Comment by 3pt14159 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by 3pt14159 | Hacker News Reader

I live in Toronto.

The problem with companies like Alphabet / Google / Sidewalk Labs building mini-cities is twofold.

First, they lack the internal focus so they flake or sacrifice on things that no sane singular focussed entity would. For example Craig Nevill-Manning, head of Sidewalk Labs flaked on his talk at The Walrus' 15th year anniversary party titled The Walrus Talks The Future. This was a paid event, full of Canadian cultural elites, specifically aimed at talking about the future. "When someone shows you who they are believe them." If they cared about what we thought they would actually engage the people here that care.

Second, they try to leverage existing internal competencies. Completely understandable, but it warps the outcome to solution mixes that aren't necessarily optimal for the people actually living in the city. When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. I don't want to live in a city where a techno-hammer international corporation has hammered its copentenczies here and there. I want to live in a human city where little decisions are made by little people. I want to live in a city where flowers hang from windows and where theres little bike paths and a nice mix of trees. Cobblestone streets. Community gardens and little shops and restaurants. Some Chinese, some French, some Italian.

I'm not saying Google is necessary going to fuck up that area of Toronto. It might be great. But it's such a large project that I worry that it risks being another CityPlace. A soulless pocket mark on a diverse and increasingly interesting city.

As someone who lives in CityPlace, it's actually a pretty awesome area to live for young professionals. Right smack downtown, close to pretty much everything - work/offices, parks, bars/restaurants, delivery (same day Amazon Prime, all downtown restaurants on Uber Eats), transit, walking distance to every major sports arena, etc.

Not to mention massive growth in the area has lead to a lot of attention and investment from the city... seems to only be getting better every year.

No idea where you got the idea that it was "soulless"? Perhaps because it is a relatively new development/area... there is massive construction going up everywhere in the area including 2 new schools and community center right in the middle of canoe landing park: http://urbantoronto.ca/news/2017/09/cityplace-finally-gettin...

As someone who lives near CityPlace I've got to say that area is the most culturally sterile in the whole downtown core. That block is called the "vertical suburbs" for a reason. Everything's convenient...if your tastes are bland. Everything's within reach...if you go outside your neighbourhood for some actual culture or variety. It's a great place to live if you want to keep to yourself, and occasionally become involved in the local scene. It's not immersive like many vibrant neighbourhoods are, where you're an intrinsic part of the community.

Planned cities always fail. Those that are allowed to grow organically, evolving to fit the community's needs if and when demand builds, work out much better in the long run.

The difference between an area like, for example, Trinity Bellwoods and CityPlace is a lot more than the few hundred meters of distance. It's culturally night and day.

What a load of hand-waving. "Planned cities always fail?" You mean like Chicago? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burnham_Plan_of_Chicago

Chicago existed long before the burnham plan, and even then only parts of it were implemented. Large parts of it were a success, but I would not consider these equivalent city planning efforts

The core of most old American cities are fantastic places, Chicago included.

Chicago was always highly planned and engineered, starting from the original street grid, to raising the street level, etc. http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/410050.html.

Manhattan was "planned" inasmuch as the grid system was created, but the exact character of each neighborhood wasn't laid down in advance. Defining "planned" is a matter of drawing a line on a spectrum, so there's a lot of arguments possible here.

What I mean is to compare Manhattan, which was loosely planned, with Levittown (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levittown), rigidly planned, which was the original planned city and the grandfather of overly aggressive city planning. Later this evolved into the dystopian monstrosities envisioned by urban megalomaniacs like Le Corbusier such as Ville Radieuse (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ville_Radieuse) which would have been so utterly unliveable.

He honestly should have stuck to architecting open-air prisons and slaughterhouses.

Even Manhattan got bludgeoned by overly aggressive planning in the 1950s and 1960s when tyrants like Robert Moses were involved.

Creating great urban spaces takes a lot of patience, care, and most of all, a willingness to let the city grow as it wants to, not as you intend it to.

Not sure why you hate planned cities so much.

I probably come from a much different land (India), where chaos and organic growth is the norm for cities 4000-5000 years old. However, my favorite city is Chandigarh, a city planned by the "meglaniac" le corbusier. It is a serene small town very uncharacteristic of India, with clean well planned roads, greenery, law and order abiding population (you don't know Indian drivers, but they follow laws in Chandigarh). I pin all this down to the planned nature of Chandigarh which allows city planners to control and mould how the city should look and be.

I'm not perfectly clear why you'd prefer an unplanned chaos over planned orderly city. In contrast to Chandigarh, the city I originate from is a centuries old city which has grown "naturally", and doesn't even have sewage (and Indus valley civilization had them 5000 years ago).

Not that there is a lack of "soul" or "culture" in Chandigarh, the planned aspect covers making sure the traffic doesnt crawl, there is enough greenery, and utilities and amenities are provided to the population.

Not having sewage is this case an Indian problem, not problem of 'organic' cities.

CityPlace is convenient enough. I would say the problem of CityPlace is that it is wedged between Gardiner Expressway and railroad, with only two ins and outs via Fort York blvd and that contributes to its relative isolation. Liberty Village has a similar problem albeit less pronounced due to its larger size.

Liberty Village is a moderate failure to encourage local culture, and the only reason it's not bleak and desolate is the historical Village area to the west. CityPlace isn't a community so much as it is a way of fitting the maximum number of concrete boxes into a given space as permitted by zoning laws. Culture wasn't even a consideration.

Compare with the King St. W. projects where the buildings try and augment the community instead of stomp and supplant it. These new buildings have created opportunities for new businesses to take root and thrive.

Despite having a considerable population, it's slim pickings around the condos in CityPlace. Unless you like Starbucks, dry cleaning, and an astonishingly boring pub you're out of luck.

I lived in CityPlace for over two years. The apartment itself was great. Fast internet, reliable guards / mail delivery. Nice BBQ area. I even used the football area.

My problem was once they started filling up the commercial areas downstairs. They were almost all kinda blah. The automotive-first design also made the area kinda sterile and windy. I used a bike, but most friends that visited felt like it was a part of Toronto that felt completely disjoint from the rest of it. Plus the bridge between the two buildings is so tacky and ugly. The area with the canoe is ugly. The "art" they put up is the type of garbage that makes it out of a committee. They could have engaged real artists. The look of the buildings themselves don't really bother me as much as they bother some other people, but they don't add a ton of architectural value to the city and their proximity to the rail yard makes them even more desolate from nice places.

CityPlace has gotten much better as retail has improved in the last year or so. A new Ramen place just opened up, as well as Bubble Tea place, a decent barber shop, a marijuana dispensary, a coffee shop, etc. More restaurants and retail places are coming as well now that most of the major construction is completing and the bottom floor retail spots are for rent.

Otherwise it's great for having a gym/pool/parking in your building which was the main draw for living there. But I'm not under any illusion it's a great cultural neighbourhood in itself. But regardless it's a 2min bike ride to King St W, 2 more to Queen St W, not far from Trinity, next to Spadina streetcar line, and Queens Quay waterfront. Walking distance to 75% of downtown tech companies.

Plus it's right off the highway making it easy to visit family in the country.

City place has many benefits and has improved, but it is what it is.

Renting a floor of a half renovated Victorian house or above a store on a main street has plenty of it's own downsides as well. Not to mention having to use a dirty packed Goodlife gym or public pool.

Good to know. I'll try to check it out next time I'm there. Is that where you're living these days? If so, let's grab ramen next time we're catching up! :)

The problem is that everybody wants to live in a different city. So you'll end up with a compromise, or something like Brasilia if you let the planners get away with it.

Nice cities grow organically, they're not planned at all, and it takes a long time for them to get that organic feel.

Most maybe grow that way, but it seems like most are preserved through intervention. Architectural review boards with emphasis on preserving historical features, etc.

Barcelona's new city (planned development after the walls came down) is far more livable than what, say, Seattle has become.

Barcelona is a happy exception to the rule, and also the planning was done long enough ago that in the meantime organic elements have taken root again.

Also, don't underestimate Gaudi's ability to design the organic look right into a brand new building.

Great story here by the way:

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/apr/01/story-cities-...

I absolutely love Barcelona, it is one of the nicest places in the world in part due to the work done to give it its character and in part because of the unique setting it is in.

Barcelona solved its problems by knocking down walls. Seattle is walled in by water - it's a different sort of problem.

I think you can find a medium: designing a city around the idea of “seeding” organic growth, defining the broad spaces to be filled in by organic development, and then responding to that development to shape the city’s growth constructively. Basically, more gardening than city planning.

So... you don't want it to become Vancouver in other words.

@brailsafe, would you mind to explain a bit more why Vancouver is like this?

I was being a bit facetious here, but there is some truth to it. Though I can't pinpoint exactly why, Vancouver seems to have have developed into a very sanitized and homogeneous place. I don't know whether it's the cost of living or how many identical skyscrapers have been copy/pasted by the same developer, or how many swaths of older buildings and cultural landmarks have been bought up (or attempted to be bought up in the case of the Rio Theatre) and demolished to make way for very similar looking high rises. Many of these things seem to be coming together to subtract from any sense of character that the city might have had. My sense is that a sense of place is much stronger in various subcultures like skateboarding, but I think there is a stronger tendency for people to meet through an activity and then part ways only to schedule a new meeting a month later. It's a city that is simultaneously one of the most ethnically diverse places around, and culturally bland/white/rich/tasteless/pretentious/nofun. I do like this place, but I tend to think that the things I like are despite the city itself, and are often found in close proximity to the city rather than in it.

Is the city you're talking about producible from the sum of little decisions by little people? Having seen some planned cities, I'm quite dubious that unstructured market access can lead to the same levels of city infastructural efficacy and pedestrian ergonomics, versus the planned cities of the US.

I have a feeling that centralization alone, whether performed by a (problematic) monopolist Irvine company, or done by a town council, makes a huge difference in quality. The charming picture-perfect towns with small shops and red brick churches with abundant leisurely strolling are likely very carefully constructed and enforced.

It's a bit awkward to attack Google for presumptively removing self-determination for "little people" after you start by criticizing a Googler for dissing "cultural elites". How dare they think they know what's best for you people! Only the designated elites know what's best for you people!

I'm not a particular fan of Google, I'm just saying if I lived in Toronto, my response would be shrug. You lived through Rob Ford, right? Was he a member of the "cultural elite"?

The reality is that there are people that spend all day researching things like urban planning and how to foster a more culturally diverse city. They tend to be more learned and more engaged. It's not that they are the only people that matter, and they're far from a tiny elite, but they tend to make cities better for everyone.

I'm not in that group of people. I don't spend my time researching elevated bike lanes vs physically separated ones. My business partner does, and I like to support him, but I know my areas of interest: Cybersecurity and data science. To me cultural elites are little people. They're well read, but they don't universally have power or money. Just an eye to what would make a better city and some time to try to make things better in their own way.

I'm not sure I follow. I'm not sure (obviously) what "cultural elites" are to you, but I certainly wouldn't have thought that urban planners were an example.

I hope you're right. But I do kind of trust Waterfront Toronto. Them and the city's parks have been doing a great job. For instance, the revitalization of the area beneath the Gardner expressway. The city seems keen to make sure they're heard throughout this project as well. I hope that continues.

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