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Price TagsPrice TagsPrice TagsIssue 106 November 18, 2008

Vaughan

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Why did

nobody notice it?

If these things

were so large,how comeeveryonemissed them?

Queen Elizabeth,

on the global creditcrunch.

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Things were so large

Vaughan is an edge city ofa quarter million people about 20 kilometres northwest

of downtown Toronto.

Where Highway 400 crosses the 407.

http://www.city.vaughan.on.ca/http://www.city.vaughan.on.ca/http://www.city.vaughan.on.ca/

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There is a Colossus Drivein Vaughan

that leads to the Colossus cineplex. that is part of the Riocan Colossus Centre

across the freeway from the Vaughan Corporate Centre.

http://www.trinity-group.com/index.php?q=node/217http://www.trinity-group.com/index.php?q=node/217http://www.city.vaughan.on.ca/newscentre/projects/corporate_centre.cfmhttp://www.city.vaughan.on.ca/newscentre/projects/corporate_centre.cfmhttp://www.city.vaughan.on.ca/newscentre/projects/corporate_centre.cfmhttp://www.trinity-group.com/index.php?q=node/217

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The Colossussits next to a huge interchange

But thats not the really colossal part ...

Colossusand its vastparking lot

where Highway 7 crosses over Highway 400.

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whereThe 400meetsThe 407.

One kilometre furthersouth of Highway 7 is

another interchange

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_400_(Ontario)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_400_(Ontario)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/407_ETRhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/407_ETRhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/407_ETRhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/407_ETRhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_400_(Ontario)

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How colossal is it?

This same interchange in Vancouver

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would occupy over half the West End.

But thats not the really colossal part.

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That is the scale of theVaughan CorporateCentre.

Five blocks of the Vaughan Corporate CentreFive blocks of the Vaughan Corporate Centre

3.53.5 kilometreskilometres

Its blocks are defined by theintersections of the arterial roads - wide,fast and far apart.

How colossal are these blocks?

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3.53.5 kilometreskilometres

Less than five would take in all the Downtown and West End of Vancouver

and some of Stanley Park.

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Blocks of asphalt are surrounded in turn by acres of emptiness,Blocks of asphalt are surrounded in turn by acres of emptiness,

awaiting more big boxes, more asphalt.awaiting more big boxes, more asphalt.

VaughanCorporate

Centre

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It is meant to handle cars and snow -

lots of space to park and pile.

It is vehicle-dependent and high carbon.Wasteful. Hostile. And very vulnerable.

This is a landscape designed by civil engineers and surveyors

to be big and simple.

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It could all be bulldozed tomorrow and it wouldn't be missed.

Its designers and builders, private and public, have produceda place that no one likes very much.

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This is also thelandscape of

SmartCentres.

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Smart!Centres is a Canadian company the largestand most-active retail developer and operator in the country that specializes in large-scale, unenclosed shoppingcentre format

which looks like this:

Highway 400 Smart!Centre (Vaughan)

and is designed like this.

http://www.smartcentres.com/http://www.smartcentres.com/http://www.smartcentres.com/http://www.smartcentres.com/

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SmartCentres is committed to bringing value to

Canadian communities

[valuein this context means getting the most return for a

modest investment in buildings and grounds.]

Jane Street Smart!Centre (Vaughan)

SmartCentres are made up ofvariously sized single-purposeboxes surrounded as much as

possible by parking lots.

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It spreads across suburbia, extending auto-dominant urban formwherever the arterials go.

Major Mackenzie Drive Smart!Centre(Vaughan)

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There are similar places all across the Greater Toronto Areanorth of Steeles Avenue - stretching in a band from

Brampton to Markham.

This is the 905 Belt -named after the areacode.

The belt is connectedand shaped by itsfreeways - the 401,

the most congestedroad in Canada, andthe 407, the firstelectronic toll road inCanada, nowprivatized.

Smart!Centres

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In the last decades of the 20thcentury, when government

disregarded the kind of transit-basedurban form that had made Toronto

one of North America's most enviable

cities, suburban growth blew past theborders of the Metropolitan area and

sprawled its way north.

a time before sustainability wastaken seriously, when moneywas easy and oil was cheap

and expected to stay that way

into an unbounded future.

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Motordom at its zenith.

A world so car-dependent that its leaders couldnt allowthemselves to imagine a world that

didnt look like this.

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Ultimately the unconstrainedgrowth of the 905 Belt generated

its own backlash, justifying afreeze on development and theintroduction of planning concepts,

like smart growth, that had beenignored heretofore.

With the introduction ofprovincially directed regional

planning for the first time sincethe 1970s came a change inplanning emphasis: namely,

'intensification' - using existingdeveloped land to accommodategrowth while at the same saving

open space and creating de-facto

urban-growth boundaries.

.Now called "Places to Grow," the plan wasformalized in 2006. New urbanist Peter

Calthorpe calls it was of the best frameworksfor regional planning he has ever seen.

Calthorpe is also working on an urban-centreplan at Langstaff where Yonge Street meets

the 407.

Five kilometres east of the interchange,the City is also trying to create a more

mixed-use town centre with a sense ofplace. Thornhill Town Centre nowoffers the lifestyle centre alternative.

http://www.placestogrow.ca/index.php?lang=englhttp://www.placestogrow.ca/index.php?lang=englhttp://www.placestogrow.ca/index.php?lang=englhttp://www.placestogrow.ca/index.php?lang=englhttp://www.thornhilltowncentre.com/thornhill/Town_Centre.htmlhttp://www.thornhilltowncentre.com/thornhill/Town_Centre.htmlhttp://www.thornhilltowncentre.com/thornhill/Town_Centre.htmlhttp://www.thornhilltowncentre.com/thornhill/Town_Centre.htmlhttp://www.thornhilltowncentre.com/thornhill/Town_Centre.htmlhttp://www.placestogrow.ca/index.php?lang=engl

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The impetus for change isthe extension of TorontosSpadina subway.

Plans anticipate it will cost

$3.5 billion (2006$) andtake seven years anambitious attempt totransform this amorphousentity into a downtown,connect it with the metrocore, and make it a place,much more urban, thatpeople might care about.

[For more on the historyof regional planning in

Ontario, go here for anexcellent paper by

Richard White of theNeptis Foundation.]

http://www.neptis.org/library/show.cfm?id=55&cat_id=13http://www.neptis.org/library/show.cfm?id=55&cat_id=13http://www.neptis.org/library/show.cfm?id=55&cat_id=13http://www.neptis.org/library/show.cfm?id=55&cat_id=13http://www.neptis.org/library/show.cfm?id=55&cat_id=13http://www.neptis.org/library/show.cfm?id=55&cat_id=13http://www.neptis.org/library/show.cfm?id=55&cat_id=13http://www.neptis.org/library/show.cfm?id=55&cat_id=13http://www.neptis.org/library/show.cfm?id=55&cat_id=13

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In truth, Vaughan, after realizing what it ended up with, doesn'tmuch like the Vaughan Corporate Centre either.

Conceivably, they could more or less bulldoze it and try again

to take those 900 ha and create a realdowntown: mixed-use, pedestrian-oriented,

transit-served.

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So far, the conception for theVaughan Corporate Centre is

promising, but still looks dominatedby its colossal scale, suburban design

vocabulary (buildings plopped on

large blocks) and continued cardominance.

http://www.vaughantoday.ca/story.php?id=848http://www.vaughantoday.ca/story.php?id=848http://www.vaughantoday.ca/story.php?id=848http://www.vaughantoday.ca/story.php?id=848http://www.vaughantoday.ca/story.php?id=848

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Perhaps the Vaughan Corporate Centrewas a necessary failure - so large itcouldn't be missed.

Unfortunately, it's too far away to be animmediate lesson for the LowerMainland.

Where we seem to be determined toreplicate its worst parts.

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We too build the same SmartCentres, the same Colossus,the same asphalt-and-box complexes at the interchanges

where the roads are being widened.

Langley Township(40 km from Vancouver)

SmartCentres Langley

200th Street widening

Colossus

Highway 1 to be widened

Fraser Highway wideningFraser Highway widening

For more: Price Tags 68

http://www.sightline.org/publications/enewsletters/price_tags/pricetags68.pdfhttp://www.sightline.org/publications/enewsletters/price_tags/pricetags68.pdfhttp://www.sightline.org/publications/enewsletters/price_tags/pricetags68.pdf

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The Queen might wonder,

why didn't we notice?

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DUNDAS

SQUARE

he tradition of downtown place-makingn Toronto continues

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Until the late 1990s, theYonge-Dundas Square sitewas occupied by a block of

retail stores, and consideredby many to be a "seedy" or

dangerous corner.

In 1998, as part of its YongeStreet Regeneration Project,the construction of Dundas

Square, Toronto City Councilapproved the expropriation

and demolition of thebuildings on the site, and

the construction of

Dundas Square.

- From Wikipedia

http://www.ydsquare.ca/http://www.ydsquare.ca/http://www.ydsquare.ca/http://www.ydsquare.ca/

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The square has delivered on its promise ofvibrancy a Toronto Times Square.

It suffers from weak street walls on the south andeast, and from being cut off by roads on all sides.There are no cafes that can spill into the squarefrom the adjacent buildings.

But it is a well proportioned urban room (bigenough when there are crowds, small enough tofeel safe and lively when there arent.) Its welllocated, well programmed and well policed.

Its the place to go when you want to go to theplace that everyone else will go to too.

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