher than the number of people who live downtown - 400,000 vs 170,000 (2006 numbers - both have risen since).
 
Office jobs aren't the only jobs that pay enough for people to afford condos though. Think of all the potential in manufacturing, technical, construction, and even people higher up in the service industry (think hotel, restaurant, etc.)
 
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